I wonder how this will affect apps like Orbstack
My guess is that Orbstack might switch to using this, and it'll just be a more competitive space with better open source options popping up.
People still want the nice UI/UX, and this is just a Swift package.
Huh. I suppose it’s a good thing I never came around to migrating our team from docker desktop to Orbstack, even though it seems like they pioneered a lot of the Apple implementation perks…
I still haven't heard why anyone would prefer the new Apple-proprietary thing vs Orbstack. I would not hold my breath on it being better.
Wild because "Apple proprietary" is on GitHub and Orbstack is closed source but go off I guess.
You got me. It was super inaccurate to use "proprietary" here (though if i understand correctly, podman is another option that is FOSS).
License aside, though, I would still bet that relying on the Apple-specific version of something like this will cause headaches for teams unless you're operating in an environment that's all-in on Apple. Like, your CI tooling in the cloud runs on a Mac, that degree of vendor loyalty. I've never seen any shop like that.
Plus when this tooling does have interoperability bugs, I do not trust Apple to prioritize or even notice the needs of people like me, and they're the ones in charge of the releases.
If Apple is committed to containers on MacOS, it makes sense to use their implementation over a third party. They know their own platform more intimately, can push for required kernel changes internally if necessary, and will provide this feature free of charge since it's in their own interest to do so—as apparent from the fact the source is published on GitHub, under Apache.
As opposed to that, there's OrbStack, a venture-backed closed source application thriving off of user licenses, developed by a small team. As empathetic as I am with them, I know where I bet my money on in this race.
> As opposed to that, there's OrbStack, a venture-backed closed source application thriving off of user licenses, developed by a small team. As empathetic as I am with them, I know where I bet my money on in this race.
Orbstack started out as one kid with a passion for reducing the suffering of the masses, and from day 1 he was relentless about making the experience as smooth as possible, even for the weirdos like me (e.g. I have a very elaborate ssh config). He was very careful and thoughtful about choosing a monetisation model that wouldn't hinder people exactly like him - passionate hackers on a shoestring budget.
Yeah, it's now venture-backed. I'm not concerned, as long as Danny is in charge.
It's the other way around, the Apple code is FOSS, Apache 2 to be specific.
Presumably it's not as good right now but where it ends up depends entirely on Apple's motivation. When they are determined they can build very good things.
Here here .. i prefer these new built-in tools. Who cares it is proprietary open source. It works with standard OCI containers. Goodbye Docker.app
They could replace their underlying implementations with this, and for most users, they wouldn't notice the difference, other than any performance gains.