(I work for Docker). We will be updating the UI to show status of each image (active or inactive). We will be updating the FAQ shortly to clarify this.
Hello, I am one of the engineers on Docker Hub. If the image was ever pushed via a tag which must be the case if it was done via docker CLI then that image is never deleted (unless the tag is deleted from Hub UI and no other tag refer to it). This means if sha256:c34ce3c1fcc0c7431e1392cc3abd0dfe2192ffea1898d5250f199d3ac8d8720f was referred by latest tag which was pushed to another image sometime later then `FROM tomcat@sha256:c34ce3c1fcc0c7431e1392cc3abd0dfe2192ffea1898d5250f199d3ac8d8720f` will continue to work. Apologies for not having this documented. I'll work on getting this documented on https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/.
I whole heartedly agree with your free market solution. However, one of the concerns is that immigrants are often ready to work on lower pay just to get in the country. So, wouldn't they bring down the overall wages of these jobs and affect citizens? Are you suggesting that they would switch jobs for better pay once they move to the US in effect balancing the job market?
Just out of curiosity: how would you feel if I answered this question by using existing function [1] in stdlib? Would you consider that as (good) sign of knowing the tools or would you prefer a fresh implementation?