> Ultimately, if people wanted to create [text files], it's entirely possible to do with pure linux commands with no upper level software at all, it's just [Sublime Text] makes it much easier/nicer to achieve.
It's absolutely possible (see: Bocker), but not a very productive way to go about things. It's much more productive to take an existing technology and make it better than to start from scratch (yet again), especially with permissive licenses like those used in Docker Engine.
possibly although unless they got a decent number of the original developers across in a fork (Which seems somewhat unlikely) it would be a pretty difficult thing to pull off to maintain/develop the codebase.
Not sure I can think of a case where a fork has been successful without a decent percentage of the original developers supporting it.
I think that LXC was on a good path if you were an Ubuntu shop, however I think that tying LXD to Openstack was an odd choice.
How is LXD tied to openstack? You can use LXD in exactly the same way you used LXC (with a nicer CLI interface, no less).
nova-lxd adds lxd as a "hypervisor" choice for openstack, but it's a completely optional way to use it.
Try it on ubuntu right now: sudo apt-get install lxd; lxc list (yes, the client for lxd is called lxc, it's kind of confusing. Sorry.)
Disclaimer: I work for Canonical, but not on LXD (I use it daily outside of openstack though)
That said there were containerization efforts in this area in the past (e.g. LXC) which never really seemed to attract the same kind of traction as Docker.
Ultimtely if people want to create containers, it's entirely possible to do with pure linux commands and no upper-level software at all, it's just Docker makes it much easier/nicer to achieve :)