“Docker is holding us hostage here, if we don’t pay up, systems will break for many free users.”
Docker emailed every free organisation on Docker Hub: pay $420 a year or lose the account and every image in it. The open source exemption bars any “pathway to commercialization,” which rules out curl because its maintainer does consulting. Old image names keep getting thousands of pulls, and a deleted name is a gift to anyone who wants to squat it with malware. Open source made Docker Hub the default registry, and Docker is sending it the invoice.