This is hands down the best news I have heard in the MS development space in a long long time.<p>We have 3 apps over 32 servers and 5 environments, and operationally it's like pulling teeth. This has the chance to change everything!
Nick Stinemates @ Docker here. I run BD/Tech Alliances. A lot of blood and sweat went in to this one! I'm here to answer any questions you may have about the announcement, the details, or anything about Docker.
Also announced by Microsoft:<p><a href="http://news.microsoft.com/2014/10/15/DockerPR/" rel="nofollow">http://news.microsoft.com/2014/10/15/DockerPR/</a><p>"Microsoft Corp. and Docker Inc., the company behind the fast-growing Docker open platform for distributed applications, on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership to provide Docker with support for new container technologies that will be delivered in a future release of Windows Server."<p>I strongly suspected that Windows Server vNext would have some sort of 'container' support after the wild success of Docker.
Reading the comments, this is the official announcement of the bifurcation of the docker ecosystem. This completely shatters docker's original promise of a universal application container. Now we will have standard gauge cars that won't run in the South. Maersk containers that can't be shipped on MSC.<p>Congratulations to MS though, I think this is a good initiative. Not sure why you even need a partnership with docker TBH as they didn't create the underlying OS technologies that make containerization possible on Linux.. But, with the acquisition of Mojang it is apparent MS is placing a lot of emphasis on acquiring mind share.
Theoretically I'm guessing this could enable multi-platform gaming? Ex: "Download this docker image, and play our game: Windows or Linux, or boot2docker Mac!"<p>Secondary, a native Darwin Docker server would be killer.<p>The mobile implications could be huge if this made it out of Windows Server.
What would a base Windows image look like, just a PowerShell prompt? How would you use the build file to install your dependencies without a package manager?
John Gossman from Microsoft here. I'm an architect on the Azure team and have been working with Nick and others from Docker. Happy to answer questions.
Great move for MS.<p>Not sure this is a good idea for Docker though. Doesn't it mean they lose their focus on Linux? Seems to complicate things a lot, and potentially introduce conflicts when prioritising what to do next. Simple is good. Serving a closed source operating system looks unwise, given the nature of their business.
This has been coming for a while, because it screams common sense..however with Microsofts previous I'm still a little surprised.<p>I wonder if Steven Sinofsky would have been game for this?<p>A lot of Windows developers use commercial Windows for development (i.e. Win7) with these features I anticipate more developers using (the more expensive) Windows Server.<p>If your build output could be a container (VS build process?) that you can ship, or as in a lot of "enterprise" organisations pass on to QA / UAT then this is a big deal and a massive huge step.
How does the licensing work for Docker (Apache2 license, i know... It's more about the pricing behind it) together with Windows? I can't seem to find any info about this. I don't assume Windows is suddenly free of charge. The Windows virtualization licensing isn't obvious anyway: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/virtualization.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/virtualiz...</a>
Things like this make me wonder if Windows (Server) ecosystem will be able to compete with Linux in long term.<p>I do realize corpo-world is filled with Windows Servers now but it seemed Linux/Docker could change this with containers as a 'standardized server app format' with super easy provisioning process.<p>Now since Windows will get more or less the same - Linux/Docker and Windows/Docker will compete on tools and raw perf.
Does this change one of the fundamental tenets of docker, namely that docker images are portable (thanks to the linux kernel providing a very high degree of backwards compatibility).<p>In order words, will there now be Windows images and Linux images, and Windows images will run on Windows hosts and Linux images on Linux hosts?
It mentions extending Docker to support numbers of distributed Docker containers. I am building a PaaS around Docker so can I get a hint how that will work? I would rather add value than duplicate an existing effort.<p>Is it something like an integration of Mesos, Fig and Docker?
I really hope this doesn't distract from Linux development - there are a number of bugs that have been hanging around for some time without updates now.
Worst news ever.<p>Docker people will spend more time fixing and making bugs due to Microsoft, the documentation will become a mess (it cant possibly be same documentation for that different systems), the Linux-side of docker will be more mediocre compared to what it could have been if all effort went to it.<p>Remember Internet Explorer 6, Visual Basic, the horror that is Excel and the whole Office suite, Asp.net, Windows Millenium, The attempt to kill Linux by Microsoft through SCO.
Microsoft is going about this the wrong way. They should adopt GNU/Linux, supporting containers, file systems, etc. as their kernel, and then add the proprietary Windows layer on top, e.g. WINE.<p>Otherwise existing Dockerfiles will not build on Windows - right?