The doublespeak here is that you say you would welcome a patch if it was "properly implemented", but then it turns out you mean "if it does ACLs and does not replace the default registry". You claim this is for the good of the users, but actually users are asking for the ability to replace the registry, and the primary beneficiary of this policy is the Docker Registry. You only want to disallow access to the registry if it provides an error message that places the blame on the administrator, so that in practice their users demand they turn it back on.
Anyway, I think it's clear that the patch that users want isn't welcome, so I won't be wasting any further time on it.
I think the problem is that we are talking about 2 different things. You want to access a particular piece of content without being forced to connect to a particular server. I want to avoid the same name designating completely different pieces of content depending on factors outside the control of the end user.
These are both good goals. It's possible to reach both. I just want to make sure we don't sacrifice one for the other.
> the primary beneficiary of this policy is the Docker Registry
That makes no sense. When you download an official image from Docker Hub's servers, you are not charged in any way, and you are not required to create an account. The hosting and bandwidth costs are enormous, and there is no business benefit. The only reason the Hub hosts these images is because it improves the experience of using Docker, which in turn creates a larger market of Docker users to sell various services to. It is absolutely in the company's interest to allow for mirroring of the standard library, so that the burden of storing and distributing it is spread out across the ecosystem, and the company can focus more resources on things it can actually sell. It is also in the community's interest, because official images maintained by open-source maintainers shouldn't become unavailable if Docker Hub goes down, for example.
> I think it's clear that the patch that users want isn't welcome
Respectfully, it would be more intellectually honest of you to talk about the patch that you want. Just because you happen to have a soapbox on this forum doesn't make you a representative of "the Docker users", and it doesn't bless you with any particular insight on what they want collectively. That is a rather large group of people.
