Au Revoir - <AUTHOR> https://blog.docker.com/2018/03/au-revoir/ <comment><USER2> I remember being introduced to Solomon in Dec 2008 (a friend of a friend) and he came to my apartment in Los Angeles a few months later to demo his "dotCloud" project. He told me how he was using Mercurial to have a version- controlled repository of an entire root filesystem (including char and block device special files under /dev; he had to extend Mercurial to add support for them). I found this pretty cool and I could see the potential. He could check out multiple copies, make different changes, merge them, etc. It was basically a revision-controlled VM/container/system image. I was working on somewhat related technology at the time, [http://qemudo.sourceforge.net/?](http://qemudo.sourceforge.net/?), a web- interface to QEMU virtual machines where whole VMs could be created in <1 second by using copy-on-write disk images (QCOW.) Everyone I showed this to back in 2006-2008 was dumbfounded. The idea that VM creation could be a _lightweight_ operation was brand new back then. Normally it involved copying a multi-gigabyte disk image. All the pieces of the tech stack were available to do this, but no well-polished product that combined them together existed.

Of course dotCloud ended up being a precursor of Docker itself, and took the idea of "lightweight easy-to-create container" to an even higher level. shykes if you are reading this, hi!

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the art made for the post. It's so emotional and powerful. The letter told the story, but the image made me feel the story. So simple, but yet so powerful.

Also, @solomonstre has changed his Twitter profile picture. This is brilliant communication. He lets everyone know that he has moved on to other things, just from his profile picture. I think this is very interesting and clever.

<comment><USER4> Docker hired a famous french comic book artist for all their graphics: [https://twitter.com/laurelcomics](https://twitter.com/laurelcomics)

<comment><USER5> I really enjoyed this long comic by Laurel [https://commeconvenu.com/](https://commeconvenu.com/). It's available online, but only in French I'm afraid... It's the story of how she came to the US for a startup with her boyfriend and how they found themselves in a more and more difficult situation with their cofounders. It's gripping, hilarious at times, and the art is outstanding.

<comment><USER6> Wow, thanks for the link. That was a very interesting read & sad story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It always amazes me how you can convince a founder/CEO is not right man for the job, and slowly push him away.

Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day operation people. It might make feel the companies run smoother for some time, but day-to-day executives are harmful to a company core vision leading to boring companies if they manage to sustain profitability in the long run at all.

<comment><USER8> > _Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day > operation people._

What is the evidence for this? We can throw anecdotes like Apple on one side and Unilever on the other, sure, but is there any study saying e.g. "Of these 100 promising companies founded in 1990, x% of the founder-led ones were successful by 2010 whereas y% of the outside-CEO-led ones were?"

Making a bold claim like "Companies that succeed have X cool-sounding behavior" is the realm of business books in airport bookstores. It would be nice to take a more data-driven approach.

<comment><USER9> Noam Wasserman (Harvard, USC) studies exactly this in a paper called "Rich vs King". As you can guess from the name, the conclusion is that bringing in outside generally management maximizes the expected value of equity.

[https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma](https://hbr.org/2008/02/the- founders-dilemma)

<comment><USER8> Thanks!

One thing the article brings up is that "success" may not be synonymous with "financial success". If you have a specific burning vision for a thing that should exist in the world, it might not be the most profitable thing, and the founder staying on is probably a good way for exactly that product to exist - but an outside CEO might choose to compromise the product vision and significantly expand the potential market in doing so.

<comment><USER9> Very true!

I suspect involuntary founder replacement is much more common in venture- funded companies. While your, my, and the founder's definitions of success may not be synonymous with "financial success", many VCs and their LPs may not feel the same. Obviously it's tricky to fully generalize, but the point is that VC can be expensive if founder and investor motivations aren't closely aligned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kinda funny that the page is down ... you'd think for a company that helps everyone scale their services this would not be a problem :-)

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure resource scaling is what's needed here. Just good ol' caching. Shameless plug: I built Cachoid[0] for caching as a service (leveraging Varnish mainly) to help with situations like this.

[0] [https://www.cachoid.com/](https://www.cachoid.com/)

<comment><USER12> I understand that this is a shameless plug but I've met teams where the first response to any performance problem is caching

If you're reading this and have performance issues look at caches as a last resort, first figure out why things are slow

I'm assuming a traditional stack here but use mysql jet profiler, or SQL equivalent first, then your languages profiler xhprof?

If your queries are slow or impossible make sure your tables are normalised and indexed, make sure opcache is on and xdebug off

Mysql out of the box is very conservative with its resources, the limits can often be raised and the web server can often be configured to be faster, make sure you're sending the correct http cache headers

There's so many things to consider with performance Please don't denormalise your data slap it in redis/ use varnish and call it a day

No cache is free, eventually you have to pay the pied piper when you do make sure you can afford to have never used the cache at all

Some of my hardest bugs have come from out of sync caches & trying to build performant data architecture around systems that had data stuffed into a redis black hole aged for years..

<comment><USER13> I dunno, I'd say solve your customer pain first, then mess around with your profiler. If throwing up a cache solves your immediate problem, by all means throw up a cache.

Just make sure it's your first step, not your last step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author Solomon Hykes, user shykes, announced DotCloud's Docker was going opensource here on HN almost exactly 5 years ago on March 26th, 2013.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5445387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5445387)

Aside for the near coincidence, I find reading historical first release posts very enlightening!

I'd be happy if any of you would share first-reaction posts and chatter and more on Solomon's marketing-first approach on making Docker a tremendously successful opensource project.

</comment><comment><USER15> Like a lot of tech folks, I've only interacted with Solomon on the internet, but in probably every interaction, I've come away from it feeling smarter, or more capable, going all the way back to the very early days of Dotcloud.

I understand the realities of working in a corporation, and the demands on C-level executives, but it's hard to imagine any company that is improved by his departure from it.

Fare well, Solomon. Eager to see what you've got planned next.

<comment><USER16> Very excited to see how this new C-group executes.

Probably one of the best departure messages I've ever seen.(especially with that image)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Four months ago on HN, an anonymous account posted "SHykes has left Docker" [0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15650335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15650335)

<comment><USER18> Another au revoir post [0] by Jérôme Petazzoni (also mentioned in shykes's post) a little over a month back.

[0] [https://jpetazzo.github.io/2018/02/17/seven-years-at- docker/](https://jpetazzo.github.io/2018/02/17/seven-years-at-docker/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was able to get the page to load, here's the text of thet post: "Today I'm announcing my departure from Docker, the company I helped create ten years ago and have been building ever since. A founder's departure is usually seen as a dramatic event. Sadly, I must report that reality is far less exciting in this case. I've had many roles at Docker over the years, and today I have a new, final one – as an active board member, a major shareholder and, I expect, a high maintenance Docker user. But I will no longer be part of day-to-day operations. Instead, after obsessing for so many years over my own ideas, I am rediscovering the joys of putting myself at the service of others – my friends, my family, and the brilliant entrepreneurs I've been lucky enough to advise and invest in over the years. Over the coming months I plan to use my experience to help them in any way I can.

This transition is simply another chapter in a long story of change, growth, hard work… and a lot of luck.

Ten years ago, I quit my job, returned to live with my mother in Paris and, together with my friends Kamel Founadi and Sebastien Pahl, started a company called Dotcloud. Our goal was to harness an obscure technology called containers, and use it to create what we called "tools of mass innovation": programming tools which anyone could use. I was 24 and had no idea what I was doing. We needed a CEO, so that became my new role.

Five years ago, Dotcloud reinvented itself as Docker, around a battle-hardened core of five people: Eric Bardin, Sam Alba, Jerome Petazzoni, Julien Barbier and myself. Soon growth was off the charts, and we hired an experienced CEO to help us sustain it. I was 29 and eager to do my part. Docker needed a CTO, so that became my new role.

Today, as I turn 34, Docker has quietly transformed into an enterprise business with explosive revenue growth and a developer community in the millions, under the leadership of our CEO, the legendary Steve Singh. Our strategy is simple: every large enterprise in the world is preparing to migrate their applications and infrastructure to the cloud, en masse. They need a solution to do so reliably and securely, without expensive code or process changes, and without locking themselves to a single operating system or cloud. Today the only solution meeting these requirements is Docker Enterprise Edition. This puts Docker at the center of a massive growth opportunity. To take advantage of this opportunity, we need a CTO by Steve's side with decades of experience shipping and supporting software for the largest corporations in the world. So I now have a new role: to help find that ideal CTO, provide the occasional bit of advice, and get out of the team's way as they continue to build a juggernaut of a business. As a shareholder, I couldn't be happier to accept this role.

As a founder, of course, I have mixed emotions. When you create a company, your job is to make sure it can one day succeed without you. Then eventually that one day comes and the celebration can be bittersweet.

It's never easy for a founder to part ways with their life's work. But I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have this problem. Most ideas never materialize. Most software goes unused. Most businesses fail in their first year. Yet here we are, one of the largest open-source communities ever assembled, collectively building software that will run on millions of computers around the world. To know that your work was meaningful, and that a vibrant community of people will continue building upon it…. can any founder ask for anything more?

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart every member of the Docker team and community, past and present, for making Docker what it is today. Thanks to you, this founder's bittersweet moment is mostly sweet. We have built something great together. I look forward to seeing where you will take it next.

Happy hacking,

Solomon"

<comment><USER20> Having read this I wonder what really went down. I get that his shares are fully vested, but personally I would not walk away from such a role at a company with this kind of growth and mind share.

<comment><USER21> He's put his heart and soul into the company for 10 years, is wildly successful, and doesn't think he's the best person for this next phase.

I don't think any back alley drama needs to have happened.

<comment><USER22> Maybe he doesn't want to be that person?

Founding a company is much different from running it.

I'd consider founding exiting for the first years, but later rather boring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Docker is a reflection of some of the side effects of HN. Self driving cars and AI are other tech being pushed in a misleading way. All these aggressively promote SV funded companies without proper technical scrutiny.

The lack of scrutiny means questionable technical decisions and complicated tool chains that add layers of complexity with little benefit are passed on to users with little knowledge of the trade-offs involved.

In a way the original promise of containers of being simple and portable have been completely lost to complicated wrappers like Docker and Kubernetes and words like devops that promise a lot but deliver an out of control web of complexity.

Google and Facebook have an army of networking, storage (they even hired the btrfs developer), security and scalability experts. It's not 2 engineers doing devops.

This also sets perverse incentives. Wrappers like Docker and Kubernetes monopolize all the attention and funding while the core open source projects that they are critically dependent on like LXC, Aufs, Overlayfs, Btrfs, Dnsmasq, Nginx, Keepalived, Consul, Quagga, Bird, open source networking tech, container tech in the kernel, apps are all hidden from view.

Docker initially wrapped the LXC project without proper credit and there was a lot of misinformation about what LXC is, with zero pushback here. Many commentators even today are not clear about containers and think Docker invented containers. And this after thousands of posts about containers here.

<comment><USER24> > Wrappers like Docker and Kubernetes ...

How's Kubernetes a wrapper? Wrapper on what? The ones you listed are dependencies. What projects don't have dependencies?

> Docker initially wrapped the LXC project without proper credit ...

Docker hasn't been a wrapper for lxc for a long time (at least 3+ years, which is a long time in tech world). Also, the debian package at the time was called lxc-docker.

> Many commentators even today are not clear about containers and think Docker > invented containers.

Misguided people are always going to be the majority, especially in the tech world. People actually working with these technologies, they will bother to figure out the differences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thanks Solomon for creating the inflection point of the container revolution.

I'm a bit puzzled about where docker as a company has to go. But the enthusiasm that was unleashed is without par.

<comment><USER26> I'm going to second this - docker has literally opened up pathways that very well be underpinning 80% of all new projects.

Because of Docker I can bootstrap new employee's working environment in 5 minutes - everything is a container except they thing they are changing, commit, see.

<comment><USER27> We still use Vagrant - because it's cross platform. And run docker inside that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Back in 2011, Solomon was nice enough to get lunch with me along with a few other DotClouders to talk me through some scaling issues my startup was stressing over. They were all super knowledgeable and helpful. We were able to get a handle on things thanks to their advice. Thanks so much and best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm only interested in 2 things. a) Is he happy, was the journey worth it? b) How much money did he make?

So long as he is happy and he didn't expose himself to any financial ruin. It's all good.

</comment><comment><USER30> Very well written. It has to be tough to walk away from something with as much trajectory. It also takes someone very self-aware to know when they are helping and where their talents can be better utilized.

</comment><comment><USER31> Solomon being French - and considering the title - my brain automatically played tricks on me and as I read his post's title I pictured him saying "Au Revoir" in its most famous form in France: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obJfkU9xB4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obJfkU9xB4) . :D

(It's the official good bye of former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing as he left office, and it's been used over and over again as a comic element.)

My hat tip to shykes. We studied in the same engineering school and he was part of the teaching assistants' panel doing the interviews for the new batch of candidates I was in. When I met him that day, he was in charge of testing my conversational English level and this interview (amongst others) convinced me to go for this school. He was also one of my tutors/teachers in the first few months, and I eventually became part of the same teaching team. Great guy all around, talented technician and a great educator.

I think he entirely deserves the praise for creating dotCloud and Docker, no matter what people may say about the underlying technology and the lackluster Docker activity lately.

He's turned it into a great product and company, with impacts and snow-ball effects all over the IT landscape.

</comment><comment><USER32> Back in 2011, Solomon offered his team to help us out with some background job pool issue--mostly Paul. Thanks, and hope you planted enough little seeds along the way that you're able to get back to doing what you do best--making seedlings grow.

</comment><comment><USER33> I hope it's not the case of enterprise bullying. I still believe Docker has the potential to grow into a much larger enterprise company if only it can navigate through the treacherous waters.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm getting a 504 Gateway timeout. Is the HN hug of death really affecting such a huge site?

<comment><USER35> blog.docker.com runs Wordpress, and the domain points directly at an ELB. Unless they are running some caching layer (behind that ELB but in front of their wordpress processes), they may have to scale out a lot in order to handle traffic spikes, and they may be limited in their ability to do that by DB capacity.

<comment><USER34> Interesting. Thank you for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Our goal was to harness an obscure technology called containers"

Was that really the goal? My impression was that dotcloud was just a hosting company

<comment><USER37> yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Another source: [http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/docker-founder- solomon-...](http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/docker-founder-solomon- hykes-announces-exit-from-docker-inc)

</comment><comment><USER39> cached link: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vBSgkE...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vBSgkEL1hLMJ:https://blog.docker.com/2018/03/au- revoir/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER40> What Solomon is doing, walking away from the company he helped create, is probably one of the hardest decisions an entrepreneur may need to take. Good luck with everything!

</comment><comment><USER41> _As a founder, of course, I have mixed emotions. When you create a company, your job is to make sure it can one day succeed without you. Then eventually that one day comes and the celebration can be bittersweet._

I've seen this before firsthand and it always looks painful. It's easy to look at something from afar and think, "why not just let it go?" But seeing the pain of letting go time and time again makes it seem far more difficult....

</comment><comment><USER42> docker ps -a SOLOMON HYKES Exited(0) 1 day ago

Sad to see him go, so so grateful for his work!

</comment><comment><USER43> Unintentionally hilarious that the Docker blog of all companies should have received the ol' reddit hug of death...

</comment><comment><USER44> Honest question:

How common is it for a company to flourish after the original sole founder leaves?

Having seen founders forced out by the board first-hand multiple times, I've yet to see things really take off after the departure of such a key player.

I'm curious if, on average, it's really the right move.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's too bad but this is unfortunately how things work. You may start the company and as you get more and more people on the board that are not on your team your voice gets quieter.

Until the people on the board vote to replace you and the silence is deafening.

Brutal what business has come to

</comment><comment><USER46> This guy led Docker's marketing-first approach here on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=shykes](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=shykes)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:shykes%20docker&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:shykes%20docker&sort=byDate&type=comment)

I put CloudFlare in a similar boat, but CloudFlare seems more tech-savvy (apart from one giant screw-up that cemented marketing-first for me).

I'll always be sad that marketing wins.

<comment><USER47> What does that mean, "marketing-first approach?" Is this a common distinction in the Hacker News culture?

<comment><USER46> If I had to pick a more common phrase to research on HN, it would be "growth hacking". By marketing-first I mean growth hacking/PR is priority #1.

I'm not saying anything against this person professionally or personally, it is more a textbook example of marketing hustle as key to financial success. I prioritize technology ahead of marketing, and am currently struggling to flip this around.

PS. I didn't know Docker was YCS10, so props to YC for connecting with this person early. Growth hacking definitely fits into the YC culture.

<comment><USER48> > I prioritize technology ahead of marketing, and am currently struggling to > flip this around.

May I ask why you feel strongly about a technology-first approach?

I can think of someone that tried your exact approach, but it didn't end well. He happens to be a member of this community [0] and he wrote a great blog post [1] introspecting as to the reasons why technology-first approaches don't work in the world we live in.

If you've not read it, I encourage you to do so.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=coffeemug](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=coffeemug)

[1] [http://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb- failed.html](http://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html)

<comment><USER46> I just love tech a lot more than marketing, probably primarily because I'm much better at tech!

I'm glad that RethinkDB seems to be headed toward a happy ineding as a community, and thanks for the pointer to the write up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Wow. These kinds of communications typically seem trite. But this one genuinely resonated with me. I'm glad things worked out for him. And thanks for Docker!

</comment><comment><USER50> Am I the only one reading a K8S concession into every Docker headline lately?

I made a big bet on Docker a few years ago, so I know personally that's been the case.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does this mean that Docker as a company is stable enough to function without one of its co-founders? Or does that mean that VC is taking it over?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It looks like their blog crashed under the load... Here's the full text below.

Today I'm announcing my departure from Docker, the company I helped create ten years ago and have been building ever since. A founder's departure is usually seen as a dramatic event. Sadly, I must report that reality is far less exciting in this case. I've had many roles at Docker over the years, and today I have a new, final one – as an active board member, a major shareholder and, I expect, a high maintenance Docker user. But I will no longer be part of day- to-day operations. Instead, after obsessing for so many years over my own ideas, I am rediscovering the joys of putting myself at the service of others – my friends, my family, and the brilliant entrepreneurs I've been lucky enough to advise and invest in over the years. Over the coming months I plan to use my experience to help them in any way I can.

This transition is simply another chapter in a long story of change, growth, hard work… and a lot of luck.

Ten years ago, I quit my job, returned to live with my mother in Paris and, together with my friends Kamel Founadi and Sebastien Pahl, started a company called Dotcloud. Our goal was to harness an obscure technology called containers, and use it to create what we called "tools of mass innovation": programming tools which anyone could use. I was 24 and had no idea what I was doing. We needed a CEO, so that became my new role.

Five years ago, Dotcloud reinvented itself as Docker, around a battle-hardened core of five people: Eric Bardin, Sam Alba, Jerome Petazzoni, Julien Barbier and myself. Soon growth was off the charts, and we hired an experienced CEO to help us sustain it. I was 29 and eager to do my part. Docker needed a CTO, so that became my new role.

Today, as I turn 34, Docker has quietly transformed into an enterprise business with explosive revenue growth and a developer community in the millions, under the leadership of our CEO, the legendary Steve Singh. Our strategy is simple: every large enterprise in the world is preparing to migrate their applications and infrastructure to the cloud, en masse. They need a solution to do so reliably and securely, without expensive code or process changes, and without locking themselves to a single operating system or cloud. Today the only solution meeting these requirements is Docker Enterprise Edition. This puts Docker at the center of a massive growth opportunity. To take advantage of this opportunity, we need a CTO by Steve's side with decades of experience shipping and supporting software for the largest corporations in the world. So I now have a new role: to help find that ideal CTO, provide the occasional bit of advice, and get out of the team's way as they continue to build a juggernaut of a business. As a shareholder, I couldn't be happier to accept this role.

As a founder, of course, I have mixed emotions. When you create a company, your job is to make sure it can one day succeed without you. Then eventually that one day comes and the celebration can be bittersweet.

It's never easy for a founder to part ways with their life's work. But I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have this problem. Most ideas never materialize. Most software goes unused. Most businesses fail in their first year. Yet here we are, one of the largest open-source communities ever assembled, collectively building software that will run on millions of computers around the world. To know that your work was meaningful, and that a vibrant community of people will continue building upon it…. can any founder ask for anything more?

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart every member of the Docker team and community, past and present, for making Docker what it is today. Thanks to you, this founder's bittersweet moment is mostly sweet. We have built something great together. I look forward to seeing where you will take it next.

Happy hacking,

Solomon

</comment><comment><USER52> twitter mirror: [https://twitter.com/solomonstre/status/979034154384834560](https://twitter.com/solomonstre/status/979034154384834560)

</comment><comment><USER53> Did anyone else well up at that final image? It's been a long week...

<comment><USER54> It's a nice image, but I'm trying to figure out what kind of rig that sailboat has.

<comment><USER55> I think it can only sail backwards...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Hug of death?

Twitter post here: [https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064](https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064)

</comment><comment><USER57> Title should change. Sounds like Docker is shutting down permanently since the site doesn't load and the title is French for Good Bye.

<comment><USER58> Haha, I clicked on it in a panick after remembering what au revoir meant.

<comment><USER59> Yeah same was about to shit my pants...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Well, 504. No cloud auto scaling?

</comment><comment><USER61> 504... rip

</comment><comment><USER62> If you read between the lines, there's no mention of Ben Golub (Docker's CEO until few months ago). I am wondering if that's intentional, or... intentional. Or intentional?

</comment><comment><USER63> Oh, the irony of the docker blog timing out...

</comment><comment><USER64> Looks like they are using Docker Swarm to host their website.

</comment><comment><USER65> 504 gateway error?

 _edit_ Solomon Hykes is departing - [https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064](https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064)

</comment><comment><USER66> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0VT_m5S...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0VT_m5Sl0FoJ:https://blog.docker.com/2018/03/au- revoir/%3Fnot-changed&num=1&hl=en&gl=de&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER67> Is it just a conscious joke at this point to put "incredible journey" in any of these types of announcements?

<comment><USER68> 'Incredible journey' is usually reserved for software companies selling out or shutting down, neither of which is happening in this case.

<comment><USER48> The parent likely picked it up from the Twitter announcement:

"The entire #Docker team would like to thank @solomonstre for creating the containerization movement and his 10 years of service and innovation. Thank you for bringing us all along on this _incredible journey_ – we look forward to continued collaboration [https://dockr.ly/2ut6OyO"](https://dockr.ly/2ut6OyO")

[https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064](https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064)

<comment><USER68> Maybe they genuinely thought the journey had been incredible and wanted to express their gratitude to shykes, who after all, built the company they work for?

It isn't a bad or forbidden phrase in and of itself, it just usually sounds rather hollow when users are getting screwed by a service shutting down. But Docker isn't shutting down.

Also, consider when railing against cliched thinking that the 'Our Incredible Journey' Tumblr is by now a massive HN cliche. It no longer sounds insightful or smart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Website is 502'ing, here is a the WaybackMachine-Version: [https://web.archive.org/web/20180328164640/https://blog.dock...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180328164640/https://blog.docker.com/2018/03/au- revoir/)

</comment><comment><USER70> Site appears to be down but I'm guessing the post is related to this tweet? [https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064](https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979027618866520064)

<comment><USER71> Very short blog post from Solomon with a little bit of his history at Docker, noting that the company is at the point where he can leave it to run by itself without him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> A founder has retired, nothing as dramatic as the title might imply.

</comment><comment><USER73> Finally loaded for me. Solomon Hykes is leaving the company.

</comment><comment><USER74> HackerNews often snuffs out the websites it links to -- the "hug of death". Damn it. Guess I'll come back in 20 minutes.

<comment><USER75> [https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979059103128436736](https://twitter.com/Docker/status/979059103128436736) twitter has a screenshot

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I think their blog being hugged to death is a good example of how this technology (read: web backend tech in general, not containers) is still too complicated for people in general to use it for simple cases, like scaling the load of otherwise static content. (It's wordpress, but still) We need solutions that require less resources and smaller learning curves.

<comment><USER77> > being hugged to death

Whenever I read about this I can't help to think that people don't make a good use of a load balancer like HAProxy in front of their web-servers. Even if it's a single server behind the load balancer.

There's this sweet spot where your server is handling requests as fast as it can but if you cross above it everything halts. To make it simple, this usually happens when one or more hardware resources (CPU, RAM, disk) reaches 90% utilization.

So just do some basic benchmarks and find that sweet spot and put a limit in HAProxy. Say 100 concurrent connections for static assets and 50 concurrent connections for everything else.

All requests above the limit will go in a HAProxy queue but they should not stay there for long because the web-server is able to work at full speed without being overloaded.

PS: I have quite a dream. To write some fabulous blog post that reaches the HN front page and serve it from a raspberry pi device. Too bad I don't write at all.

<comment><USER76> What you're describing is queueing, but the solution you're really looking for is back pressure. Any queue will eventually fill and when you fill it, things fall out. So rather than just dropping requests or letting the requests swamp your box, what you want to do is intelligently reject requests.

On the web, this means sending 503 responses. In a more intelligent client- server model, this might be the client doing an exponential back-off retry with jitter. A plain-old retry can swamp the server and just kill everything. An exponential back-off retry will allow the backend to achieve a level of service that isn't fast, but also isn't unavailable.

Hopefully in this case the haproxy is used intelligently and simply returns cached responses to GET requests without query strings. You don't want to hold onto connections or pass them off to the dynamic layer behind the proxy if you're overloaded. You can also respond to the client with a page with an auto-refresh, implementing an exponential back-off retry.

<comment><USER77> The setup I described will not get you from 10 requests/second to 1000. It will let you to make the most of your hardware though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the best programming language to learn first? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1943843>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=760377>

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been asked that question many times.

I recommend you start with Javascript, or Python very simple to write and read programs then continue to C++ or Java (:

<comment><USER4> This is good advice for someone that wants to learn to program. If that is your goal, then JavaScript and then Python is a good path. However if your goal is to learn CS along the way, then you should start with C on something like the Arduino and then move to a LISP. One is great for hardware based theory and the other is great for pure CS theory. So it really depends on your ambitions, if you want to program to find a job ASAP then the above advice is spot on, however if you want to program to truly understand programming and CS then C and Lisp are fundemental.</comment></comment>


The 6% of Web users who generate 50% of ad clicks - <AUTHOR> http://www.smvgroup.com/news_popup_flash.asp?pr=1643

<comment> daniel-cussen This looks fishy. These guys obviously have a conflict of interest with regard to the study, as they're trying to sell you their marketing analysis services.

This reminds me of the studies conducted on google adwords, where research companies said that 30% of clicks were clickfraud. They arrived at this number by getting a group of ad purchasers together and asking them what the number was. They guessed, and their guesses were averaged. I think another study said the number was closer to 80%, but again their methodology was poor.

I don't buy this. That this study covers two million people doesn't mean it is representative, because these were people that _filled in an online survey and talked about their attitudes and intentions_. They missed a huge part of the internet users who, by and large, have better things to do, and don't fill out surveys.

</comment><comment><USER2> _In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers._

So basically, the heavy clickers are losers who live in their parents' basements?

<comment><AUTHOR> I read a similar study result a few months ago, posted here also, except I seem to remember that one implicating females rather than males, as this one does.</comment></comment>


Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/01/16/mozilla-files-suit-fcc-protect-net-neutrality/ <comment><USER2> Can somebody explain to me what is the base of the lawsuit? I mean, it looks to me if FCC has the right to introduce certain rules for Internet providers that Mozilla supposedly liked, in 2015, then they have the right to revert those rules back to pre-2015 state as well? So what is the basis for the legal claim against them? Or is this a kind of lawsuit like "we don't like it so we sue you, and as for legal basis we'll think of something"? I don't think that's how law and lawsuits should work... Am I missing something?

I.e., the matter is clearly political, so if Mozilla lobbied the Congress for it, it'd be clearly the right thing to do. But lawsuit implies there's already a law that mandates the result Mozilla wants, and FCC is violating this law. What law is this? How comes this law wasn't enforced before 2015 - was it created later?

The only argument I find is "it is arbitrary and capricious" \- which sounds clearly false to me. Even if you are NN supporter, you can't fail to recognize there is a certain political theory behind what FCC is doing, and even if you completely disagree with this theory and think it is very harmful, you can not ignore that FCC is doing this for a specific reason and not just "arbitrarily". Can someone explain to me what serious arguments Mozilla has here?

<comment><USER3> >I mean, it looks to me if FCC has the right to introduce certain rules for Internet providers that Mozilla supposedly liked, in 2015, then they have the right to revert those rules back to pre-2015 state as well? So what is the basis for the legal claim against them?

Basically, the law all of this is based on largely predates the internet. The 2015 rules the FCC pushed forward by saying they were considered "common carriers" under the 1934 Communications act, which mandates that preferential treatment isn't shown, allowing net neutrality. The current decision changed their classification as "common carriers," so they aren't legally required to enforce net neutrality.

Mozilla is arguing that they're clearly common carriers, the court agreed that they were, and changing their status would violate the law.

The political theory around the FCC hasn't been updated sufficiently, they were mandated to deal with telephone lines and much of their control over the internet is based on vague interpretation. This was always going to be decided by the courts or congress, the FCC had no certain power.

<comment><USER2> > Mozilla is arguing that they're clearly common carriers

Does the law unambiguously define "common carriers" as including ISPs or does it empower FCC to make that definition? If the former, why FCC needed to make that definition at all and why it made it only in 2015 - the law clearly existed long before and so did ISPs?

> This was always going to be decided by the courts or congress, the FCC had > no certain power.

I'm still not sure how it works - if FCC has no power to decide it, what happened in 2015? Congress certainly didn't do anything. So who is empowered to decide whether certain company or type of companies is "common carrier" or not? I thought that's FCCs job?

<comment><USER3> >Does the law unambiguously define "common carriers" as including ISPs or does it empower FCC to make that definition? If the former, why FCC needed to make that definition at all and why it made it only in 2015 - the law clearly existed long before and so did ISPs?

The law defines common carriers in a vague way meant to refer to a telephone provider. The vague way allows one to argue that internet is also included, but it's all on interpretation. Which is why it's in the courts.

>what happened in 2015?

Before 2014, ISPs were not labeled common carriers, but the FCC enforced net neutrality through some other vague part of the bills. In 2014, the courts ruled on a case between Verizon and the FCC, stating they could not grant the privileges of common carriers while not designating them common carriers, ending that. So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers.

<comment><USER2> > So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers.

Which gives me the impression FCC is empowered to decide what "common carrier" means, thus making both "yes" and "no" decisions with regard to ISPs equally legal. Is there some other law that breaks the symmetry?

<comment><USER3> The FCC doesn't get to decide, it just isn't currently clear whether they are a common carrier under the laws given. So the FCC chooses what side to back, enacts regulations based on it, and waits for the courts to decide who is right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only person who thinks this whole approach to Net Neutrality is wrongly pursued through the FCC? Hear me out: if the networks don't access a physically limited resource like the RF spectrum and there isn't any censorship issue at stake, if the issue is truly differential access and usage due to oligopolistic limitation, isn't it for the FTC to intervene and bust up throttling and content blocks under restraint of trade doctrine?

<comment><USER5> This can only be fixed by the FTC, yes. But it's against Google's interests for antitrust law to come back into vogue, so they've put a lot of money into getting folks on board with the FCC, which doesn't have jurisdiction over Google, being in charge. In fact, the Title II classification that net neutrality supporters are so big on actually exempts ISPs from FTC regulation, preventing the government from breaking up their monopolies!

Net neutrality, as implemented, is really flawed in a lot of ways (there's a lot of practical uses for more limited types of Internet plans being available in world of IoT, especially), but this comment will be -4 shortly anyways. We shouldn't be regulating the Internet. We should be breaking up monopolies and fining companies for unfair business practices.

<comment><USER6> > _We should be breaking up monopolies and fining companies for unfair > business practices_.

Ultimately in a perfect world if the agencies did as their mission statements said that would work. Monopolies need to be broken up and it can lead to good things, even just threatening Microsoft in the 90s led to Google, Apple, etc emergence.

The problem is there has been zero sign that anyone is willing to go after monopolies, especially after the Great Recession even though it would probably help us get out of the next one easier with more breakups.

The local ISP monopolies are really against net neutrality, Google isn't the monopoly we need to be worrying about yet. ISPs/broadband have local monopolies built on fake competition on purpose.

The vast majority US only has 0 or 1 valid ISP with decent speeds if that at 25-100 Mbps[1][2].

ISPs are the biggest monopoly threat regarding open internet as they control the levers, not a company that operates on top of the internet in the market.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us- br...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-broadband- still-no-isp-choice-for-many-especially-at-higher-speeds/)

[2] [https://consumerist.com/2014/03/07/heres-what-lack-of- broadb...](https://consumerist.com/2014/03/07/heres-what-lack-of-broadband- competition-looks-like-in-map-form/)

<comment><USER5> Google is a global monopoly with it's hands in literally everything. A significant percentage of all inter-human communication, whether voice, internet, email, or messaging goes through Google. Possibly a majority.

Regional/local monopolies are barely a concern worth mention in comparison. It's as if you're worried about the street dealer, and not worried about the head of the cartel.

<comment><USER7> Look up the definition of a "monopoly." Google is giant, sure, but it's not the only search provider, or email provider, or anything else that it does (aside from some random niche things.) And everyone has perfect freedom to switch from Google to another provider of these services, which isn't true for ISPs if only one company has fiber going to your house.

<comment><USER2> Google is as much of a monopoly than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft never was the only OS provider or browser provider or sole provider of anything, yet the parent comment calls it a monopoly and praises the effort to hurt it. You can't have it both ways - if Microsoft was a monopoly, then Google is.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft was never a monopoly and Google can never be a monopoly. It's not something that a company is, it's something that a company has. In Microsoft's case, it was Windows and it was considered a monopoly not because it was the only operating system, but because of its market share. The only product that Google has that has anywhere near the required market share to be considered a monopoly is Google Search.

Even so, Microsoft didn't get in trouble with the Justice Department for its Windows monopoly, it got in trouble for leveraging its monopoly to support its other, non-monopoly products. If you want to argue that Google should be constrained under anti-trust rules, you need to show how they're abusing a monopoly to compete unfairly with other products. People have made that argument but it's less cut-and-dry than it was in Microsoft's case.

As it is, your lack of understanding of the basic definition of 'monopoly' makes what you're saying somewhat nonsensical.

<comment><USER5> Google not only has monopoly-level market shares in Search, Ads, and Android, they also have a massively dominant market share with Chrome. The magic, and where Google runs afoul, is how they leverage those to assist each other in ways you clearly ignore.

\- Chrome will soon start directly blocking Google Ads' competitors based on standards Google invented through an organization it runs.

\- Chrome pushes Google Search default, Search pesters you to get Chrome like three times.

\- Android devices are required to ship with nearly all of Google's products pre-installed. Literally through a confidential contract almost every phone manufacturer on the planet save like... Apple and Amazon have signed on.

There are more, mind you, but this is kinda a taste. Microsoft did nothing this illegal, ever.

<comment><USER6> Net neutrality and ISP monopolies are important to observe here because only ISP monopolies can control packet level what goes through every single internet connection you make, that is why ISPs and local monopolies are important to the impact of net neutrality going away. ISPs inspecting packets to slow some down also leads to encroaching packet inspection that leads to more surveillance.

Talking about Google here is a distraction and a false equivalency as they control nothing in the lower level of your network like ISPs do.

Google is not a monopoly, they are a market leader with mind share. They were able to get the word "google" as a verb, that is through a good product and marketing.

It seems you really prefer companies that buy their monopolies via legislation and bribes like ISPs (Comcast/AT&T/etc) over companies that build market share in the actual market (Google/Apple/Facebook/Netflix/Amazon etc).

You need to read up on your Microsoft history, you are precluding lots of history, Microsoft is well known to do the "embrace, extend and extinguish"[1] technique back when they were essentially monopoly mind share level. Just one small thing in many that they did, they killed Quicktime, Real Player[2] when Windows player was created by making them not work on the OS level.

ISPs want to do the same thing with competitive products, it is a natural progression for a market leader, you can't blame them you have to prevent it with regulation/laws.

The only control Google has is to control technology via their browser, which Microsoft did with IE4 especially - and you can use others, and what kind of search results you can get. AMP is an overstep and their control but not monopoly level yet -- and they are overstepping on stomping internet standards in a new 'embrace, extend, and extinguish'. But even then, Google has less monopoly ability to control your network compared to ISPs that control everything you do on the internet and Microsoft could control OS level when Windows was 95% share and only desktop existed, which they pushed IE then as well and crushed competition, preinstalled and all that.

I like Google and Microsoft though, they earned their mind share through innovative products. ISPs just buy off legislators and create state assisted monopolies. The latter is very anti-business and anti-competitive much more than building support in an open market.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

[2] [https://www.cnet.com/news/real-hits-microsoft- with-1-billion...](https://www.cnet.com/news/real-hits-microsoft- with-1-billion-antitrust-suit/)

<comment><USER5> "Packet level" is a technical distinction, not an important one. Google controls whether or not websites effectively _exist_ on the Internet, for all intents and purposes. Google controls how those websites operate, what they must look like, and what security protocols they must use. If in any way, a website doesn't obey Google, it ends up delisted from Google Seaarch, and then it loses all it's profitability and ceases to exist.

I'm well aware of Microsoft's twenty-year-ago history, but it pales in comparison to Google's present. Your suggestion that Google earned it's place is horribly incorrect: It got it's power through buying off legislators (About half of all Congressmembers have received money from Google), working directly in the White House (During Obama's term, no company visited the executive more), and using secret agreements with other companies to pack in default apps, adware, and browser toolbars.

People make the misleading belief that everyone switched to Google because of how great it was (or used to be). I did. You probably did. Most people did not. Either a program they installed like Adobe Reader had Google Toolbar packed in which forced their default browser to switch, or they ended up on a device that comes preloaded with Chrome. Sundar Pichai's rise to stardom was the Google Toolbar, which gained penetration buy being one of those sleezy addons that came with nearly everything a Windows user wanted to install.

Now with Android, Google has every phone manufacturer doing their job for them: In order to get access to the Play Store, phone manufacturers have to ship Chrome as the default browser, Google Search as the default search engine, and include about twenty other Google apps.

<comment><USER6> > "Packet level" is a technical distinction, not an important one.

It is a very important discussion, it should never happen and ISPs want to do it to have the ability to slow you down and throttle you. NN prevents packet level bias.

Even if you still want to beat the Google is a monopoly drum, I don't totally disagree that some of their tactics are that level, this is just a distraction from NN and local ISP monopolies using Google is a false equivalency to ISPs that are your entry to the internet, before Google can even get to you.

You are literally off topic at this point, this isn't a thread on Google monopoly level tactics, this is about NN which Google would be market leader with or without. Google issues for another day, today is ISP local monopolies which you continually distract from almost as if you are purposefully doing it. If you aren't being paid by the ISPs you should at this point.

If you had 0 or 1, 25Mbps-100Mbps option in your area is that sufficient? Google obsession aside, do you think there is ANY local monopoly issue regarding ISPs?

Current ISP talking points on ISP monopolies are to distract to Google, Facebook, Amazon etc just as the WSJ has been doing. You've joined the club in distracting from the real issue, NN, unrelated to whether Google is a monopoly.

You go and call out Google for lobbying, they have to the way ISPs and Comcast/AT&T etc buy off legislature. You seem to like the companies that buy off legislature and provide NO innovative benefits to them running the web today, at least with Google/Amazon/etc there are benefits not degradation of service like the ISPs of today.

<comment><USER5> Again, packet level bias isn't a big deal when there's a company that controls the whole freaking Internet. There's no "distraction" with Google, Google is the problem, and they're distracting you by saying "Look at these little companies who aren't that big a deal. They're evil! Focus on them!"

Everything you are pitching is right out of their guidebook, Google has funded every net neutrality supporting organization out there today, and is behind every single move you see to defend it. Ask yourself why.

<comment><USER6> If you had 0 or 1, 25Mbps-100Mbps option in your area is that sufficient?

Google obsession aside, could care less about what they do in regards to NN really though I am glad that they and most companies and people in the country support NN, the ISPs matter on this policy.

ISPs/broadband/telcos/providers really are the ONLY ones that don't want it, ask yourself WHY they want it removed so badly...against most _people 's_ demands. They say it changes nothing, I don't want SLOW lanes, unless they are massively increasing infrastructure they will be SLOWING you down and INSPECTING packets. This is anti-internet behavior. If Google was actually using their monopoly about it they would crush NN because they will be top in mind share either way. When Netflix, who was affected by NN, stopped supporting NN for a while people flipped. Same with Google, people would be pissed if Google didn't support NN, this comes from PEOPLE's demands [1][2].

Why all the ISP love? You got some massive trust in them to both mostly have a monopoly control and to be able to control traffic (including speeds/data caps) AND have all your private info for every single connection you make.

Do you think there is ANY local monopoly issue regarding ISPs? Do you think ISP competition is good enough in the US?

Do you see the difference in the level of control ISPs have over ALL your traffic while Google has to have you USE them?

I have acknowledged some issues with Google but you have yet to acknowledge anything regarding ISP abuse and questions regarding broadband availability where ISPs are failing the US (Google Fiber was an awesome competitive boost we needed), nor that most people want NN [1][2]. Yes, your Google obsession is a distraction from the main NN point, the only people that want NN are ISPs/broadband/telcos/providers.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/06/new-mozilla-poll- am...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/06/new-mozilla-poll-americans- political-parties-overwhelmingly-support-net-neutrality/)

[2] [https://morningconsult.com/2017/11/29/strong-support-net- neu...](https://morningconsult.com/2017/11/29/strong-support-net-neutrality- rules-fcc-considers-repeal/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mozilla is one of the few groups on the internet I'm proud to support. Keep up the good fight!

<comment><USER10> I supported them until the adware incident.

<comment><USER11> Please rethink your position. There are many people who genuinely care about freedom and privacy working at Mozilla, while at Facebook, Google, and Apple, developers are selling us out every day.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure there are many people working at Facebook, Google and Apple who also genuinely care about freedom and privacy, while there are developers working at Mozilla who are just as willing to sell out users as anyone.

It is true that Mozilla's a nonprofit, but that doesn't mean a lot to me when I try to guess what they'll do in the future.

<comment><USER13> I think his point was that instead of throwing your hands up in the air and declaring all options to be equally terrible, it might be better to support actors that are generally good.

<comment><USER12> The original comment seemed to be "sure, some people working for Mozilla are bad, but some are good, and some people working for their competitors are also bad."

My points were (1) the statement didn't actually say anything interesting because it only talked about some of the people working at each company (i.e., it was just as true if you switched the company names around), (2) all companies are made up of people, so it's hardly a surprise that some of those people have admirable motives and others don't, and (3) "nonprofit" doesn't necessarily mean "good," or "pure in heart," or whatever people seem to think it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, legally speaking, does Mozilla have any ground to stand on here?

I'm having trouble imagining what law might exist that would legally require the FCC to enforce NN rules. Especially given the rules the FCC overturned here were originally instituted only 3 years ago. Could Mozilla have successfully sued the FCC back then if they'd failed to create these rules in the first place?

<comment><USER15> I would like to read the suit, because I don't think they have a leg to stand on. If the FCC can make the regulations, they can rescind them. The only thing maybe is process, but that only delays the inevitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is the EFF not doing this instead of Mozilla ?

Also I hope people still pursue municipal broadband, even with NN relying on faceless corporations seems like a bad idea.

<comment><USER17> Why Google/Netflix is not doing this instead of Mozilla?

<comment><USER18> Because it is in google/netflix's interest that net neutrality be abolished.

<comment><USER19> How so? How would Netflix benefit from NN being abolished?

<comment><USER20> They've reached a market position where NN doesn't really impact them much. They, now, have the cashflow to pay their way out. They can pay, smaller companies cannot, thus cementing their position in the market. Absence of NN, in an indirect way, helps them competitively by constructing artificial barriers to entry without taking the heat.

Sure ISPs have their own equivalent offerings, but dealing with one or two competitors in an area is easier than dealing with a couple of them.

<comment><USER19> Not so when their major competitors are literally part of the ISPs they have to negotiate with.

I know Netflix has pretty good penetration and awareness with customers, but people are fickle and will jump ship as soon as something better (or less shit, due to less bandwidth squeezing) is available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Either you do net neutrality or you do all of the following:

1) Remove "franchises" from localities.

2) Simplify right of way provisions to allow new cable to be buried easily.

3) Companies with installed poles must allow fiber to be run across them. (If they don't like that, go underground)

4) ISP's must tell consumers in plain english what restrictions exist on their service. Bandwidth caps. Throttled or Blocked ports, protocols, and sites.

<comment><USER22> None of these have any power to mitigate the risks net neutrality is supposed to tackle, namely providers using their customer base to squeeze third parties that wish to reach them.

<comment><USER21> If you make the ISP market a truly competitive market then the market will come to a natural equilibrium, hopefully addressing those concerns. But as long as ISPs hold artificial monopolies in localities, it is anything but a free market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good luck!

One more vote in the senate and they can pass a bill to do this.

It seems the major providers are holding off on any large changes until they feel it is safe from political blowback. I find this interesting.

<comment><USER24> > One more vote in the senate and they can pass a bill to do this

Which would matter a lot more if the US had a unicameral legislature with no executive veto; the Senate passing a CRA bill shooting down the FCC repeal of open internet rules would be a potent symbol, but have no binding effect since it has near zero chance in the House and, doesn't have the supermajority in either chamber needed to survive a near-certain Presidential veto.

<comment><USER25> > a near-certain Presidential veto

Nothing is certain with Trump :)

(we can think about whether that's good or bad)

<comment><USER18> True, but it's not unlikely he's sold out and thus won't sign it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Surely the easiest way to ensure net neutrality would be for the large players (google, facebook, etc) to band together and blacklist the networks for those providers who oppose net neutrality. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

Of course, I suppose that as its Mozilla pursuing legal actions it goes to show how just little Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, actually care about net neutrality.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great! Though I wonder if there's anything more we can do than call our representative like the article suggests.

<comment><USER28> My rep sent a canned, formal-language-adorned "get stuffed" in response.

<comment><USER29> Mine replied with a canned response basically saying, "thanks for caring! Our senator supports the FCC... blah blah"

It was mildly insulting. The thing was clear they didn't even read it and assumed I was clueless.

<comment><USER30> What means did you use to share your concern? AFAIK there's a reason a phone call is recommended: letters barely matter, and emails/electronic form submissions are basically equivalent to not sent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's great that Mozilla is stepping up to do the right thing. Hope that other tech giants follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think that most efforts to revert the Net Neutrality to the Obama-era state is severely hampered by how much the current administration is swayed by lobbyists. Though sad, the only course of action that seems available now is damage control until the next elections. I do still fully support Mozilla's efforts in the matter anyway.

</comment><comment><USER33> Lobbyists provide a better ROI than most lawsuits.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is an unpopular opinion, but the disagreement point is trying to use the FCC to enforce Net Neutrality, not Net Neutrality itself. Since everyone has decided to stop talking about the end goal (an open internet) and instead insisting "my way or the highway", we've gotten ourselves to this point. Thank you for your downvotes. I'd rather talk about working together towards an end goal and finding similarities instead of differences.

<comment><USER6> FTC probably can't enforce net neutrality, this came from one of their commissioners [1]:

> _The Federal Trade Commission will not be able to fill the gap created by > the FCC's abdication of its authority and sector-specific mandate. After- > the-fact antitrust and consumer protection enforcement by the FTC cannot > substitute for clear upfront rules, especially given that vertically > integrated broadband ISPs have both the incentive and ability to favor their > own content or that of paid "partners" over the content of rivals._

Only thing the FTC can do is after the damage fines, which will be underwhelming. Rules/law needs to stop ISPs upfront, this is why they want it away from the FCC and on the FTC. ISPs would rather win in the marketplace, get their monopolies cutting out competition, then pay a fine rather than innovating to compete. Upfront rules about net neutrality are needed to help create the next Google/Apple/Netflix/Facebook that would be crushed without it.

[1] [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/1293263/mcsweeny_statement_on_net_neutrality_vote_- _dec_14_2017.pdf)</comment></comment>


Xerox Alto zero-day: cracking disk password protection on a 45 year old system - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2018/01/xerox-alto-zero-day-cracking-disk.html <comment><USER2> The comment from the owner of the disk he cracked is pretty great:

Doug Wyatt January 4, 2018 at 10:38 PM

I'm flabbergasted. That's my Alto disk you broke into!

The APL stuff is surely related to some work I did with Leo Guibas, showing why lazy evaluation would be a really good idea for implementing APL: see Compilation and delayed evaluation in APL, published January 1978. (That paper gives me an enviable Erdős number of 3, since Leo is a 2.) I'm sure it's not a complete APL implementation, just a proof of concept. It happens that my very first part-time job at PARC, in 1973, involved writing decision analysis software in APL -- on a timesharing system!

Given the AATFDAFD hint, I'd guess the real password is ADDATADFAD. This derives from a project I did with Jef Raskin at UCSD in 1974. (He mentioned it in this interview.) The Data General Nova we were working with produced some garbled message with ADDATADFAD where it should have said ADDITIONAL, and it was a running joke ever after. Strange, the things that occupy some brain cells for over 40 years.

Thanks for an amusing blast from the past.

\-- Doug Wyatt (Xerox PARC 1973-1994)

<comment><USER3> My brain didn't parse the "Xerox PARC" bit at the bottom and I just assumed that birth/death years and I got really confused as to how he replied to something posted in 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of a year or two ago when I had to boot my old SGI. Forgot the user password on IRIX and thought that this is where I'll be clever (hacking terminals, matrix music in the background, etc.). Turns out, IRIX had 8 character limit for user passwords. Thanks to the modern GPUs and a passwd file restored from the system (on a recovery console), a few hours later I had the password brute-forced. I'll get to be clever hax0r next time, I guess.

<comment><USER5> Turns out I need to do that with my old SGI. Got any tips?

<comment><USER4> Multiple ways to do it. All lead to you getting to the /etc/passwd file and the hash inside for the root.

If you have IRIX installation CD then you can even set the new password, but you probably don't have it? You can also put the disk into another SGI, also not what everyone has. If guest account is enabled, login with guest (no password) and just cat the /etc/passwd. If guest account is not enabled, you can do the cat via sash, which is a bit more compicated, like this: [https://web.archive.org/web/20151023042224/http://crackaddic...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151023042224/http://crackaddict.com/~nate/hackirix.html)

Once you have your hash, do it with John the Ripper (GPU version). Store the password int a text file in format of root:hash and run john the ripper on it. Encryption is, AFAIK, DES so use john --format=des passwd.txt if john doesn't autodetect which encryption it is (I remember I had to set it manually). It can take awhile, depending on the GPU, but not that long.

If you run into trouble, I can have a look. I think I wrote down somewhere what to do, in case I need it again.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for this, looks to be not a problem at all! Well, now I've got one less reason to keep the SGI boxes wrapped up, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool that he found a flaw in the algorithm

But this is really the antithesis of what a zero-day originally was, which was a crack circulated on _or even before_ the release day of software[0]. The Alto is 45 years old :)

Odd how words and phrases can change so much over a short period of time that they invert their meaning.

[0] that's what it meant in the early / mid 1990s when I was peripherally involved. Now it seems to mean 'zero days of notification to the vendor'.

<comment><USER7> How did people get access to unreleased software?

<comment><USER8> Back then games had to be gold to be sent to the CD/Disk manufacturer, then you had to receive the copies and send them to be packed or directly to the distributors if they handled the finale packaging. This meant that a golden sample could circulate for as much as 6 months (and even longer) before the game would go on sale. Also as all support was pretty much phone support which also included some basic gameplay support you would have support staff often at 3rd party call centers who would require access to the game before it goes on sale (for large games at least, small companies tended to have support in house).

Today with digital distribution even if it's for patches only you don't care about the game going gold the DVD could contain a build that is utterly irrelevant pretty much every new install from disk requires a day 1 patch that can be often as large as downloading the whole from scratch (pretty much every console owner knows this, PC games also get a day one patch but digital distribution is a given for the PC market these days).

So zero-day for games at least isn't that important anymore, also DRM is harder to crack these games some games take months to crack, some don't get cracked at all, some rely on a weaken DRM version to be released (e.g. STEAM) down the line that can be cracked more easily.

For DVDs/BR today this also often happens you have full BR rips often weeks before the official release date, sometimes months just because they are already ready just waiting on the right time to go on sale or for some online distribution exclusivity deal to end.

<comment><USER9> I work for a large games publisher and we still do that in fact! I've recently been on a trip to our customer service centre, and the guys and girls there have access to early builds of nearly all of our games so that when the game comes out they can provide advice on day one. And yes, I too was surprised to find out that they do provide actual gameplay advice if someone calls with a question - every desk had several massive game guides for our games just in case.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't surprises me that they still do that but with how easy it is to track builds these days and the fact that games today are released broken with "we'll fix it after launch" mentality it's not really that much of a source anymore.

Early builds that might not function outside of the internal environment aren't much of a deal the last leak I remember that got a scene release was probably the Doom 3 Alpha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My own adventure disabling PowerBook Password Security on an old Mac:

[https://bslabs.net/2016/01/30/disabling-powerbook- password-s...](https://bslabs.net/2016/01/30/disabling-powerbook-password- security/)

<comment><USER11> Looks like a very similar form of protection and a similar way of defeating it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Passwords like "HGFIHD" and "AAJMAKAY" look like initialisms. It might be fun to try to decode them. (xxxAKAY on a Xerox PARC disk from the 70s/80s... could it be?)

<comment><USER11> I should mention that I didn't want to leak someone's actual password (even if it's 40 years old), so I perturbed the passwords slightly. The real password doesn't exactly end in AKAY, so it's not Alan Kay. (Apologies for throwing cold water on your clever idea.)

<comment><USER12> There's a decent chance the passwords you found aren't the actual passwords either, considering how easy it is to generate collisions for the hash function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I always find security measures on old-school systems interesting. They always seem more geared towards keeping semi-honest mischief makers out than serious security. Which makes sense, based on the context of the time I guess.

IIRC, the Xerox Pilot OS was purely cooperative multitasking with a single shared address space.

</comment><comment><USER8> They should totally file for a CVE for this.

<comment><USER11> Someone needs to come up with a catchy name and a logo for this exploit.

<comment><USER14> From the article:

> This attack is called XeroDay

<comment><USER11> Yes, I updated the article based on the discussion here. But I still need a logo :-)

<comment><USER15> Ha! Great day in the morning! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When can we expect the security updates for the Alto?

</comment><comment><USER17> German IT news site heise.de posted a nice tongue-in-cheek article about the vulnerability: [https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/XeroxDay-Zero-Day- Sc...](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/XeroxDay-Zero-Day- Schwachstelle-bei-Xerox-Alto-gefunden-1elf-3934443.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> When programmers and mathematicians use the word "trivially" it really means "I'm smarter then you".

</comment><comment><USER19> > Salting passwords also protects against password attacks using precomputed > rainbow tables, but that wasn't a concern back then.

Hmm, if not to defend against rainbow tables... why were the passwords salted back then?

<comment><USER20> From the article:

 _One problem with hashed passwords is if two users have the same hash, then you know they have the same password. A solution (invented in Unix) is to hash some random bytes (called salt) along with the password to yield the stored hash. Since different users will have different salt, the hashes will be different even if the passwords are the same. (Of course you need to store the salt along with the hash in order to check passwords.) Like Unix, the Alto used salted and hashed passwords._

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Something nice to discuss at least.</comment>


Show HN: Help beta test our new app - <AUTHOR>

We're building a project manager, and would love to get your feedback early on. What's good and what sucks? What would you like to see? Would you pay for it?
http://www.siasto.com
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I tend to have... Opinions... about project and task management software. I'll be happy to give it a go and pass on any thoughts/suggestions/problems that I have through the 'feedback' option.

How would you be monetising this? A 'per seat' option, a 'per project' option, or some other way? What are you thinking of charging?

#EDIT: Also, who do you see as your main competition in this field? Who are you gunning for? What frustrations with other software/solutions drove you to build this?

<comment><USER3> Within the workspace right now you can view the paying options. We are going to be charging per project, and for space. And possibly for one or two higher value features.

Does that make sense? Interested to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I stumbled on to the payment plans. I'm not certain about the price points you've set there - it would ultimately depend on who your target audience is, and if they would be willing to pay $1200/year for 70GB storage and your current feature set (and branding, I guess).

It looks like you're trying to go after basecamp here - everything (interface wise) is as simple as possible, but it adds conversation and extra description to todos, which is an improvement over what they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My feedback: The UI is pretty clean and fast, so 8/10 for UI.

The overall features are good, not enterprise ready, but a very good start. 6/10

It will have to compete with tools like Asana, and they are really good with their project management, task management etc app. Some more innovative tools will help you.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've signed up but it seems that none of the buttons are working on the site? Seems JS is throwing some errors trying to call methods on undefined objects. <http://trickod.com/i/Personal-20120208-124103.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks pretty good for beta. I like the UI and everything seems smooth.

I'm going to try and integrate this into the project I am currently working on to see what the people I work with think of it.

Just curious, what are you using for your backend?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're using Rails and MySQL, and hosting on EC2.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the response. I was curious why you chose Angry Birds as the user photo?

<comment><AUTHOR> No particular reason other than that we're fans. The Angry Birds avatars are just temporary while we're in beta.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the lazy : <http://www.siasto.com>

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> GOOD

Great design

Great induction process

Great blank states

Invite is omnipresent which will help spread your app

BAD

Too many clicks to reach a specific project

Dashboard page is useless, show me the last workspace I visited by default

Need a better landing page to explain what is Siasto (obviously)

Overview of a project doesn't tell me about events today

Avatars on the right side of tasks seem to close to right border

Good luck with your project, it is a crowded space. I'd recommend you to focus on a specific niche.

</comment><comment><USER8> Loved the prefill with "dwight schrute"

Design is nice and clean.

I've actually used quite a few project management tools...I donno, never really satisfied with any. The truth, its hard to keep up with it. If you dont use it every day then you stop caring.

$29 for the basic is steep man. Im running a bootstrapped startup trying to save money. Why would I pay $29 for something I already do for free. Obviously that's just me.

I still like what you are doing. The functionality seems good. I would need a freemium model with a couple of free projects and eventually if I get hooked then I might buy it. But I would consider < $20.

</comment><comment><USER9> The site is absolutely beautiful! I might actually drop basecamp for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'd love to hear what you like/dislike about Basecamp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks & feels great! But have some complaints: \- I may not be affiliated with a company. That is not critical but annoying \- Tasks screen should open a new task when I click at the bottom of the tasks. It somehow is more intuitive than clicking upper right corner. \- Also Tasks should not ask me about details when I am creating them. From the meetings I've seen they are usually created in brainstorming sessions which leaves no room for detailing. Get the task, ask for details later.</comment>


How Porn Can Hijack Your Brain - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/sex/148399/how_porn_can_hijack_your_brain/?page=entire

<comment><USER2> Certainly interesting idea, but the article is way to heavy on the conjecture, with little to no facts at all.

It's great that the subject feels better--but it seems like a real stretch to me that it's all about the porn. What else are they doing with their new found porn-less time (working out, going for walks, sleeping?), and what made them come to this decision (religion, shame?).

</comment><comment><USER3> This post was right on -- been there and suffered from it. And @radioactive21 could be right -- I know some of my weaknesses that led me there, but that doesn't mean all the listed effects were any less real or damaging.

</comment><comment><USER4> Porn is only a symptom of something bigger. Just like other addictive stimuli, it only reveals something more about a person, and most likely that something else is the root cause.

</comment><comment><USER5> Poorly written and poorly substantiated crap. The author provides no references to backup her claim that "porn" is harmful, not to mention she has no relevant professional credentials. Why should I listen to what a corporate lawyer says about sex?</comment>