They're indeed giving away Docker for free, but part of the reason I hypothetically want Docker in the first place is that I trust the people distributing it to not do anything underhanded with their flagship tool's position as a product which runs thousands of other businesses' infrastructure.

There is a certain degree of trust involved in using a product like Docker since it is so critical to a businesses' operations, and I think a lot of people feel like using any kind of tracking (like mandatory registration to download) erodes that trust - we're forced to sit here and wonder what other restrictions might come in the future, or what other information they might start requiring for use of their product... and uncertainty never pairs well with infrastructure tooling that tends to be very important and very longlived within an organization.

So you have a complete attitude of entitlement that your preferred software must be delivered to you on your terms according to common convention. Nobody is permitted to act otherwise or we're gonna have ESR storm their office and take names. You're not a Berkeley grad are you?

Would you please not argue uncivilly like this on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Are we having database problems here?

Your thinly-veiled derision doesn't mask the fact that you are being willfully ignorant of the intent of the person you're replying to. You're not here from Reddit, are you?

It's not about entitlement, but it is about common convention. Docker's offering isn't unique enough for them to betray that convention.

The point of making something open source is to benefit from collaboration. Is not making the argument, "locking software distributions behind a login wall is harmful," simply a form of collaboration?

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. Your comment would be fine without the first paragraph.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html