When it's plainly outlined like that it seems that the freedom problems in Docker are the same ones encountered with GNU/Linux distributions that have proprietary packages in their package repositories and have those available by default.
Docker itself and additional software are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. The Docker Hub which stores both proprietary and free/libre packages is not free software but the underlying repository hosting/storage software is licensed under the Apache 2.0.
That means we can do what F-Droid and what free/libre repos for Ubuntu/Debian are doing and provide an alternative repository that only hosts free/libre application containers.
The system that does the packaging is Apache 2.0 licensed; GNU Guix is a better approach though but that's neither here nor there.
-rudolf
On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 5:24 AM Richard Stallman <
rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> this is the repository
> https://hub.docker.com/
> When you want to run container
> you must type docker run The container in you want to run
> docker will Download the container from the repository and run it
That means there are three different ethical issues:
* The system that does the packaging.
* What it puts into a container (aside from the program
you want to package). Of course, if you package a nonfree
program, the container will not be free. But suppose
you package a free program: is the container free?
* The repository where it stores containers.
You've just said it contains nonfree containers.
Also how are these related?
1. Do they distribute a program with which you can do
packaging on your own computer? If so, is it free?
(I expect it probably is, but I don't actually know.)
Or does packaging work as SaaSS ? See
http://gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html.
2. To run a container, are you compelled to run it from
their repository? Or is their repository merely one way
that containers can be distributed?
Thus, I wonder exactly what this means:
> you must type docker run The container in you want to run
> docker will Download the container from the repository and run it
When you say "must", is this the ONLY way to run a container,
downloaded straight from the repository? That method of distributing
them and running them is bad, because (1) if the repository contains
nonfree containers, we don't want to link to it, and (2) when users
run any program straight off someone else's server without the step of
deciding which package to install, that suppresses development and
release of other versions, and modification by the user.
--
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.