Hi Marc,
I cannot respond to all of your concerns.
Interesting fact about Docker! (Not free in some circumstances in near
future.)
One thing to note is that I, being such a newbie to Docker, have
actually used 'podman' more than Docker. It is a nearly drop-in
replacement for Docker (podman-docker on EL8).
It is actually easier than Docker IMO b/c you don't have to become root
or have your user added to any 'docker' group, etc. (I believe that's
actually a big motivation for the existence of podman.)
My point is that it shouldn't be too hard to work around Docker's new
limitations.
C.