[Infrastructure] Publish Docker Container on quay.io

[jan-janssen]

Conda-forge and bioconda seem to use https://quay.io rather than docker hub, so we should check if it makes sense to host our images on both registries and what the restrictions for the individual registries are.

[mbruns91]

I think we cannot do anything wrong with hosting images at multiple places, esp. when it might increase visibility for other communities. @jan-janssen , can you maybe tell why exactly conda-forge and bioconda prefer https://quay.io/? I'm just curious and have never heard of quay before.

When considering this, I just like to note that there are of course many more container registries out there, e.g. github packages. Github packages is actually a broader framework for hosting packages of a number of technologies . I'm mentioning this here mainly, because of it's nice integration of github actions. Also, packages will be shown right in the repository from which they are generated, which is quite nice.

[jan-janssen]

Jupyter now also publishes their images exclusively on quay: #371

[mbruns91]

We just had a quick chat about this in the infrastructure meeting.

The main benefit of moving to quay would be to have somewhat more control over the image hosting. The disadvantage is that quay is not offering free plans; the cheapest one is 15$/month.

When I see it correctly, projects like jupyter moved there, because

• docker-hub used to change policies e.g. regarding lifetime of older images in the past with bad communication to the users (basically none), leading to failing deployments. The definition of "old" was kind of arbitrary (6 months or so). Users complained and docker-hub stepped back from the new policy. (Can't find something precisely regarding jupyter right now, bit this seems to be related.)
• docker charged them without notification what made them upset. Understandable.

At this point, I don't see how quay will add value to us. Function-wise, there is no difference to using docker-hub and because we are a rather small project, I can't imagine they will suddenly charge us with fees. However, we should have an eye on this, because the company behind all of this (Docker, Inc.) seems to follow the classic tech-company approach to figure out where they can press out money: offer services for free, wait until people somewhat rely on them and then start charge fees. They also did this with docker desktop when being used non-privately or in companies above 250 employees (there are more details to this rule).

It's just an example for a "Freemium" strategy and "Bait-and-Switch" tactics¹.

I personally absolutely dislike these strategies and especially the mindsets they are coming from. So, while I would suggest we for now stick to docker-hub, we should have a close look at what docker is doing.

Footnotes

1. I don't want to user certain keywords here, but just think about who else (on the very other end of the social ladder) is using such tactics to hook up people... ↩

[jan-janssen]

As far as I see quay also offers free hosting for public repositories: https://quay.io/plans/

Can I use Quay for free? Yes! We offer unlimited storage and serving of public repositories. We strongly believe in the open source community and will do what we can to help!

[mbruns91]

Ok, we haven't looked so far down inside the text...

We need to create RedHat account for this. I have my private account, we could use it for getting started or create a pyiron account. But this has to be done by someone else, because an Email has to be provided (and verified). I'd say this should be pyiron (at) mpie (dot) de.