CWL: Argue to CWL team to change spec to be container runtime neutral

[rstyd]

Currently, the CWL spec's container support is entirely focused on docker. I think this was reasonable at the time considering big hitters like podman/buildah were in relative infancy ~3 years ago when CWL was first developed. The landscape has changed considerably since then though. It'd be very helpful if we could convince them to generalize their container interface to use any OCI compliant runtime. I don't think it would require much work on their part other than changing the names of fields like dockerLoad and dockerImport to containerLoad and containerImport since by definition OCI runtimes work like docker. What do you all think?

[qwofford]

I think that's a good idea, maybe you could start a discussion here? https://cwl.discourse.group

I have a couple of other open discussion points that have yet to be addressed in a way that benefits us...but it sounds like @mcpherson might have another avenue to get some mods in?

"dockerImageId can't be known before dockerFile build": https://cwl.discourse.group/t/dockerimageid-can-not-be-known-before-dockerfile-build/223
"dockerFile contents vs dockerFile file": https://cwl.discourse.group/t/dockerfile-contents-vs-dockerfile-file/221/4

[pagrubel]

Currently, the CWL spec's container support is entirely focused on docker. I think this was reasonable at the time considering big hitters like podman/buildah were in relative infancy ~3 years ago when CWL was first developed. The landscape has changed considerably since then though. It'd be very helpful if we could convince them to generalize their container interface to use any OCI compliant runtime. I don't think it would require much work on their part other than changing the names of fields like dockerLoad and dockerImport to containerLoad and containerImport since by definition OCI runtimes work like docker. What do you all think?

Yes, we've discussed this and getting it in the standard would be a good idea.

[qwofford]

Update on the dockerImageId:

• Crusoe told me to file an issue: https://cwl.discourse.group/t/dockerimageid-can-not-be-known-before-dockerfile-build/223
• The issue I filed: rename/alias dockerImageId to dockerImageName common-workflow-language/common-workflow-language#922

[qwofford]

No updates on dockerFile content issue, so I pinged them:

• https://cwl.discourse.group/t/dockerfile-contents-vs-dockerfile-file/221/5

[pagrubel]

@Boogie3D This issue is old but relevant to collaborating on the standard, getting BEE as an implementation is more important and adding some of our extensions.

[mr-c]

Yes, it would be great to merge more of your extensions into CWL!

FYI, CWL has always been neutral on the software container runtime; just that the format for the container is the Docker format. Various CWL implementations use podman, apptainer, singularity, udocker, etc.. and pass all the CWL conformance tests.

[pagrubel]

@mr-c Thank you for your input we do have this on our to do list.