Legal Usage of Docker Community Edition

Docker Desktop
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1

I’m looking at Docker as a possibility for one of my projects and after reading the license I have some questions about the terms of the License.

Say I wanted to put a Docker container on computers for some data collection. I sell these computers to customers who are using my application. The Docker container sends data back to me output by my application.

Does this fall into the scope of free usage?

Could I simply install Docker CE on each computer I sell to run my container?

I know that this use case is out of the ordinary for Docker.

From reading the license I’m fairly certain this isn’t allowed with Docker CE but I want to clarify.

If this isn’t correct, what license would I need to purchase for Docker to allow me to use it this way?

2

Docker community edition is under the Apache License.

The Apache license is generally permissive and allows you to redistribute programs without have to redistribute source code. (I Am Not a Lawyer, so read up on the Apache License and see if it applies to what you want to do). If you’re using Docker on Mac/Windows, there may be additional components with additional licenses.

Also these licenses only apply to Docker itself, and not to whatever you’re going to package within your Docker container, or the base images those containers are based on.

3

Thank you very much for your response!

I will look at the Apache License in depth to be sure.