Docker cannot be downloaded without logging into Docker Store - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910 <comment><USER2> Would it kill companies to be honest and upfront about these sorts of issues? I feel like "Hey, we're unable to pay our bills unless we can better monetize our product" comes across a lot more honest and trust-worthy than this "We're improving user experience! Trust us!" pride-and-accomplishment nonsense that everyone keeps regurgitating. We're not preschoolers, the Internet can spot marketing slogans a mile away.

<comment><USER3> Does the internet always have to throw a fit every time a company tries to add a little monetization to what is an essentially free service?

<comment><USER4> The internet does not always throw a fit every time a company tries to add a little monetization to what is an essentially free service.

The community is expressing a desire for companies to be be honest and upfront about these sorts of issues (i.e., monetization). Refer to the post you responded to for more information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Docker Hub[1] is also blatantly in breach of the GDPR. Wording on the pop-up:

> We and our advertising partners use cookies on this site and around the web > to improve your website experience and provide you with personalised > advertising from this site and other advertisers in AdRoll's network. By > clicking "allow" or navigating this site, you accept the placement and use > of these cookies for these purposes.

It's not a modal, but supposedly ignoring it opts you into the tracking, with the only choices being "Allow" or "Learn More" and the [x] button also being labelled "Allow".

IANAL, but it's not informed individualised consent if there's literally no opt-out, and there's not a lawful basis unless advertising-cookies are suddenly the enabling technology behind downloadable containers.

I'd report them to the Information Commissioner's Office myself if I didn't think they were about to fold anyway, after their piss-poor sunsetting of Docker Cloud and painting a target on their own back for a few adbucks.

[1]: [https://hub.docker.com/](https://hub.docker.com/)

<comment><USER6> >Docker Hub is also blatantly in breach of the GDPR.

Truth is, no one cares. GDPR is an overreach designed to shake down American mega-corps. Docker has no money so the EU isn't going to do anything to them.

>I'd report them to the Information Commissioner's Office myself if I didn't think they were about to fold anyway

I'm sure they're inundated with complaints from unsuccessful companies trying to shoot down their biggest competitors already. Adding one more to the pile is only going to waste your time and that of EU regulators.

<comment><USER7> > Truth is, no one cares. GDPR is an overreach designed to shake down American > mega-corps

And yet it hurts small startups that don't have the resources to become fully GDPR compliant more.

<comment><USER8> It hurts small startups trying to perpetuate the same blatant disregard for human rights as American startups have done in the past. It doesn't hurt small startups that are privacy-aware and treat their users with respect.

Not giving users a way to delete their accounts was never okay. Tracking user behavior without consent was never okay. Holding users' data hostage was never okay. Not giving people a way to correct the data you keep about them was never okay.

US startups have been playing on easy mode by getting to ignore human rights and just follow the local letter of the law even when going international.

If anything you'd think HN "classical liberals" would love this as it evens the playing field, allowing for fairer competition between already privacy- aware EU companies and the previously unfairly advantaged US companies entering the EU market. Of course this assumes you think privacy and data ownership should be protected as human rights in the first place.

<comment><USER7> > Not giving users a way to delete their accounts was never okay. Tracking > user behavior without consent was never okay. Holding users' data hostage > was never okay. Not giving people a way to correct the data you keep about > them was never okay.

Sure. If being GDPR compliant just meant you just don't have to do those things, it wouldn't be a problem. But with GDPR you now have to spend time (=money) understanding what GDPR means (probably with a lawyer's help) and ensuring that you are in fact compliant. "I try to protect user's privacy" isn't good enough when the EU could effectively put you out of business if you aren't. You'll have to deal with Data Access Requests, most of which are from trolls. You may need a DPO, which might require hiring someone. I'm all for protecting privacy, but the GDPR adds quite a bit of burden, which large corporations will be able to eat, but will set back smaller corporations. Really medium size companies are in the best position, since they have the resources to meet GDPR obligations, but don't have to do massive overhauls like the big corps do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Docker is such a mess.

As a tool for building containers its cumbersome, has bizarre and frustrating limitations and has issues that haven't been addressed in years. You can't use semver for tags, it eats up all your disk space and you have to manually GC it, etc… Multi-build support is basically useless and invariably you end up writing convoluted bash scripts to get the thing to work.

Caching is terrible pretty much across the board. How many petabytes of data are wasted every day re-syncing apt-get?

As a runtime engine its basically dead for production use. If you ever try to use it you'll quickly discover that it has tons of problems. It locks up, orphans processes, stops responding to commands, forgets about containers, etc. And its not safe to run arbitrary containers. You'd be surprised by how many companies using Kubernetes gave up using docker a long time ago.

Please save yourself a lot of heartache and just use containerd.

As a concept, containers never really lived up to their potential. "A Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application." As long as that application runs in linux.

As a company Docker is a failure. All their cloud stuff is clunky, poorly thought out and at this point largely irrelevent. I'll be surprised if it will last 5 years. Kubernetes won. Those cute, cuddly characters and the Docker name are basically all they have going for them, and all these things, the Moby rename, the requiring login to download, etc... are the death throes of a dying company. Docker is the next jQuery.

People don't realize just how easy all this stuff will be to replace. Google already did it. Like 5 times. (gVisor, jib, kaniko, ...) It was probably some intern's side project.

Microsoft should just get it over with and acquire the company. It would be the perfect cherry on top to their Github cake.

<comment><USER10> > Please save yourself a lot of heartache and just use containerd.

Part of the appeal of Docker is the ease with which developers new to the concept of containers can pick it up. I cannot say the same for containerd. Try a search for containerd tutorials and compare what you find with docker tutorials.

> People don't realize just how easy all this stuff will be to replace.

Think carefully about why that is. If it were easy, it would have been understood. So, no - understanding the replaceability of the container components is not easy. That is why people have not realized it.

The issue with many docker's competitors is it appeals to docker experts. The abstraction and terminology itself is not straightforward.

A lot of hyperbole in your comment is unnecessary and/or undeserved. Of course I realize that this is HN where k8s, rkt and containerd are used largely by the visiting audience. But don't forget the dark matter developers.

<comment><USER11> > Try a search for containerd tutorials and compare what you find with docker > tutorials.

containerd is just a building block. You'll actually be looking for a Kubernetes tutorial, which the internet is sprawling with.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but how's the dev experience for Kubernetes, even with all those tutorial? How easy is it to install on Windows, for example?

<comment><USER13> choco install minikube

choco install kubernetes-cli

minikube start

(You'll need Hyper-V, however.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I get it. I hate login-walls too.

The level of toxicity in the github issue's conversation is so astounding that I must say something. People on the internet are people. I hope that we don't talk to people in "real life" the same as we do when we make toxic comments online. Complain, write letters/emails to Docker, make your opinion heard, etc. But remember that you are dealing with a fellow human-being, who has their own life and own emotions. Treat them with the same respect you would like to be shown when people are unhappy with you.

The comments in that github issue reflect very poorly on us as a professional community to the point that I'm embarrassed.

<comment><USER15> Yes I agree. We don't know why Docker did this. It's not a particularly helpful thing to do, but it's just not that major an issue.

I think many who posted on the Github issue will later regret the tone of their reaction. The treatment of the Docker employee was particularly nasty.

<comment><USER16> > We don't know why Docker did this.

Well, yes and no. They've said why they've done this:

> we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and > Windows experience for users moving forward.

but at the same time, that explanation is clearly bollocks. Something I realised and find very helpful to remember is this:

> If someone gives a reason for something, and the reason is clearly bullshit, > then it means the person giving the reason has a hidden agenda which is > likely to be negative for the explainee. - "Will's law of corporate > bullshit"

Here's how it works. People do stuff for a reason, for instance I ate lunch because I was hungry. I have opened the windows because it is hot and I like the breeze.

It is usually easy to match the action with the reason given, there is no suspicion here, there is no cognitive dissonance.

So let's take the example in question, Docker moving downloads of their software behind a login. Without attempting to guess at their motivations it seems clear that this is a very inconvenient thing to do for end users. As someone has pointed out, the steps to download the software are nearly doubled, and there are fears of getting corporate spam.

So OK, that's the action, what's the reason given?

> we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and > Windows experience for users moving forward.

Well, that's clearly bullshit, right? It isn't possible to match the reason given with the action. It's _not_ going to allow for a better experience for end users.

Let's apply the logic. Company does something -> Reason given is bullshit -> there is likely a hidden agenda that is bad for the explainee.

So we have arrived at a situation where we are pretty sure that the hidden reason for Docker to make this change is negative. We don't know exactly what yet (we can speculate), but we are pretty sure it's negative.

So you are right, "We don't know why Docker did this", but we can be fairly certain it's not going to be for the benefit of us end users.

<comment><USER17> > > we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and > Windows experience for users moving forward.

> but at the same time, that explanation is clearly bollocks

Whenever a corporation/someone explains their decision is to "improve the experience for our users" as the major reason, without explaining how exactly the decision relates to an improved experience, it's usually disingenuous[0].

I'm actually curious if there's counterexamples against this rule.

[0] bullshit makes the flowers grow

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It seems like Docker is in a really awkward place as a company. Their strategy was clearly to get everyone on the container hyper train then monetize by selling the production orchestration / runtime. But Kubernetes happened and GCP / AWS have rolled out competition in all the other supporting system needed; container registries, build pipelines, etc. What is the actual pitch for Docker EE now? Their marketing is pushing hard on 'security', but otherwise it seems like they are just selling a pretty UI for K8s. I don't see that being enough to support a company that has taken 250M in funding.

<comment><USER19> The k8s community is moving full steam ahead toward replacing docker containers with OCI-compliant cri-o/podman. Docker had a good run with a great idea, but it doesn't make sense to leave all of this vendor-agnostic tooling reliant on Docker (the company).

<comment><USER20> Interesting, where can we learn more about this? (eg; cri-o, podman, I saw rkt mentioned elsewhere)

<comment><USER19> This is a post explaining how the k8s community got to the current state: [https://medium.com/cri-o/container-runtimes- clarity-342b6217...](https://medium.com/cri-o/container-runtimes- clarity-342b62172dc3)

And here's a little info on why we're using cri-o at SUSE: [https://www.suse.com/c/cri-o-container-runtime-on-suse- caas-...](https://www.suse.com/c/cri-o-container-runtime-on-suse-caas- platform-3/)

<comment><USER20> cool, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's what throwaway accounts are for... and this, of course:

[http://bugmenot.com/view/store.docker.com](http://bugmenot.com/view/store.docker.com)

In any case, "to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward" is yet another example of the official- sounding-yet-bullshit, vague and meandering language that seems to permeate into everything these days. (Is there a specific term for it? "Business-speak" doesn't have enough of a negative connotation for the "We did it this way and you _will_ like it. If you don't, fuck off." that they really want to say.)

<comment><USER22> FWIW, as far as I know, Docker for Windows and Docker for Mac really are closed source freeware. My honest opinion is we should move away from it.

As for what to move to... That's definitely an open question. Docker for Windows is definitely one of the best developer experiences I've had on Windows because they put actual engineering work into it. All the same, I still found it buggier and less supported than Docker for Mac. At least on Windows, I wish we could combine the cool LXSS work with a development-only Docker implementation.

Ultimately, Docker should not be synonymous with containers anyway. Future versions of Kubernetes will not use Docker and instead run their own containers on top of libcontainer by default, as I understand it. I also feel rkt has a much nicer design than Docker, doing away with the daemon aspect of it. Hoping to see more development in the future.

<comment><USER23> > one of the best developer experiences I've had on Windows because they put > actual engineering work into it

Like, this is exactly what they're talking about, right? This is the user experience that they've improved because VCs have been willing to give them money because they show increases in MAUs.

Am I crazy here? You seem to be complaining about exactly the thing that you like

<comment><USER22> The app phoning home to do analytics is fine with me. I just want the download links so I don't have to sign in to download the app. I will almost definitely sign into the app so I can use the features where signing in are actual value adds. (Also, if they ever removed the direct links, it would really suck for automated deployments.)

But really, I don't care that strongly. I do, however, wish to use, if possible, an open source solution. Why? Because I had a problem with Docker for Windows and I couldn't debug it. As I understand it, this is actually pretty similar to the reasoning behind Linux being developed.

<comment><USER23> I want that too, but there's unfortunately nobody likely to do that work for free.

(I find it annoying that you have to hunt for the download link too, tbf. I just figure that, OK, that's how they make their $ to build their mostly excellent software)

<comment><USER22> I think the problem is who controls the container world. Companies like Facebook and Google do not build their businesses on developer tools, but they collectively benefit with open source. Docker may very well not benefit much from open source because their business is containers and sharing the secret sauce does not make them more money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Linux: [https://download.docker.com/linux/static/stable/x86_64/](https://download.docker.com/linux/static/stable/x86_64/)

Win: [https://download.docker.com/win/static/stable/x86_64/](https://download.docker.com/win/static/stable/x86_64/)

Mac: [https://download.docker.com/mac/static/stable/x86_64/](https://download.docker.com/mac/static/stable/x86_64/)

<comment><USER25> The intent is to provide users with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different download links.

<comment><USER26> For those who don't understand the reference:

[https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for- posting-...](https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-the- most-hated-1820391000)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Don't worry guys, I created a PR to fix it.

This is an open source project so I'm sure this will be priority one as soon as the Docker project admins get online ([https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/pull/7242](https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/pull/7242))

<comment><USER28> Fixing a PR problem with a PR, neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This one comment sums up the changes nicely: [https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910#issue...](https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910#issuecomment-414553120) A download went from 5 steps to 12 steps, to improve the Docker experience?

The irony is the resulting statistics might actually say less people had a negative experience with docker, now they dont even download and try it...

<comment><USER30> No, the improvement comes from reversing the change. Turn things to shit, then take credit for improving them.

Really smart move by the UX team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's not a good move, but I don't understand the vitriol expressed on Github, calling the developers jerks etc.

Our company has never paid Docker for anything, but we've benefited greatly from having Docker images be the output of our backend build jobs. I never have to dig into classpath errors from conflicting JARs any more, or deal with out of date JDKs living on QA and production machines. I can deploy a dependent service that I know nothing about without digging through code and documentation. Yes it has its issues but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

I understand that it's a frustrating move and the wrong path to go to for monetization, but can we also recognize that it's a company has done a lot for the community and is struggling to secure its future, instead of calling them names?

<comment><USER32>
      I don't understand the vitriol expressed on Github

Some people see a change making the UX worse promoted as a change that improves the UX, and feel it's an honest mistake that will be corrected by straightforward, constructive feedback.

Other people see the same thing and think the dishonesty is intentional. Docker would hardly be the first company to do this [1] - but some people may have seen Docker as 'not like those other companies' and be disappointed to discover they are.

[1] [http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-08-09](http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-08-09)

<comment><USER33> Your summary doesn't line up with the linked-to GitHub issue. "Straightforward, constructive" feedback was provided by the issue creator and was seemingly ignored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can anyone post an experience using rkt [0]. I'd love an alternative to using Docker for containers, though I'm not sure how well a community has evolved around rkt.

[0] [https://github.com/rkt/rkt](https://github.com/rkt/rkt)

<comment><USER35> This comment made/makes me steer away

[https://github.com/rkt/rkt/issues/3912](https://github.com/rkt/rkt/issues/3912)

There is another open issue claiming the project is dead (but maybe it's just stable)

My whole team is onboard with docker, and we don't need account to install/use.

<comment><USER36> Why do you believe that churn is a good thing, especially for a thin wrapper around Linux namespaces? There should not be much this is actually doing, so lots of commits would be worrying.

<comment><USER35> I didn't say that that churn is a good thing.

The github-issue and a sibling are folks asking this question. Why? Lingering bugs? Waiting for features? That the question is open is the concern.

And again, compared to my existing tooling which is not having that question and has momentum.

Evaluated against docker (a recent move for us) but didn't choose. We also looked a "roll your own" type solutions - required expertise our team didn't have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I can understand why people hate this, but this comment did make me laugh:

> Do you want to be Oracle? Because this is how you become Oracle. -1

Revenue: "US$39.83 billion (2018)" \- I can see a few reasons why they _might_ hah

</comment><comment><USER38> If you're frustrated with Docker's slow pace of development are are looking for a good alternative, have a look at Singularity containers. They're interoperable with Docker Hub and OCI compatible images, and offer a much better experience for HPC, machine learning and big data environments. Their GPU support is top notch. They don't run on as many platforms as Docker, but are aiming to grow into cross-platform. Sylabs is a small team in Austin, TX that does a lot of the development work, but they are quickly gaining adoption in academia. It's available on Cedar and Graham in Compute Canada (a large supercomputing cluster that serves most of Canada). We use Singularity on all our lab machines as it is much easier for IT admins to manage, and doesn't require sudo access. Their GPU support is top notch.

[https://www.sylabs.io/](https://www.sylabs.io/)

<comment><USER39> Your repetition repetition of "their gpu support is top notch" reminded me of Florida man Marco Rubio in those 2015 presidential debates.

<comment><USER38> The topmost of notches. Very reproducible and user-friendly. [https://devblogs.nvidia.com/docker-compatibility- singularity...](https://devblogs.nvidia.com/docker-compatibility-singularity- hpc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Docker is too heavy for golang, which is all I use scaled horizontally anymore. I can easily create a binary for any operating system. With dep (and even more so vgo) reproducible builds just really aren't a problem with golang. But when i've got a virtually unlimited number of green threads I can spin up with goroutines, why do I need to containerize to scale horizontally?

<comment><USER41> Have you checked out alpine ? Very lightweight image.

<comment><USER42> Since Go programs are statically linked, is even something like Alpine required? Isn't it possible to just build the Go binary from the "scratch" image? Maybe throw in glibc in there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Annoying but not the end of the world IMHO. In any case, I have a dockerhub account so I can publish containers there; so I might as well use it. Similarly I have a Github account and am actually a paying customer as well. The bottom line is I have accounts left right and center for things that I depend on professionally. Some of these I even pay for but most of them I don't pay a penny.

This is a closed source product distributed for free. They are well in their rights to charge money for it even. Given that and given how important this product is for my day to day routine (I run lots of docker stuff all the time), and given that docker has been contributing a lot of OSS code in this space, I think this is a relatively small and entirely fair price to pay.

I don't agree with the sense of entitlement in this thread. Docker providing a free community edition of a product they've built that allows running docker on top of Mac/Windows is not charity but a means for them to up-sell their commercial solutions. That's the only reason it exists. I'm grateful that it exists and I hope that they can make this work so I can continue to depend on this.

An alternative is getting a linux laptop and running pure open source versions of whatever containerization you require.

</comment><comment><USER44> The Oracle acquisition must be nigh... emulate the master to gain his approval you must!

<comment><USER45> Hell even Oracle let you download the latest version without logging in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I also can't delete my account myself after having created it. I believe the best way to operate is to make something as easy to delete as it was to create...

<comment><USER47> Pretty sure that violates GDPR. Might want to email them about that.

<comment><USER46> Ye I only managed to find a "feedback" email address.

If they're going to make you have an account, they could have thought about what if people want their account deleted...

<comment><USER48> You have to look around a bit, but:

"Customers may view, update or change their registration information by logging in to their accounts at www.docker.com. Requests to access, change, or delete your information will be handled within 30 days."

"Questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the information practices of the Website should be directed to firstname.lastname@example.com or by mailing Docker Privacy, 144 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107."

[https://www.docker.com/legal/docker-privacy- policy](https://www.docker.com/legal/docker-privacy-policy)

<comment><USER46> Cheers, lifesaver <3\. I'll resend my email there. I will remember to look harder next time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Docker is my perfect example of a OSS being poisoned by excessive money.

OSS needs money to survive but too much of it (a too heavy burden to turn a profit) can poison it leading to significant issues being ignored because either the paying customers are not affected or because the issue is an integral part of the business model.

I wished someone were able to fork docker and strip off all of the extra fluff (mainly service stuff) but I don't think anyone without deep pockets can support such massively complex software.

</comment><comment><USER50> On macOS, I recommend: `brew cask install docker`

<comment><USER51> on windows, I recommend `choco install docker.for.windows`

<comment><USER52> Risking a derail how is chocolatey nowadays? I really liked the idea but stopped using it because most of the packets were way behind the current versions.

<comment><USER53> Chocolatey is in the same space as the AUR (Arch User Repositories) in my opinion. It can be a hit or miss, but usually a hit. The support is fantastic when there's a bunch of users consuming the project as many users will contribute fixes to the package (e.g. packages for devs like node, cURL, git, etc). On the other hand, less popular packages will occasionally suffer from bitrot, though that all depends on the maintainer and whether or not the package has been configured to update automatically upon new releases.

See also [https://chocolatey.org/docs/package-triage- process#package-i...](https://chocolatey.org/docs/package-triage- process#package-is-outdated)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Congratulations Docker, the only "user experience" this has enhanced is making me start to learn about cri-o.

</comment><comment><USER55> It is very sad to see the official reasoning to be "to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward".

This is a blatant politician-talk-tier lie.

</comment><comment><USER56> Can anyone who works inside PR for software-developer facing companies like Docker explain how a decision like this could make it past vetting?

Any software developer (who isn't drunk on the kool aid?) could tell you that this would result in loss of good will.

<comment><USER11> Companies do not consist of 100% software developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Ubuntu for raspberry pi requires a ubuntu login continue installing it, after formatting and setting the network up. It won't let you boot into a working setup until you create account on their website. Kind of hard if you don't have access to any other device.

<comment><USER58> I work for Canonical on snapd, so can provide some background here.

You're probably describing Ubuntu Core instead of classic Ubuntu. The UX there is oriented for devices, and it was cooked to avoid default passwords in an environment in which the device often will have no display. So once you boot, the device is in a running state, and the brand (manufacturer) that cooked the image has the choice of allowing individuals to login or not. In addition to a store account, the brand can also offer a "system-user" assertion, that is a signed document that you can present devices to get a system user in. That assertion may detail remote login, SSH keys, and also a hashed password for independent logins. That only works once on the device, though, for obvious reasons.

For generic Ubuntu Core devices the "brand" is Canonical, and for those devices you can get an assertion signed and with it log into any number of devices you want. That procedure may be done over USB storage, for example. Just insert a USB key into the device and your user credentials will be setup, even if it's completely offline. Again, that only works once on the device. If you lose the keys the device will need to be factory-reset.

<comment><USER59> Great explanation, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Is Docker having trouble monetizing?

<comment><USER61> Always has been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Buildah seems to be becoming a replacement for Docker on the desktop:

[https://github.com/projectatomic/buildah](https://github.com/projectatomic/buildah)

Pure CLI tool that does not run a daemon, from Red Hat, recently hit version 1. Unfortunately, I don't think that macOS is supported yet.

<comment><USER63> I really want to like this and conceptually the idea of being a simple command is appealing. That said, I feel like writing a shell script and especially their example is really really off putting. For one the flexibility it offers means people are going to use that flexibility to do weird stuff, second a shell script far too easily captures dependencies to it's environment again making things non-reproducible. If you allow people to put local paths, dependencies on local weirdnesses and so on in their build scripts they will, I've seen it happen time and again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Sorry, I have store fatigue and I don't need another one.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is pretty much a reality check. Like any other business , Open Source needs funding.

It's well know Docker is far from being profitable. This is somewhat represents how ultimately money always win on open source one way or another.

<comment><USER11> > Like any other business, Open Source needs funding.

That's a valid comment... for a different discussion. The actual issue here is that Docker's business model is falling apart, with alternative container runtimes (cri-o, rkt, etc.) and alternative orchestrators (mostly k8s) eating their lunch. And all of those are open source too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> The interesting part to me: this has been open since June 20.

Anyone know why it just captured the collective attention of HN readers?

</comment><comment><USER67> I wonder how requiring login to download helps a company in general? Docker says "improve experience for users" but is collecting download counts for each accounts important?

<comment><USER68> Lead generation.

<comment><USER69> I think there's a good chance that's the answer.

All they need to do is take every e-mail address that's not @ gmail/hotmail/outlook.com/other free providers, zip them through something like the Clearbit API to flesh out info about the person, and then forward promising prospects on to the sales team for some personal attention.

I don't even mind companies doing this, as long as they're honest about why they're asking me to register.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> m-p-3

        we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward

The login-wall is not a great start :/

</comment><comment><USER70> [https://get.docker.com](https://get.docker.com)

</comment><comment><USER71> oh my... they are getting the full version of "improved user experience" in their github comments right now.

</comment><comment><USER72> Hi I head up Docker Developer Relations. There are plenty of ways to get Docker CE without logging Docker Store. See my comment on GitHub for more details.

[https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910#issue...](https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910#issuecomment-414758273)

<comment><USER73> As someone pointed out in the Github issue, Docker Toolbox is legacy. I'm not sure how I feel about recommending outdated software to Mac and Windows. It's also slower and not the default way to get Docker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> It's in Docker's interest to capture as much value as they can from their products, their calculus is changing. It's their decision to make, however passing it off as in the best interest of users is a bit of a whopper and not the best way to communicate it. I don't think entitlement to other people's work is the best response though.

<comment><USER75> The outrage is 90% from the fact that they call it "improve the user experience going forward".

If they had just said "we need some leads/emails to monetize this thing a little more, hope you understand. Use a throwaway email or the well-hidden direct download if this change makes you uncomfortable", nearly no one would have complained.

<comment><USER76> > nearly no one would have complained.

except their marketing and sales department (and associated CxO level people who needs to see more revenue!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I know about cri-o for the server, but are there any good alternatives for local development?

</comment><comment> T-Winsnes Still available through their doco [https://docs.docker.com/v17.12/docker-for- mac/install/](https://docs.docker.com/v17.12/docker-for-mac/install/)

</comment><comment><USER78> Kubernetes will eventually just kill docker. It's the best way to run docker in the cloud right now and keeps getting better. Plus it abstracts docker with pods. Better support for OCI/Rkt and docker will just die.

</comment><comment><USER79> This is probably the straw that broke the camel's back for Docker. Not that anyone expected it to stick around for that long anyway, they've had a terrible history of failure and poor design choices.

</comment><comment><USER80> Well, I suppose it is time to realise that Docker has perhaps become a bit too dominant and that the ecosystems of which it is a part, might benefit from there being more alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER81> This feels like Oracle.

</comment><comment><USER82> "Uhuh. You mean, force people to login with an email so we can target them with an ad campaign so we make money??"

Good luck with I'm behind 1000 spam filters.

</comment><comment><USER83> I found the real problem with Docker to be that it downloads things from their repository. Just like Maven, it's a major pain point.

<comment><USER84> You'd be pleased to use docker-registry, then! We use Artifactory that runs its a docker-registry compatible something (maybe it's running docker-registry itself?) for our artifacts.

<comment><USER85> The free version of Artifactory doesn't support Docker registries.

Nexus 3 OSS does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> guix environment --container [ list of packages ] -- command

I haven't looked back since they added that in the last version. Configurable network namespace sharing or isolation, configurable fs namespace sharing or isolation, configurable environment variables within the container, and the option to "pack" the entire thing as a tar.gz to deploy.

</comment><comment><USER87> As a sysadmin I'm so glad I skipped the docker craze and just dug into kvm/qemu/proxmox/lxc more.

</comment><comment><USER88> Correct me if I am wrong, but all components of Docker CE are open source and one could therefore still download and build the binaries themselves, right?

I really don't see the issue of requiring hoops to get precompiled binaries as long as there is a way to get and build the binaries yourself.

</comment><comment><USER89> You can download it here --> [https://docs.docker.com/v17.09/docker-for- windows/install/#d...](https://docs.docker.com/v17.09/docker-for- windows/install/#download-docker-for-windows)

</comment><comment><USER90> Quite hilarious that this guy's motto is "I help high-tech companies cross the chasm by making their products easier to use and learn"

[http://www.joaofn.com/about/](http://www.joaofn.com/about/)

He is doing quite the opposite

<comment><USER91> I think we should avoid commenting about the dev's background. It was clearly a company decision and the discussion should be at that level.

<comment><USER90> He isn't even a developer. He just documents stuff, if I understand that correctly and makes it sound like he is a messias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I noticed this today! Thankfully I was able to dig up their instructions for Ubuntu installation which just depend on apt, and they still worked fine. You can practically hear the Docker devs fighting with PMs/business guys about this one.

</comment><comment><USER93> > ...we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and > Windows experience for users moving forward.

Such obvious run-of-the-mill marketing BS. Moving forward, I'll give Docker a wide berth.

</comment><comment><USER94> If you don't want to use your email to download docker, use bugmenot:

[http://bugmenot.com/view/store.docker.com](http://bugmenot.com/view/store.docker.com)

</comment><comment><USER95> I find this troubling as well. Reminds me of having to log in for mysql.

</comment><comment><USER96> There's an alternative, without the docker overhead, [https://coreos.com/rkt/](https://coreos.com/rkt/)

</comment><comment><USER97> [https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/) <\--- you're welcome. if u don't need some producer who obviously prefers money over user happiness or quality. just use true open source things. ultimatley that's the attitude that leads to them seling your information or maybe worse...(wether they do it NOW or not is irrelevant) docker is your infra... nice spot for backdoor once it closes itself further from public..., wether they are doing it NOW or not, i'd look for another road to this rome you seek

</comment><comment><USER98> I have never installed Docker through any route other than a Linux distribution's package manager. Why would anyone use the download in the first place?

<comment><USER45> Because this is about Windows/MacOS downloads.

<comment><USER98> Was it really necessary for you to say the same thing aneutron, the only other reply, said an hour ago?

<comment><USER45> I had the tab open for a while so didn't see their reply. So no, not "necessary" just accidental. Sorry to have cause you such mental anguish by answering your question which would have been answered if you had read any of the thread or the linked GH issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> If money is an issue, perhaps docker should make container authors host their own stuff and just make them searchable/discoverable in dockerhub.

<comment><USER65> > host their own stuff and just make them searchable/discoverable

You aware that hosting probably represent 1% of Docker spending at the moment ?

You aware that Docker has 100+ employees based in SF where the average salary is 120K$/Year ?

And here I'm being gentle not to include the management[0] which in general has salary closer to 300K than 120K

[0] [https://www.docker.com/company](https://www.docker.com/company)

<comment><USER99> I wasn't aware. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> I'm very curious how this develops. It was already a bit strange to notice that one of the several container technologies available got significantly more visibility thanks to a smart marketing team and targeting Mac and Windows users. Personally, I'm using LXC and related technologies and see no benefit in switching to Docker whatsoever. Eventually most people run their containers on Linux anyway, and the LXC's way of doing things seems very native and natural in this environment.

</comment><comment><USER101> "user experience", what a lame excuse.

</comment><comment><USER102> Have fun. [https://download.docker.com/](https://download.docker.com/)

</comment><comment><USER103> So hey, [https://anonbox.net/](https://anonbox.net/) works fine.

</comment><comment><USER104> I'm really sorry for the proprietary OS users, that's really a shame that they have to give their email to docker inc. now, if they haven't already (docker hub anyone ?), everytime they install docker on a machine (once per install ?), all this crying its makes mes wanna cry :'(

</comment><comment><USER104> If you care about free software, why not run a free OS ? just wondering ...

</comment><comment><USER105> Oracle recently did this for the Oracle Client libraries too. Shame.

</comment><comment><USER106> So you have to log in to Docker Store on Windows and on Mac. I sort of get the frustration. Using one of these systems for development is a painful experience on its own, no need to make it more miserable.

</comment><comment><USER107> torrents would be a good way to deal with this.

</comment><comment><USER108> Stuff like this is why mirrors are a thing.

</comment><comment><USER109> Somebody should create a mirror site.

</comment><comment><USER110> That is for your security!

</comment><comment><USER111> Thank god for GDPR.

</comment><comment><USER112> This ship is sinking and all the rats has already left

</comment><comment><USER113> Did someone say _cough_ serverless _cough_?

</comment><comment><USER114> Not sure what the issue is here.

You can download Docker from many other sources without a login. And they are only putting the Docker Community Edition behind the email paywall as pretty much every open source/freemium company does these days.

</comment><comment><USER115> This issue was opened in the docs repo and it was closed in that context, which was correct (the docs do not need to change as for now).

The docs do not dictate how you download Docker and joaofnfernandes is only responsible for the docs as far as I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER116> We decided to spend a minute of your time for registration to improve your experience (and another minute that it will take to unsubscribe from spam later).

But I think it's only fair. Those developers who dislike this probably do the same to their users.

</comment><comment><USER117> Bit of a cliché, but nothing is free. You are choosing to use technology provided by a for-profit company. Community Edition does not mean it's owned by the community. It's absolutely irritating to have to create an account and login when you just want to try something, but if you're invested in a technology and the company that provides it (at no direct monetary cost to you), I don't think it's worth getting stroppy about. Plenty of other more sinister and cynical things happening in tech right now to get riled about

</comment><comment><USER118> Headlines false, I just did this a few days ago.

<comment><USER119> > I just did this a few days ago

.....or....possibly....this change happened within the past few days?

<comment><USER118> It appears that it did change in last few days because I had a conversation with a teammate and remember asking about signing up for an account and he showed me how to download without. However, today I cannot find the same navigation path when trying so I think something changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Good. Maybe we can get back to writing software, rather than spending our time on pointless deployment scripting, tools, and reiventing wheels. Or have developers interested in containers spend their efforts on standardized rather than Linux-only solutions. Docker has IMHO never made any sense for the use cases people seem to have in mind, as it really doesn't isolate you from anything (neither from the host O/S nor Docker itself). Docker, Inc. touting the security aspect doesn't hold merit given Docker must be run as root, and containers can't use host system permissions etc.

<comment><USER11> > Good. Maybe we can get back to writing software, rather than spending our > time on pointless deployment scripting, tools, and reiventing wheels.

Not sure what you're getting at here. Since our team switched to Docker/Kubernetes, I've spent considerably _less_ time on pointless deployment scripting and reinventing wheels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> I understand the rationale for filing this issue, although I personally disagree with it... Docker for Mac is great freeware, and I don't mind logging into Steam and Mac Store for my other apps, so I don't have an issue with doing the same with Docker. But for someone who greatly cares about not having to give their email, I can see how it can be annoying to see the policy change after they started using the software...

Either way... Holy shit is that github thread full of negativity and entitlement! Pretty shocking. Even if you're unhappy with something, that's no way to treat a team that is giving you a tool for free!

<comment><USER122> >Either way... Holy shit is that github thread full of negativity and entitlement! Pretty shocking. Even if you're unhappy with something, that's no way to treat a team that is giving you a tool for free!

I think the fact that you focus on the "entitlement" and that I focus on the fact that the maintainer gave a bullshit, misleading answer to an important question, is related to the fact that you don't mind having to log in to download a tool and I do.</comment></comment>


Show HN: An anonymous blog where everyone is a moderator - <AUTHOR>

Got started with Rails earlier this week. Thought it'd be fun if I built something quick based on the introductory tutorial
I've always been fascinated by the actions of others when complete and absolute anonymity is granted. Especially when they are put into a position of power.
The goal of this project is simply to see what happens to the site. Have at it!
https://anonblog.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Clicky: <https://anonblog.herokuapp.com/></comment>


Show HN: 27 developer job sites - <AUTHOR>

http://careers.sh
My weekend project - I put together a small, straightforward site for browsing developer job sites.
Any feedback would be appreciated; I'm trying to keep this short and simple. The last thing I want to do is end up turning this into yet-another-aggregator. <comment><USER2> Looks pretty neat. Are these arranged based on any logic like openings available or just some order based on brand?

Looks good for a weekend project.

Throwing in some random ideas to see if there is anything that can be added to it to make it first place for people to start looking for a job. (understand you don't want another yet-another-aggregator).

\- Location as a search option or location no-constraint as an option so I start looking at subset?

\- Is it possible to just show short details like skill based filter or any other search option? The challenge then could be to tag each job & map to various search. Would there be simpler options using tag cloud?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! They're arranged mostly arbitrarily, but I put the "large" logos at the bottom since I was originally hoping to have a 64x64 icon for every link.

For location, I was thinking of just having an input where you could type your location, and any link that supports location filtering would be updated automatically. Do you think that would be sufficient?

I'm not sure what you mean by skill based filter - I was thinking of adding job-specific sites and breaking it into categories, but I'm starting to like the idea of keeping the site very simple and agnostic. I want to avoid hitting 50 or 100 links and ending up with an overwhelming index page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clickable: <http://careers.sh>

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool! Bookmarked.</comment>


Angry Birds creator Rovio stock loses over half of it's value in a single day - <AUTHOR> https://metropolitan.fi/entry/andry-birds-rovio-stock-loses-half-value-in-a-day <comment><USER2> The IPO for this has never made sense to me.

Games like this are akin to hit songs, they have a limited amount of time at the top of the charts and the competition to be there with the next "big hit" is immense.

By the time this IPO was issued they had pretty much sucked everything out their "15 minutes" with "Angry Birds" and many of the game's users had moved on.

So, this should have made investors ask "where are you going from here?" and I never heard a great answer to that.

"the drop in share price also cost Finnish pension funds dearly. Finnish pension insurance companies Varma, Ilmarinen, Elo and State pension fund hold a large state in the former star of the mobile gaming industry."

That smells a bit to me. I would think that pension funds would be very conservatively managed and I don't see how the Rovio IPO could be considered anything other than "risky". A "small stake"? Yeah, I can see that, but not a huge bet.

If I were the regulating agency covering that sort of thing I'd want to sniff around and into that a bit.</comment>


Cloud app functionality on Linux using +Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/1/109355099190370774688/posts/ZmHemx1v7Ud

<comment><USER2> Here's my two line shell script that accomplishes the same thing (sans dropbox). Been using it for years and it's a lifesaver.

<https://gist.github.com/1683661>

You need scrot, xclip, and libnotify. Set up private key ssh access to your webserver and update the directories/url and you're good to go.

</comment><comment><USER3> Disclaimer: Plug

To learn Ruby, I wrote a script to make command-line uploads easier. It currently supports S3 (including torrent and authenticated expiring URLs), Cloudapp, and Imgur (for images). You can check it out here:

<http://code.hardikr.com/mishare>

PS : I know it's not the most portable script it the world, but it works like a charm once installed..

</comment><comment><USER4> Why use a custom python script when you can just copy the screenshot into your dropbox folder? Ok, I guess it's for when you don't use the nautilus extension and don't link your filesystem with DB...

Would be cool if you could change the output location of compiz' "windows key + mouse rectangle produces screen shot" add on.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lookit <https://launchpad.net/lookit> supposedly supports CloudApp, I didn't test that however.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can also run Dropbox on your Linux system.

I use a Dropbox directory to share content between my Linux desktop and my Windows laptop.

</comment><comment><USER7> Works nice! Thanks! Great work... Can you open source the code?</comment>


Dear World, email addresses are not identity - <AUTHOR> http://mailinator.blogspot.com/2008/08/dear-world-email-addresses-are-not.html

<comment><USER2> Hi article does not really address the point he makes in the title. Email is the best source of primary identity for web applications. If you are building a business application that people want, over 95% of the time people will give you valid email addresses. User are so much more valuable if you can market to them over time. It is very difficult to do this without at least an email address. Of course people can get disposable email accounts, this is just stating the obvious but still does not help at all in suggesting a better alternative for primary identity.

<comment><USER3> I fall into the 5%. If it's something I really want to try... I'll look harder for a temp e-mail domain that you haven't blocked yet. New ones spring up every day.

Why make it harder for me, as you are just pissing me off?

If I like it I'll give you my real details, but the Internet is full of spammers and crooks and by default it seems prudent to assume that all websites are run by those types until proven otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Why not have a permanent mail id that you use only on sites that you don't trust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Neither are SSNs, but hey...

<comment><USER6> Well, they're not completely ineffective. How many people do you know that have two or more SSNs? How about multiple email addresses?

<comment><USER7> I've heard of it going the other way, i.e. one SSN maps to multiple people (or at least multiple _names_ ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be cool if he had discussed some alternaties...

<comment><USER9> What should be a good online identity? It's an open problem nobody has yet solved.

<comment><USER6> Facebook is trying to solve it.

It's easy to create a new email account. It's much harder (though not impossibly so) to create a fake identity with 150 friends.

<comment><USER10> That's true, although I kinda like being pseudo-anonymous on most public forums.

Also meet my friend: <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=622877592>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Even if a service existed that would manage your online identity, how would you prove at you are yourself everytime you sign in? I think thats the biggest problem right now. Another problem is the second someone gains access to your 'online identity' they now have access to everything else that was also linked using this identity.

So maybe its not a good idea to have a central identity manager. Maybe we just need to be researching how do we prove that you are indeed YOU when you visit a site again and not worry about figuring out if you are you AND the same person on x,y,z sites.

</comment><comment><USER12> Almost every email address carries an implicit username/password as well as a degree of identity provided by dns services (where the email goes)

So thats not bad proof that the person that recieves an email to that address will receive the next one, and thats where all the login info is passed around.

Mailinator however breaks all this, you can use any email address you want, including one that somebody else is using. Maybe this blog is a little biased?

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if there is a market for providing real, verified identities. Not requiring them, mind you, but streamlining things if you provide it:

like the Clear security program in airports that lets you skip the lines.</comment>


How to Stop Turning U.S. Corporations into Tax Exiles - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/how-to-stop-turning-us-corporations-into-tax-exiles.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well <comment><USER2> I am trying to think of companies that should rightfully repatriate cash back to the states, and companies that should not.

Why is it that it is repulsive that Google or Apple chooses to keep their cash overseas, whereas it is fine for Budweiser to do so (ignoring magnitudes for a second)? Because AB Inbev is Belgian? This is a difficult example for me to think of, because the US is one of the interesting countries where the largest companies here (or globally) are almost always American too.

But let's imagine for a moment that there is a company called Apple Inc that only does business in the US and nowhere else, and there is an unrelated company in France called Pomme SA, and another unrelated company called Apfel AG in Germany that happen to sell identical iPads and iPhones. Do they have a duty to transfer cash to each other and their jurisdictions? What if the CEOs of these companies travelled and met each other and went, "oh! we did not know it but we sell the same thing, let's share resources in some way", which country has a right to collect tax on the revenue of the new global organization?

The real debate is really about fairness in transfer pricing (which is difficult if not utterly boring, because typically transfer pricing are for services that are not fungible or even exchangeable in arms length markets, and so the debate within tax jurisdictions are over the nitty-gritty "economics" of the transaction in addition to consideration of foreign tax obligations yadda yadda yadda _yawn_ ), and this tax evasion through scary financial structuring like "inversion" is a really catchy thing to publicly excoriate, but it's probably not the right concern. So this is kind of a stretched example.

The point I am getting at is that many American companies aren't 100% American, and it doesn't seem like there is a good reason for insist that all foreign earned cash (from Apfel and Pomme) to be brought back to the US. I do not agree that a company like (say) Royal Dutch Shell, being one of the largest oil companies here, should repatriate cash into the US, and unanimously most of us don't think so, so this is not really the problem we should be getting angry about.

<comment><USER3> If these tax laws incentivize productivity-destroying mergers then they are utterly moronic, immoral even. The Pfizer CEO said he wouldn't do it but for the tax savings.

All these companies want to do is bring back their cash to the US and pay their US shareholders. It's fair and defensible for Pomme to want to bring cash to France to pay its French shareholders, and for Apfel to bring it to Germany to pay its German shareholders.

<comment><USER4> These companies are free to do so. They just need to pay their taxes.

<comment><USER3> Or as an alternative, they can invert! It really does save a lot of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Almost more interesting than Icahn's common sense article are the many talkback comments from the New York Times readership, most of whom appear to be bitterly opposed to corporate activity which maximizes profits.

Has the NYT become a haven for left wing advocacy, Icahn's capitalistic perspective notwithstanding, whose primary readership are socialists? How much of the country do they represent?

I worry about our economic prospects when a significant chunk of the intelligentsia no longer believe in free market economics.

<comment><USER6> I get the same feeling, and it's pretty much not isolated to just NYT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the end to double taxation for the corporate tax only? Human Americans are also double-taxed on income earned abroad.

<comment><USER3> Yes. The reason is that corporations vote with their feet quite readily, as seen here.

<comment><USER8> People would vote with their feet, too, except they're heavily penalized for doing so. If you renounce your US citizenship there's a one-time tax of 40% of your all your US assets and the US claims the right to tax you for the next ten years.

Subjects, not citizens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For reference, statutory corporate tax rates by country (PDF):

[https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Docume...](https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Tax/dttl- tax-corporate-tax-rates-2015.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Important part: middle column, where the rate is basically 0% everywhere except the US, where it is 30%.

<comment><USER10> Why is this the important part? It's not 0% in Austria as listed, it varies too (in Vienna you pay tax for subway infrastructure, among other things). It's the sum that matters, including exploitable loopholes such as trusts and holdings (AFAIK, in Switzerland, a pure holding pays no corporate taxes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Congressional leaders agree that passing legislation according to [the > Schumer-Portman] framework would stop inversions

Until another country offers an even better tax deal to attract multi-national corporations.

<comment><USER12> Not really - there are benefits to being based in the US. If everyone just chased the lowest taxed jurisdictions then every corporation would be based in a tax haven.

Corporations aren't repatriating the money they hold offshore. I can see why the US wants a piece of that pie, but they currently aren't getting any pie and are losing piemakers. Taking a smaller cut of something whilst also having that something flow back into the US is surely a good thing.

<comment><USER13> > Corporations aren't repatriating the money they hold offshore.

Indirectly, they are: "Nearly Half of So-Called "Offshore" Funds Already in the United States"

 _Earlier this year, a survey was sent to 27 U.S. multinational corporations and found they held more than half a trillion dollars in tax-deferred foreign earnings at the end of FY2010. The survey also found that 46% of those foreign earnings – almost $250 billion – was maintained in U.S. bank accounts or invested in U.S. assets such as U.S. Treasuries, U.S. stocks other than their own, U.S. bonds, or U.S. mutual funds._

[https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/me...](https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/media/new- data-show-corporate-offshore-funds-not-trapped-abroad-nearly-half-of-so- called-offshore-funds-already-in-the-united-states)

<comment><USER14> Yes, an important but never-mentioned distinction is that "offshore" is basically an accounting designation, and that money is not somehow prevented from being put to work in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Such a pile of crap, by Icahn, of course. Corporations do not exist in a vacuum of social irresponsibility and their first duty is certainly not to their shareholders but to the people they employ and to the societies they thrive on.

<comment><USER16> "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."

"Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."

\- Judge Learned Hand ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand))

<comment><USER17> There's no legal responsibility on me to be nice to my elderly parents either. Doesn't mean it's not The Right Thing To Do.

<comment><USER18> We legislate that you can't murder, torture, kidnap, or assault your parents. What you do beyond that is up to your conscience.

Given that corporations are conscience-less entities, the de jure minimums become the de facto outcomes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Covid-19 Rapid 15 minutes Test Kit - <AUTHOR> https://rapidward.com <comment><USER2> Hi all,

Real quick response.

The tests are designed to only test for SARS-CoV-2, we've trialed them against other coronaviruses and common viruses in general. Will differentiate.

Will reveal tech on swab, but it's not the swab itself, it's combined with a reactive reagent in the kit to show clear results.

Test differentiation is clear to medical professionals, but perhaps not general public, this product is only to support professionals. We are in development of a cheap and rapid antigen test that can detect ASAP before symptoms and buys us a few days headstart. It's coming.

Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a viral load post recovery in many cases and this should be a clear enough reason for that person to enter isolation of some description.

Working the hardest with what we have and will keep moving forward.

Thanks for your interest and support!

<comment><USER3> > Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a > viral load post recovery in many cases

Any hard data on how long this is the case?

<comment><USER4> In Norway if you have symptoms but not been tested you are allowed in the shops and work again one day after symptoms subside as "the chance of infecting someone drops drastically at the end of the infection" [1].

If you have a positive test you still have to stay in for seven days but they don't tell you why since the argument for the non-tested should also apply to the ones with a positive test.

However there is no hard data here but I think these anti-body tests are better for statistics than prevention. Maybe you could even get a "corona passport" so that when you have had it and become immune you have more freedom.

[1] [https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer- som-...](https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer-som-er- smittet-eller-har-vart-utsatt-for-smitte/rad-til-deg-som-har-symptomer-pa- akutt-luftveisinfeksjon/) (Norwegian)

<comment><USER5> Only people without symptoms and with proof of antibodies should be allowed to move freely. Everyone else who isn't an essential worker should be isolated until there is a vaccine. It's the only way to make H0 stay below 1.0 and stop this crisis fastest. There are too many people flaunting the isolation orders and risking the health of everyone for their arrogant, selfish recklessness.

<comment><USER6> Is there actual evidence of antibodies? I have yet to see the evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks again like scam. A few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946)

<comment><USER8> Yup. Two days ago I received an email from someone asking to advertise hxxp://www.masktouch[.]com/ on our site. Compare the masks on there to the masks on the site posted here--they're nearly identical. Compare the source code--same style, similar comments. Even the red buttons on the sites are similar.

I went through all the "certification" docs on both sites. I found nothing that actually certified either of them for anything. Anything that would've been remotely meaningful was censored (blurred).

If I'm making incorrect assumptions based on circumstantial evidence, what choice do I have? There's nothing on these sites substantiating their claims. If this is legitimate, you need to publish a complete paper trail that readers here can verify.

Edit: To clarify: Calling it a "scam" might be a bit harsh, but it's definitely misleading. There's nothing special about these tests, and there's a reason they're cheap and not in widespread use--they're not going to do what most people expect. This post sums it up nicely: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421) All these sites are probably just dropshipping the same items from the same factories at heavy markups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Antibody tests are not what we need now.

What we need are PCR tests...

There is literally NOTHING to be found about "rapidward" before 2 days ago.

I'm very skeptical to your added value, and not just a middle man with a marketing team, I don't care that it's non-profit.

You got 2 directors, a head of marketing, a head of Comms & PR, and a social media impact advocate...

</comment><comment><USER10> I really wish people would develop some terminology to differentiate b/w the antibody screen and the viral test. A cheap and rapid viral test would significantly change the course of the pandemic but _this is not it_.

<comment><USER11> So because this tests for antibodies, are you saying someone could test positive, but it's because they got it like a month ago? (e.g. this is more similar to those tests you have to take before you start at a hospital; so they can see what booster vaccines you need?)

<comment><USER12> Also because by the time someone has antibodies they've already spread it to other people?

<comment><USER10> Yep, the fundamental problem is that the antibody test only triggers positive well after you would already be infectious probably for days, and most likely symptomatic already at least. So it can't curtail the outbreak, though as others are pointing out it can be very useful to clear people after they are infected.

<comment><USER13> Just knowing: "yeah you caught it and recovered, get back out there, you're low risk" would be super helpful. Would allow you to go volunteer at a minimum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can someone more experienced with clinical work give their thoughts on the sensitivity and accuracy of this test? The group's paper reports:

>sensitivity was 88.66% and specificity was 90.63%

My understanding is that this test will miss 12 in every 100 covid-19 infected individuals, and it will return a false positive for 10 in every 100 patients.

My intuition says this is more than acceptable for a rapid test. But I would love to see the opinion of someone with some clinical experience.

<comment><USER8> I don't think the quote you provided says anything about false positives; at least, I really hope it doesn't. A 10% false positive rate would be ridiculous. If 0.1% of the population has SARS-CoV-2, a test has a 10% false positive rate, and you get a positive result on that test, you only have about a 1% chance of actually being infected.

That's a little unintuitive, but here's how it breaks down, without taking into account false negatives:

* 10% of the population will receive a false positive

* 0.1% of the population will receive a true positive

Which category are you more likely to fall into--10% of the population or 0.1%? You're 100 times more likely to fall into the false positive category.

<comment><USER15> Can't find the article now but there was two fast tests that got forbidden in Sweden yesterday because they miss a large percentage of the cases making it meaningless in best case or dangerous to others in worst case. You think you don't have corona so you go to work anyway even though you feel a bit sick.

A false negative is worse than a false positive.

<comment><USER8> A single false negative is worse than a single false positive, but false positives affect far more people with equivalent percentages. They're both problematic, but in different ways.

Our medical infrastructure is already strained. If you tell 100x the number of actually infected people that they are infected, everything will grind time a halt.

It's important to find a balance. A single false negative could be disastrous—but so could 1000 false positives. If the false negative and false positive rate are both 10%, and 0.1% of the population is infected, there will be 1000 false positives for every false negative. Both of those are going to cause huge (but very different) problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> COVID-19 diagnostic tests included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for legal supply in Australia

[https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included- ar...](https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included-artg-legal- supply-australia)

Advice re Legal supply of COVID-19 diagnostic tests in Australia

[https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic- test...](https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic-tests)

<comment><USER17> The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia, and is unlikely to be approved for self-test use.

Quote from TGA: "NOTE: In Australia, the supply of self-tests for most serious infectious diseases, including self-tests for COVID-19, is prohibited under the Therapeutic Goods (Excluded Purposes) Specification 2010. Testing for serious infectious diseases is best conducted in conjunction with a healthcare professional who can provide appropriate advice and treatment if required."

<comment><USER14> >The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia

I can see it right there in the table. So it's definitely approved. On the self-test bit, of course not, even the manufacturer stresses this is for professionals to use. Not lay people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There was another thread about someone at a University making a testing kid and there were replies of scientists explaining all the materials needed.

My question about these. This one specifically says it tests for "COVID-19 IgM / IgG" anti-bodies. Could these kits also test positive for other non-SARS- cov2 Coronaviruses in the family, or are they accurate enough they only test for SARS-cov2?

</comment><comment><USER18> There are many companies coming out with antibody test kits. They're useful, but not for diagnosis. They're for telling who's had the disease and is probably now immune. Virus negative and antibody positive should indicate that someone is no longer infected, now protected, and need no longer isolate. Hopefully.

<comment><USER14> My limited understanding of this is that IgM antibodies appear against viral infections quite early in the infection. So this could still be useful for identifying people with active infections. Correct me if I am wrong!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If we have the virus dna, why can't we just have a pcr or similar kit to home test a swab? Someone can make their own pcr for $25 and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars. I don't understand why cov2 testing is so difficult.

<comment><USER20> > Someone can make their own pcr for $25

Ok

> and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars.

Please tell us more

<comment><USER19> then prepare a sample from a swab and see if the cov2 segments bind with dna from the swab

<comment><USER20> What I meant is that I agree that one can build a simple thermal cycler (I doubt it can be done for $25 but does not matter). I know how PCR works, what I do not understand is the claim of synthesizing reagents at home, especially template and primers.

<comment><USER19> yes synthesizing cannot be done at home, but companies can do custom synthsizing for relatively cheap, a couple hundred dollars for a short segment

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A small Belgian company has developed a very similar test kit. Its test is also claiming a result in 15 mins with around 60% sensivity.

The test in question has been fast tracked and approved by European regulations.

Here is their product sheet: [https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS- COVID-19_20200324...](https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS- COVID-19_20200324.pdf)

Here is their page: [https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human- Field/Covid-19.php](https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human- Field/Covid-19.php)

It seems to be quite similar but on this one you can see their test results and how effective it is.

Evaluation 1(n=99),95%,confidence interval:

-Sensitivity,60%,(40.7 to 76,8%)

-Sensitivity threshold,85.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(62.6 to 96.2%)

-Specificity,100%,(93.4 to 100%)

-Positive predictive value,100%,(78.1 to 100%)

-Negative predictive value,85.2%,(75.2 to 91.8%)

-Agreement,87.9%(87/99)

Evaluation 1(n=1 32),95%,confidence interval:

-Sensitivity,60.3%,(48.1 to 71.3%)

-Sensitivity threshold,76.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(61 to 87.7%)

-Specificity,98.3%,(89.7 to 99.9%)

-Positive predictive value,97.8%,(86.8 to 99.9%)

-Negative predictive value,66.7%,(55.7 to 76.2%)

-Agreement 77.3%(102/132)

It was developed by the ULB university in Brussels. It has been tested on 250 patients in two of Belgian's main university hospitals.

[https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all- news/1027...](https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all- news/102707/coronavirus-belgium-develops-15-minute-virus-test/)

This company seems to have a history of producing such tests (for Ebola, Influenza and other pathogens) and there are numerous pubmed publications about them...

</comment><comment><USER22> Why does this company sell N95 masks as well? For a company selling 3 products that's a strange combination - unless this company is just some sort of distributor. In the latter case, why is this news?

<comment><USER23> Because they are trying to scam people. If you contact them they will give you a price quote and an overseas account to wire money to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's been a cheap, 10 minute antibody (ELISA?) test kit from SureScreen for sometime. It only works after someone develops antibodies.

For initial infection, rtPCR is the gold standard and takes at least 45 minutes as of writing.

[https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus- rap...](https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus-rapid-test- cassette)

</comment><comment><USER24> What material/chemical is on the test kit cotton swab that can determine if you Covid-19 based on a saliva sample? How does that work?

</comment><comment><USER25> One suggestion: put figure 1A from the test kit study on your page in huge / reactive size. Many stakeholders concern themselves with the mechanism of the test — if you make it easy for them to know how it works, then they're more likely to buy. Way to go

</comment><comment><USER26> Look at the "our team" section. No one on the team has any medical or biological experience. If they did, I'd be researching them further and contacting them independently to verify. But there's no one worth following up. Flagging this as a scam.

<comment><USER26> Further checking -- on BBC article from 2 days ago it says

> Australian firm Rapidward said that five days ago it began supplying > Covid-19 blood tests direct from China to Switzerland"

...meaning 7 days ago. But company "RapidWard" was only registered in Australia in the last 1 or 2 days: [https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970](https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970)

That article also says:

> it is registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory > Agency (MHRA) in the UK

This is easily checked:

[https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search- registry...](https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search- registry/?q=rapidward.com)

> 0 results found.

<comment><USER27> ... and rapidward.com was created on 17th March using DomainbyProxy/goDaddy:

>Raw Whois Data

Domain Name: rapidward.com

Registry Domain ID: 2504220709_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: [http://www.godaddy.com](http://www.godaddy.com)

Updated Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z

Creation Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-03-17T05:43:49Z

Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC

...

Registrant Name: Registration Private

Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC

Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com

Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road

Registrant City: Scottsdale

Registrant State/Province: Arizona

Registrant Postal Code: 85260

Registrant Country: US

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is probably a scam, but I'm on the look out for the reason why the market went up like this this week. It's either the typical bounce, or there is some information to come that insider traders moved on.

</comment><comment><USER29> Chinese Bioeasy also offers those, Spain and Poland tried using them, instead of 80% sensitivity its more like 20-30%. Works if you are willing to burn 5 tests per person.

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh yes, TechCrunch and Yahoo! News, the high standard of medical test reporting</comment>