Docker withdraws controversial fee plan and no longer cancels Free Team subscriptions

On March 15, Docker sent out an email reminder to all Docker Hub users who created “organizations” that their accounts and all images would be deleted if they did not upgrade to a paid team subscription . This has sparked criticism of all kinds, and the criticism is getting louder.

In the end, Docker couldn’t stand the pressure from the community, and apologized for its sloppy behavior on March 18 , and explained the previous email.

At that time, Docker believed that the reason for the criticism was that there was a problem with their communication with the community, their strategy was completely correct, and they would cancel the Free Team subscription as planned. Now they finally realize that both the communication method and the strategy were wrong before.

Today Docker officially issued an announcement on its official website, withdrawing its previous plan to cancel the Free Team subscription .

After listening to user feedback and consulting the community, it became clear to us that we had made the wrong decision to cancel Free Team subscriptions. Last week, we thought our communication was bad, but our policy was right. Now that it’s clear that neither our communication nor our policies were wrong , we’re officially committed to never canceling Free Team subscriptions again:

• If you’re currently using a Free Team subscription, you don’t need to migrate to another subscription before April 14th.

• Users who upgraded from a free team subscription to a paid subscription between the retirement announcement on March 14 and today’s announcement will automatically receive a full refund for the transaction within the next 30 days, which will allow them to Use their new paid subscription for free within .

• Customers who request to migrate to a Personal or Pro subscription will retain their current Free Team subscription. (Or they may choose to open a new personal or professional account through our website.)

• In the past 10 days, we have received and accepted more applications for the Docker-Sponsored Open Source program (DSOS) than last year. We encourage eligible open source projects to continue to apply, and we will process these applications within a few business days.