Not familiar with Solr but I believe the analogy to linux would be choosing the preferred distro while they all use the same kernel. There are a bunch of long comparison lists if you search for it.
The perspective of the OP seems to stem from not having had to deal with the
problems docker is trying to address. Most importantly it ignores the problems
that arise on any dev team that is made up by more than one person.
One can do all the things that docker does without docker, but the knowledge
needed to bring the basic features that docker does is far greater than
learning how to use docker. In fact, if you know how to build something
remotely close to docker, you'd be crazy not to use docker instead. At the very
least, docker brings along industry standard conventions, and builds a common
ground for everyone to work on without having to be onboarded on your home
brewed packaging, distribution, storage, runtime and networking solution,
regardless how simple it is.
On a side note, it seems like many trending topics on HN are heavily bashing
new technologies (see k8s, rust, clouds, etc...) that are already widely
adopted. Most communicate a resignation from learning something too complex.
Docker is not complex, k8s is not complex, rust is not complex; the problems
they are addressing are. Most teams developing things that run on the web will
have to deal with these problems hopefully before they don't make it. The rest
are wizards like the stackoverflow team.
It is a choice to buy or not buy a device from a company. In this particular case the greatest threat is that devices that were always used by powerusers, are a step away from preventing us having superuser privileges on them, and instead have a moderator like on an iDevice.
At the same time Gen Z has way more choice and exposure to "computers", so worrying about them sounds very diminishing to their prospects. Sure, adoption of computers, even if they fit your bag or your pocket, is much greater nowadays which leads to way wider range of usages, for better of for worse.
In the end same could be said about the Edison generation and electricity. In the end I barely have a clue how electricity networks operate. Can I experiment with it? Sure. Do I need to if I just want to power on my computer? No.
This is probably part of the ongoing craze and ridiculous propaganda of let's just rewrite everything in Go. And they are all headlined as "written in Go" like somehow this now just fixed everything.
The importance of archiving is huge taking in account the numerous times
libraries have been burnt, footage being lost and others parts of history being
buried into the ocean with shipwrecks.
But more importantly if one thinks of Orwell's 1984, were all printed records
were manipulated on a daily basis to reflect a different state of reality while
the events were changing, in the days of internet that is not just a tedious
sci-fi process but one that can be performed in a fairly efficient and
methodical manner to an extent that it cannot be told what was real or not.