> For developers, this doesn’t change much. Docker containers will continue to work, and the open source nature of Docker means the technology will persist regardless of what happens to the company. But it’s worth watching how Docker Inc’s search for identity plays out - it could affect the ecosystem of tools and services built around containers.

Things will actually change quite a bit. First of all, millions of people depend on Docker Desktop, and Podman Desktop is (as everything from RedHat is) a poor replacement for it. And the Docker CLI and daemon power a huge amount of container technology; Podman is, again, quite a poor replacement. If these solutions go away, a large amount of business and technology is gonna get left in the lurch.

Second, most of the containerized world depends on Docker Hub. If that went away, actually a huge swath of businesses would just go hard-down, with no easy fix. I know a million HNers will be crying out about the evils of "centralization", but actually the issue is it's corporate-run rather than an open body. The architecture should have had mirrors built-in from the start, but even without mirrors, the company and all its investment and support going away is the bigger rug-pull.

The industry and ecosystem have this terribly human habit of rushing at the path-of-least-resistance. If we don't plan an intelligent, robust migration strategy away from Docker, we'll end up relying on something worse.

Why do you say podman is a poor replacement? It has been consistently a better replacement for me on Linux, with easy rootless, daemon less, quadlet, etc. And at work where I have to use macos, it works just as well.