Well, it's not an end yet. That $35 million isn't nothing! That's why it's a shame that this was messaged so weirdly, a lot of people are going to skim this news and conclude that Docker went out of business.

Plus, open source Docker is a really nice tool. Even if the company tanks, I hope somehow the open source community manages to keep it going, because it would be a shame if the Docker parts of peoples' infrastructure just decayed over time.

Ok, we've added $35M to the title above.

"Why not sell off all the bits?" is the only clear part of this. No one wants to acquire all of the baggage of a 10 year old company. Dozens of investors, two major pivots, many rounds of funding. Hence taking 90% of the company...the good stuff.

Might be a good idea to steer the rest of Docker (the open-source, less commercial parts) towards CNCF and/or Linux Foundation as a subsidiary. It would be a better fit, and probably grow better as a baseline.

The $35m could keep the organization running and revise itself. Though not sure what constraints are on existing funding, revenue streams or what was and wasn't sold off there are left.