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The very fact we call them "containers" is due to the analogy Docker made to shipping containers.

I don't think so. I imagine it stems from the use of that term by Solaris starting in 2004:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Containers

The evolution of containers on Linux was heavily influenced by Solaris. More so than it was by BSD, from what i remember.

Whether Solaris picked up the name from an even earlier use, i don't know.

Well there you go. I remember them being almost exclusively referred to as Solaris Zones, but some Googling shows that Solaris Containers was used interchangeably as early as 2005. You're right.

However, Docker did deliberately make the shipping container analogy -- the name, the logo and the early blogposts all consciously focused on the similarity with the invention of shipping containers. So I was half-right.

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