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Would you be ok with a policy of: > We don't delete repos unless explicitly requested by law enforcement or a DMCA takedown notice. What you said could be int

• sytse 11y ago
  In case this is the policy it would mean we could not delete something like revenge porn ourselves, we would first have to wait for a takedown notice. I don't want to host content like that https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  • exstudent2 11y ago
    That's why I don't want to do business with you. We already have a legal system to judge these things. GitLab doesn't need to take that on. Also, the GG repo had nothing to do with revenge porn. My initial post was promoting GitLab. I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing that anymore.
    • sytse 11y ago
      The legal system is not instant nor perfect.
      • exstudent2 11y ago
        GitLab can do better? What jury decided to take down the GG repo? What checks and balances were in place? You're free to run your company as you see fit but a non-trivial amount of people do care strongly about free speech and due process.
        • sytse 11y ago
          How many major platforms only take down content based on takedown requests and not by their own initiative? We care deeply about free speech too, but please get your own server https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
          • Globrazu 11y ago
            http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ If you are legally required to take something down it is kind of different from when you freely choose to do so because you find the content objectionable on ideological grounds. In this case you decided to act against the principles of free speech and network neutrality of your own free will. Some for instance (GitHub, BitBucket, Google Code) also decided to remove the satirical "C+=" repo from their service, you didn't: https://gitlab.com/femsf/c-plus-equality https://gitlab.com/femsf/c-plus-equality For interested parties, there is actually a server that has existed for a while, but this is mostly about the choices you make as a company in the wake of GitHub deleting repos over the use of the word "retarded" and employing an intentionally discriminatory Code of Conduct: https://gitgud.io/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master https://gitgud.io/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master Nobody is arguing this isn't your right as a company, they are just questioning your judgment and reason and if their projects are safe with a company that will remove something that doesn't intellectually agree with the political stance of its CEO. All these people you saw surging to your service the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003334 Most of them don't want to deal with the volatility of a professional environment where someone just has to be "offended" and their work could be arbitrarily pulled.
            • carlosthejackal 11y ago
              Completely agree with this. If Gitlab is not willing to have a clear policy regarding takedowns I will never be a customer. I paid for Github service for years and pulled my stuff once they decided to get political. I really wanted to like Gitlab but a "case-by-case" policy basically means "whatever we feel like," and that is not an acceptable standard for something as important as my work.
  • nadams 11y ago
    > In case this is the policy it would mean we could not delete something like revenge porn ourselves I could argue either way (I'm a bit of a philosopher that way...). It all depends on how you want to run your service. Do you want a reddit-free-for-all-wild-west or do you want to keep it PG-13? Either way - it should be clearly defined where you stand and what you allow/don't allow. Making it a guessing game isn't going to win you any fans.
    • sytse 11y ago
      We make decisions on a case by case basis and people can judge for themselves if they think it is reasonable. Clearly defining where you stand is very hard, and we don't think we'll do a good job at it. Giving a definition and then backtracking won't win us any fans either. Anyway, it will be more PG-13 than the old Reddit.
      • ForlorneHopes 11y ago
        Under a case by case basis I cannot read the rules and know that my repository won't be deleted by gitlab at some point in the future. Why would I ever consider trust gitlab with data vital to the future of my company without that certainty?
        • sytse 11y ago
          We'll never delete data, we will make the repositories private. You will have to move your public project elsewhere. For significant projects we're open to making it public when you've replaced the repo with one announcing the new location.
  • ForlorneHopes 11y ago
    That XKCD is one of the worst strawman arguments I've ever seen. Freedom of Speech is not a law, and it's certainly not just a law found in one single document that applies to the United States. Here's what the United Nation's Universal Deceleration of Human Rights says: > Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Not one word there refers to governments. The true purpose of freedom of speech is to protect people from the consequences of their speech, because those consequences serve to silence unpopular ideas. Remember that historically unpopular ideas have included freedom of religion, African American civil rights, alternative sexualities, and even heliocentricism.
    • wisty 11y ago
      It depends on how you interpret the XKCD comic. It often gets used to argue "institutions have the moral right to block people if they have unpopular opinions", which goes against the spirit of free speech (even if it's not illegal). I don't know if that's it's original intent - it might just mean "You can't claim you have a constitutional right to swear at people on my forum". A public forum (which GitLab isn't - it's a place for code more than politics) that doesn't allow civil discussion of on-topic ideas is arguably a bad thing. From On Liberty, by JS Mill: > If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. Of course, Mill assumed that most people are capable of rational thought, and would generally move towards a more correct view of the world when exposed to a marketplace of ideas. The internet doesn't always work like that. However, the alternative to "free speech" is echo chambers, which is probably worse. But I don't see why GitLab has any real responsibility to allow stuff that's not code (or is just joke code) - it's not a really a marketplace of ideas, it's a place to share code. And given GitLab has a FOSS version, yes, people can get their own server.
• exstudent2 11y ago
  > We don't delete repos unless explicitly requested by law enforcement or a DMCA takedown notice. Yes, this policy sounds great to me.