28 ms·

Lerna relicences to protest ICE

143 points by wwwigham 8y ago

eindiran 8y ago
I'd be very happy if someone could present a counter argument to this: this is something expressly against the spirit of the MIT license and Lerna should not continue claiming that the software is MIT licensed. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd In particular, this seems like a pretty explicit violation of the "no discrimination against field of endeavor" clause. Here is the text of the MIT license: " Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. "
- bdhess 8y ago
  I don’t think there is a reasonable counter argument. It’s not a free license, for the same reason the JSON license isn’t. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON
  - TD-Linux 8y ago
    It's not an Open Source license either, violating criteria 5 and 6 of the definition. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
- roblabla 8y ago
  It's still the MIT license for other people though. Licenses are a contract between a licensor and and a licensee. OSS requires the Licensor to provides the license in a non-discriminating way, and some licenses, like the GPL, explicitly enforce this. But the MIT license itself has no such provision. You could license a project with MIT to user A, and not to user B. This is all just rule-bending though. I'm very conflicted on this issue. On one part, I agree with the sentiment that this is against the spirit of open source. On the other hand, I do like to see the software community taking a political stance, and using action in an attempt to enact change, on such issues.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    It's not the MIT license for other people if it doesn't allow those other people to distribute it as they choose (including giving it to ICE).
    - bdhess 8y ago
      Strangely, ICE itself isn’t on their list.
  - jdminhbg 8y ago
    > It's still the MIT license for other people though. But doesn't that imply that other people could redistribute to any of the companies on the list? So it's either not MIT, or it's pointless.
  - vsl 8y ago
    "MIT license for other people" is not the MIT license. It's no longer Open Source.
- chomp 8y ago
  MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit. EDIT: Thought about this on the way into work. The MIT license is only applied to code contributions once the code is "at rest" after merge. Permission is then granted for anyone "obtaining a copy" of the software. The repo maintainers claim that they are obtaining a copy of the software, but it looks like this isn't a copy, it's the original. I wonder if the contributors really do have legal recourse.
  - dplgk 8y ago
    Is it politics when human rights are violated? I don't think it's "politics" to oppose children separated from their parents.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Is it politics when human rights are violated? Absolutely. The most important politics. Of course, using “politics” as a dismissal of importance is only a technique to protect the political status quo from a challenge one cannot otherwise defend against.
      - aeorgnoieang 8y ago
        I think there's a legitimate desire in wanting to avoid "politics". It's a more specific instance of avoiding the trap described by 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Here's a good Tumblr post to which I linked earlier today in a similar HN thread: - [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...](https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism... https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism...)
        dplgk 8y ago
        All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or something), right? So some politics are a pinch or a slap but others are a hammer to the head. What's wrong with taking a stance about, for example, children in cages? This isn't just a protest over whether trickle down works or if taxes are too high/low.
- lliamander 8y ago
  A explanation for why carving out exceptions for evil people in open source licenses ultimately harms the ecosystem: - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 - https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html
CaliforniaKarl 8y ago
This is an amazing thing to do, but I have one concern. My straight reading of the new license file makes me that, assuming I am not related to any of the entities listed (or their subsidiaries), then the license I am bound by is the license titled "MIT License". I bring that up, because the MIT License says I need to preserve only the copyright notice (the first line of the file, as per https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf), and "this permission notice". I could see someone arguing that "this permission notice" begins where it says "MIT License". The annoying thing is, I don't have an explicit definition for "permission notice" (for example, I searched on https://dictionary.findlaw.com https://dictionary.findlaw.com but didn't find anything). I could devils-advocate argue that the 'permission notice' starts where it says "MIT License". Taking that argument, if I _really_ wanted to get this to one of the entities listed, I would make a new distribution of the software, consisting of just the copyright statement and MIT License, which I would then distribute to the entity. Yeah, it's definitely a reach, I'm just bringing this up to say that craft people who wanted to may find an opening to exploit here, so some fine-tuning may be warranted! P.S. I'm also a little concerned about replacing "2015-2017" with "2015-present", partially because 'present' isn't a year, and partially because, when development stops (as all things in time eventually become dormant), this could be viewed (especially when looked at in isolation) as an attempt at overreach.
mberning 8y ago
This is a ridiculous thing to put in a software license and a completely toxic subject in general.
- D3vMn9r 8y ago
  Yea, these people have no culture of a political protest. Kids... Take your political concerns to your congressman / senator, leave your political views outside the door of your office. Anyways, they will learn
  - astronautjones 8y ago
    Can't wait for the day VC gets into spines
- mirimir 8y ago
  > completely toxic subject I agree about "completely toxic". But it's the policy that's completely toxic, not the subject. I mean, separating babies from their parents? That is just fucking insane.
  - hueving 8y ago
    Yes, when you phrase something without context it's easy to make it sound insane. When you include the context where they need to verify that it's not human trafficking and that children are separated from their parents every day when the parents are arrested for any other crime, it's not quite as insane.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      That sounds plausible. Except that this is happening on a much larger scale than your examples. And they're keeping families separated for months. Edit: And what really freaks me about this is what's likely over the next few decades. As global climate change disrupts marginal economies, and migration volumes increase hugely. We're basically looking at concentration camps. Edit: Some prisons now allow mothers to keep their children.
ggreer 8y ago
How can they change the license without getting the approval of everyone who contributed code? It doesn't look like they required contributors to sign CLAs.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  MIT allows sublicensing explicitly. It's why you can include MIT licensed code in proprietary software, something that the GPL is designed to prevent. What you can't do is retroactively apply this to old code. The named entities could use older versions of the code, but in newer versions the new license would apply.
  - negativegate 8y ago
    What stops someone from forking it and re-sublicensing it back to vanilla MIT?
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      IANAL, but I believe that a sub-license has to be more restrictive than the parent license.
    - sieabah 8y ago
      Nothing :D https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource
dragontamer 8y ago
This is fundamentally anti-free software and completely against the point of the MIT License. If you want control over your code, you should use your powers of copyright more carefully. EDIT: In particular, whats to stop ME from grabbing the code, and then giving it to Microsoft? What prevents a particular individual AT Microsoft from downloading and using your code? And what enforcement mechanism do you plan if you ever discover that Microsoft is using your code? There are all sorts of questions and contradictions. I don't think this works.
- evil-olive 8y ago
  > In particular, whats to stop ME from grabbing the code, and then giving it to Microsoft? IANAL, but this other part of the MIT License [0] would require you to include the restriction in the copy you give to Microsoft, wouldn't it? > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. > what enforcement mechanism do you plan if you ever discover that Microsoft is using your code? I suspect the idea is, if this restriction is used widely enough, Microsoft themselves will have their legal department be sure to restrict usage of the given packages purely as a CYA move. Similar to how so many companies are allergic to the AGPL. 0: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    IANAL either. But... > Permission is hereby granted, to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software I mean, I've seen successful copyleft done before (ex: GPL). Generally speaking, you start by using a copyleft license as a base... unless you have lawyers of your own to do it correctly for you. An MIT license is incredibly free, basically one step away from public domain. I apparently have the right to modify and sublicense Lerna. So... I could in theory, provide "Dragontamer Lerna" to Microsoft. Again, IANAL, but these are the reasons why GNU worked very hard on their copyleft license. > I suspect the idea is, if this restriction is used widely enough, Microsoft themselves will have their legal department be sure to restrict usage of the given packages purely as a CYA move. Similar to how so many companies are allergic to the AGPL. But AGPL is at least copyleft and "legally viral" in nature. I'm not sure if MIT is a viral license.
Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
As usual, this is only valid if every contributor has agreed to the relicensing. Otherwise the project maintainers are infringing the copyright of the contributors by violating the license granted to them by each contributor. I see this all too frequently. It's scary the legal recourse people open themselves up to by not understanding licensing. That aside, I know very little about these companies involvement in "ICE" and there's no references given. I imagine there are others like me who would like to better understand the situation.
- evil-olive 8y ago
  > I know very little about these companies involvement in "ICE" and there's no references given. Here's a few sources: Microsoft employees call on company to cancel contract with ICE: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-employees-call-on-company-to-cancel-contract-with-ice/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-em... Amazon employees demand company cut ties with ICE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/22/amazon-employees-demand-company-cut-ties-with-ice/?utm_term=.71ed66103e0b https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/22... Tech companies quietly work with ICE as border crisis persists: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-companies-quietly-work-ice-border-crisis-continues-n885176 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-companies-quietl... 15 Organizations Doing Business With ICE — and How Much They’re Making: http://time.com/money/5318933/organizations-doing-business-with-ice/ http://time.com/money/5318933/organizations-doing-business-w... If you were inclined to draw a very unfavorable comparison, many otherwise neutral companies did business with Nazi Germany. IBM was contracted to help with the German census, which then lead directly to roundups of Jews and the Holocaust: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers...
  - Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to collate these for me. Very much appreciated.
- TD-Linux 8y ago
wemdyjreichert 8y ago
Regarless of your views on ICE, this doesn't punish those execs which choose to work with them. Normal devs now have to learn/use something else. This also goes against the principles of open source.
- audiolion 8y ago
  definitely will cause developer pain. We are already seeing issues being closed in typescript related to monorepo and lerna support. [1] I think that if other repositories follow suit, imagine Babel doing something similar, it could cause a stir for execs, but until the cost to the company is greater than their business with the U.S. Govt it wont stop, and there will be a lot of crap before we get to that point. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/25376#issuecomment-416795555 https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/25376#issueco...
- village-idiot 8y ago
  While I'm sympathetic to the argument that this won't actually accomplish much, protests always cause inconvenience for non-involved parties, that's kind of the point. A protest that doesn't cause disruption and get attention tends to get ignored.
burfog 8y ago
Well, this can't be in Debian or OpenBSD. I like OpenBSD maintainer Theo de Raadt's take on the matter. He allows usage in baby mulching machines and usage for dropping atomic bombs on Australia: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Theo_de_Raadt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Theo_de_Raadt
- exogen 8y ago
  And? So what? OSI approved licenses are particular ends to particular means. They are not the only ends to the only means. Theo de Raadt's take isn't automatically morally righteous. Honestly, it just sounds like a nineteen year old libertarian thinking "a-ha! everyone should just be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others! it's so simple, we've figured it all out!" Some people want a better world, not just a more permissive one. Sometimes those things overlap! But not always.
  - nameiscubanpete 8y ago
    Check out Stallmans argument. He ends up at the same place as Theo, but goes into the why's: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...
jancsika 8y ago
This is about as effective as ripping an arm off your shirt and throwing it in the vicinity of an ICE agent. The result of that effort will be a day fielding questions from everyone but ICE about what the heck is wrong with your shirt.
- augbog 8y ago
  The main goal is less to hurt the companies that are supporting ICE by not allowing them to use an open source project, but actually bring a lot more awareness that these companies DO IN FACT support ICE. I had no idea Palantir was working on the technology to help deport people https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-donald-trumps-deportation-machine/ https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-en...
  - jancsika 8y ago
    I'm honestly glad you are now aware of that fact. Now that we are both aware, let's talk about their license. Is it now a non-free license? How does it affect their current non-Palantir user base? Is it enforceable? Was it meant to be enforceable? Are there ways in which a license written by people who aren't themselves lawyers can come back to bite them? This entire digression goes away completely if they put the relevant information nearly anywhere else. Their front page, README.md, change log, etc. Hell, they could even put it as a "did you know" comment in the body of the code. They could do any or all of them and get just as much or more notoriety as they did by ruining their open source/free software compatible license.
    - jsgo 8y ago
      part that gives me pause, even though I'm 100% okay with being against the current policy of separation: what next? Totally silly, but what if it comes out that some food company is engaging in behavior that is deemed immoral. Lerna then tacks that onto the next revision of itself. But I, myself, really like food company's product and don't feel the controversy is warranted. Then what? I understand the motivation with wanting to protest in the best way you can, but I think in this case, it is going to do more harm than good.
aeneasmackenzie 8y ago
Pointless. Here's a version without the restrictions: https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c3579960032091643b9d12fd41e5 https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c35799600320...
75dvtwin 8y ago
very unfortunate to have this in the license. I guess in the future, we will use our selective outrage, to decide which formulas / research work can be used and by whom. Jamie Build is welcome to establish charity organization to help, whoever he believes the victims are. Given current practice of economic prosecution of conservative voices, Technology folks who would choose voice their support for Trumps administration, ICE, etc -- would end up loosing their jobs in the tech sector. Just like what happened to javascript creator, Brendan Eich [1]. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozilla-ceo-resignation-free-speech/7328759/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozill...
- jasonlotito 8y ago
  > Given current practice of economic prosecution of conservative voices, Technology folks who would choose voice their support for Trumps administration, ICE, etc -- would end up loosing their jobs in the tech sector. This is false. > Just like what happened to javascript creator, Brendan Eich [1]. This is you rewriting history to suit your agenda. This is literally not what happened. Your source does not in any way back up your statement.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I'm getting tired of bigots crying about censorship right around the point where they face consequences for being bigots.
  - 75dvtwin 8y ago
    Sorry you are getting tired. I am sure this debate will continue. Some would view that, not recognizing Jaime Demor, Brendan Eich as victims of blatant economic prosecution of free speech and political affiliation, -- is being, at least, tone-deaf. I am sure, that US courts will end up testing , whether this type of organized economic prosecution of Free Speech and political affiliations, is legal or not. Sooner, rather than later.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nerdponx 8y ago
It's a nice idea. But I still pay taxes in the US. Does that make me an ICE collaborator?
- javver 8y ago
  There is likely a difference to be made between willing and unwilling collaborators. The companies in the list don't face fines and jail time for not having contracts with ICE.
EdSharkey 8y ago
Just change the license to closed source and start charging for licenses from the companies you want to do business with so I have an excuse to spend the time ripping your shark-jumping software out of my build.
jordigh 8y ago
This kind of thing is old hat. It comes up from time to time. rms has written about it a couple of times. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... His basic argument is that it would achieve nothing because such restrictions based on copyright law are likely unenforcible. It just makes the software pointlessly non-free.
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
Slightly off-topic, but: anyone know where I can find a solid debate / discussion on the political issues raised by illegal immigration in the U.S.? My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.
- mirimir 8y ago
  The key issue isn't allowing or not allowing illegal immigration. It's about how supposedly illegal immigrants are treated.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  I don't know a good resource but I think it largely comes down to how you see someone who commits a crime or breaks a rule. People on the right tend to see everyone as capable of following all the rules. To break them is a clear choice which has consequences. People who break the law or rules suffer from a character flaw. If a lot of people are breaking the law or a rule then there is some moral breakdown in society or a failure to enforce the law. People on the left tend to see breaking the law or rules as a natural consequence of ones needs. If a lot of people are breaking a law then there is something wrong v with that law or the systems around it. People on the right basically have faith in laws, law enforcement and are skeptical of the motives of law/rule breakers. People on the left basically have faith in people and their reasons for breaking laws/rules and the circumstances around their act. They are skeptical of law enforcement. Edit: I realize I failed to connect this to illegal immigration. So someone on the left will say, "this person crossed illegally or overstayed their visa for some good reason. So many people are doing so because the system or laws are cutting too strongly against human needs/nature. Whereas someone on the right will say. This person broke the immigration laws out due to a lack of character, ie. they didn't have the patience to wait or they have some I'll intent. Regardless, they've shown a lack of character, there should be consequences and we don't want flawed people here anyway. So in this regard is comes down to what you think law/rule breaking says about someone's integrity or nature.
  - hippich 8y ago
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
1. Put said line in license: The following license shall not be granted to the following entities or any subsidiary thereof due to their collaboration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE").... 2. Hosts said code on Github 3. Github is owned fully by Microsoft 4. Repo invalidates itself due to using free goods paid in part by ICE, thereby becoming a subsidiary.
- Gaelan 8y ago
  Pretty sure that's not what "subsidiary" means legally. (IANAL)
- exogen 8y ago
  sub·sid·i·ar·y /səbˈsidēˌerē/ a company controlled by a holding company.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    honestly, im not exactly sure how that would work since the GH license does allow them complete nontransferrable ownership of code you keep there. it'd certainly be one for the courts to decide. that is, if this little stunt doesn't kill this repo and this branch.
    - exogen 8y ago
      GitHub absolutely does not require that. If GitHub required you to grant them nontransferrable ownership of code hosted there, that would be insane and nobody would use it. Thankfully it's much more reasonable. :) Here's what GitHub actually says: > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service. This includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. > This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content or otherwise distribute or use it outside of our provision of the Service.
Waterluvian 8y ago
Licenses aren't retroactive, right? The commit just before that one is still the previous license and could be forked from?
- diegorbaquero 8y ago
  Yes
freditup 8y ago
I wonder if the companies mentioned will cease to use lerna or cease to update lerna? Or if they'll just ignore the clause since the likelihood of any meaningful enforcement is about zero? For example, I checked the top two companies on the list and both Microsoft [0] and Palantir [1] are using lerna currently. [0]: https://github.com/Microsoft/fast-dna/blob/705cb008a59efb4d8c905f4939be66798c88d2fd/package.json#L21 https://github.com/Microsoft/fast-dna/blob/705cb008a59efb4d8... [1]: https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f7330b995a2564936bde6aa757c/package.json#L56 https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f733...
Waterluvian 8y ago
I use BlueprintJS a lot. And about a year into use I realised that "Palantir" is apparently a company people don't like. All I could think about is how this might become a nuisance if a colleague or customer decides they're going to be political about it. These moves are frustrating. I just want to make neat stuff. I don't want to get involved in the politics of a country I have no interest in.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Trying to keep politics out of things isn't apolitical, it's the politics of status quo.
  - aeorgnoieang 8y ago
    Perhaps you're failing to properly appreciate how wonderful the status quo actually is because you're comparing it to a fantasy instead of plausible alternatives. I don't know your specific politics but I bet you don't constantly find ways to inject it into every conversation and every relationship.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Holy strawman Batman!
- mindcrash 8y ago
  Well the sad thing about this is that Palantir is actually doing some very good things with Lerna, Babel and Yarn and they tried to explain that... ...BUT SOME PEOPLE ALREADY MADE UP THEIR MIND AND JUST REFUSE TO LISTEN TO ANY REASON. Do you want to hear what Palantir is ACTUALLY doing using these tools? Here you go: "[...]We appreciate your concerns based on the article you linked to. We would like to clarify that Palantir's contracts are with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the ICE directorate responsible for investigating serious transnational criminal activity such as human trafficking, child exploitation, and counter-terrorism as opposed to the activities theorized in the article. We're happy to discuss your concerns in person if you're interested, please get in touch." https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870 https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870 TL;DR: Palantir is helping the HSI unit within ICE to FIGHT CHILD ABUSE, STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND STOP TERRORISM. Now can anyone explain to me what is so terribly wrong and evil about THAT? Anyone???
mirimir 8y ago
Also see https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice
voidr 8y ago
It would be really funny if at least one of the following would happen: - the companies on the list would band together and fork lerna - one of the projects that lerna depends on would tell them that they are no longer welcome to use their code because they hold the opposite belief - the lerna community to implode because maybe not all the 169 contributors hold the same political position Mixing software with politics never ends well in a democracy.
- exogen 8y ago
  Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support? > Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent society where software users can help each other, and to have control over their computers. Choosing an open source license itself has political implications and moral reasoning behind it, at least historically. People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed. It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance.
  - voidr 8y ago
    The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse. There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system. > It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance. How is me making my code public to anyone regardless of beliefs a political act? What is political in your mind? > People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed. You would need to prove your claim that "politics was already in software" before you get to call everyone who disagrees with you "uninformed". It's also not nice to attack the people making the arguments instead of attacking their arguments.
    - 8y ago
yellowapple 8y ago
So, if I'm understanding this correctly: - Lerna is no longer free software (per the FSF's definitions) or open source software (per the OSI's definitions), so calling it "open source" is inaccurate - Lerna is effectively illegal to host on GitHub, since its license terms prevent GitHub's parent company (Microsoft) from being able to legally distribute it in source form - Lerna probably can't relicense anyway without explicit consent from all contributors, since there was no CLA establishing copyright assignment
- village-idiot 8y ago
  That last bit is not true. MIT allows sublicensing.
- mikl 8y ago
  Yeah, I can’t see how Github can host Lerna with this license, since Github is clearly “any subsidiary thereof”.
village-idiot 8y ago
It's distressing how many people seem to be either fine with, or active apologists for child abuse so long as it's done to immigrants.
- nubianwarrior 8y ago
  As someone who grew up on both sides of the border it's created a new weight in my gut and every situation is always awkward now. But I am lucky, I am a citizen. I can't even begin to try and understand the trauma these families go through...
augbog 8y ago
Don't worry Microsoft has their own fork of lerna anyways lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257
- bb010g 8y ago
  …did you read through the issue [1] linked in the first comment there? Nobody could actually find evidence that Rush was a fork. Thanks for bringing up a libre Lerna alternative, though. [1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/web-build-tools/issues/673 https://github.com/Microsoft/web-build-tools/issues/673
  - augbog 8y ago
    For people who missed it, Microsoft didn't actually fork Lerna and potentially copy-pasted the code. https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696931527700481 https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696931527700481 And quite honestly yeah I read that Github issue. Hard for me to believe they would just be like "OH YEAH WE COPIED SORRY ABOUT THAT!"
    - rotred 8y ago
      > 30 separate tweets in a row trying to explain something Twitter is definitely not a good platform for something like this
alanh 8y ago
I’m just here to point out that this boneheaded effort makes no effort to solve for the following cases: - Companies becoming “collaborators” in the future - Companies that are on the list ceasing “collaboration” with ICE The latter is especially dumb when you figure it is the exact outcome this move is trying to inspire. This leaves aside more fundamental questions of enforceability and so forth.
nathan_long 8y ago
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, not wanting your work to be used for purposes you deem evil seems commendable. On the other hand, imagine how a trend of this could look. Library X is off-limits for companies doing GMO. Library Y is off-limits for advertising companies. Database X can't be used by anyone who contracts with the defense department. And the restrictions are updated as various issues come into the news. In that case, using open source would suddenly be very risky. What if your company is deemed bad by someone who makes something you depend on? The rational move would be to use proprietary software, whose standard is "whoever pays us".
- sieabah 8y ago
  And thus you see the issue... Open source isn't open source if your beliefs of who uses the projects are involved.
jsgo 8y ago
Remember when people were apprehensive about using React because Facebook might weaponize your usage of it? This project is explicitly stating it can: you might not be on this list today, but there's nothing preventing you from being on it tomorrow. So do you want to commit to integrating it to your stack? While I'm not against their stance at all (at the end of the day, they've gotta do what is going to help them sleep at night and if it is barring the usage of their software, so be it), I really worry about the possibility of this becoming prevalent. What happens if libraries start restricting usage if you support the work of ACLU or Planned Parenthood or any other number of things? Now, I may be able to work with a specific library because I check the right boxes. But what if a collaborator can't because they'd violate it? This just feels like a slippery slope leading to a net negative for everyone
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Indeed. I'll stick with unadulterated Open Source Definition licenses. I know those; I know how to integrate; I know how to comply. They're known entities, and licensing is well aware how and what they are used for. This tirefire of a license is untested and a "Social Justice of the Week". Frankly, the further I am away from the likes of these, the better. I also greatly appreciate what Stallman said, here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... " There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music. " - RMS
- andrew_ 8y ago
  The author of that change follows the same pattern in nearly every project found on their Github account, and many that they contribute to: MIT licenses with added prohibitions targeting specific groups. Disturbing and toxic to say the least.
mikequeue 8y ago
James Kyle who did that license change is one of the biggest attention seeker in open source. He is jubilating right now on Twitter and it looks like he got what he wanted as Vice wants to interview him https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034883723273990144 https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034883723273990144 James also though he likes to lecture people is also one of the biggest bully in open source, even the creator of Ember called him out https://twitter.com/tomdale/status/937618418471198720 https://twitter.com/tomdale/status/937618418471198720 Let's not give this toxic person more attention. As for the license change, it is useless as it is already being forked. Also, if we are going to ban every company that does business with evil government institutions, there would be no one left to use the software. This just looks like what a 12 year old would do, James is kind of too old for these kind of things. Oh well.
sbr464 8y ago
1 point by sbr464 3 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete [-] | on: Lerna adds clause to MIT license blocking certain ... I respect their decision and rights, but I don't really understand this move. I also believe this sets a dangerous potential pattern within the developer community. I personally don't agree with certain statements/immigration/ICE etc. but I'm more put back by this. Coding is becoming easier and will increasingly include more of the general population (which is a good thing). This means it's about to become much more diverse in regards to religion, political beliefs, personal morals, citizenship, etc. I don't mean this in the political/philosophical sense. I mean soon people will start showing up in Github/twitter comments, contributing pull requests, with a genuine interest about coding, who look like people you personally dislike. Maybe they are wearing a Trump t-shirt in their profile photo, but their code is great. Are you going to reject their pull request or ignore their comments? Governments & company policies change frequently. There's also an unlimited combination of potential beliefs, moral stances, crimes by an unlimited number of people and companies. At what point would you decide to add or remove amendments to your license? I also feel it's hypocritical to use a product owned by Microsoft (github), while calling them out in your license by name. I mean, are you protesting Microsoft or aren't you? How do you know that an upstream dependency you are benefitting from wasn't created by one of these companies? To highlight the humor of this line of thinking, why not block oppressive regimes, serial killers (>= 6 people, <6 are ok), certain religious groups with worse principals than ICE?
jymbo 8y ago
So I heard ICE forked lerna...
aphelion 8y ago
Passing over the politics of this decision, is there any plausible outcome that doesn't involve every organization with any sense at all forking or abandoning Lerna?

143 points by wwwigham 8y ago

I'd be very happy if someone could present a counter argument to this: this is something expressly against the spirit of the MIT license and Lerna should not continue claiming that the software is MIT licensed. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd In particular, this seems like a pretty explicit violation of the "no discrimination against field of endeavor" clause. Here is the text of the MIT license: " Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. "

bdhess 8y ago
I don’t think there is a reasonable counter argument. It’s not a free license, for the same reason the JSON license isn’t. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON
- TD-Linux 8y ago
  It's not an Open Source license either, violating criteria 5 and 6 of the definition. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
roblabla 8y ago
It's still the MIT license for other people though. Licenses are a contract between a licensor and and a licensee. OSS requires the Licensor to provides the license in a non-discriminating way, and some licenses, like the GPL, explicitly enforce this. But the MIT license itself has no such provision. You could license a project with MIT to user A, and not to user B. This is all just rule-bending though. I'm very conflicted on this issue. On one part, I agree with the sentiment that this is against the spirit of open source. On the other hand, I do like to see the software community taking a political stance, and using action in an attempt to enact change, on such issues.
- leereeves 8y ago
  It's not the MIT license for other people if it doesn't allow those other people to distribute it as they choose (including giving it to ICE).
  - bdhess 8y ago
    Strangely, ICE itself isn’t on their list.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  > It's still the MIT license for other people though. But doesn't that imply that other people could redistribute to any of the companies on the list? So it's either not MIT, or it's pointless.
- vsl 8y ago
  "MIT license for other people" is not the MIT license. It's no longer Open Source.
chomp 8y ago
MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit. EDIT: Thought about this on the way into work. The MIT license is only applied to code contributions once the code is "at rest" after merge. Permission is then granted for anyone "obtaining a copy" of the software. The repo maintainers claim that they are obtaining a copy of the software, but it looks like this isn't a copy, it's the original. I wonder if the contributors really do have legal recourse.
- dplgk 8y ago
  Is it politics when human rights are violated? I don't think it's "politics" to oppose children separated from their parents.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Is it politics when human rights are violated? Absolutely. The most important politics. Of course, using “politics” as a dismissal of importance is only a technique to protect the political status quo from a challenge one cannot otherwise defend against.
    - aeorgnoieang 8y ago
      I think there's a legitimate desire in wanting to avoid "politics". It's a more specific instance of avoiding the trap described by 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Here's a good Tumblr post to which I linked earlier today in a similar HN thread: - [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...](https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism... https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism...)
      - dplgk 8y ago
        All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or something), right? So some politics are a pinch or a slap but others are a hammer to the head. What's wrong with taking a stance about, for example, children in cages? This isn't just a protest over whether trickle down works or if taxes are too high/low.
lliamander 8y ago
A explanation for why carving out exceptions for evil people in open source licenses ultimately harms the ecosystem: - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 - https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html

CaliforniaKarl 8y ago

This is an amazing thing to do, but I have one concern. My straight reading of the new license file makes me that, assuming I am not related to any of the entities listed (or their subsidiaries), then the license I am bound by is the license titled "MIT License". I bring that up, because the MIT License says I need to preserve only the copyright notice (the first line of the file, as per https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf), and "this permission notice". I could see someone arguing that "this permission notice" begins where it says "MIT License". The annoying thing is, I don't have an explicit definition for "permission notice" (for example, I searched on https://dictionary.findlaw.com https://dictionary.findlaw.com but didn't find anything). I could devils-advocate argue that the 'permission notice' starts where it says "MIT License". Taking that argument, if I _really_ wanted to get this to one of the entities listed, I would make a new distribution of the software, consisting of just the copyright statement and MIT License, which I would then distribute to the entity. Yeah, it's definitely a reach, I'm just bringing this up to say that craft people who wanted to may find an opening to exploit here, so some fine-tuning may be warranted! P.S. I'm also a little concerned about replacing "2015-2017" with "2015-present", partially because 'present' isn't a year, and partially because, when development stops (as all things in time eventually become dormant), this could be viewed (especially when looked at in isolation) as an attempt at overreach.

mberning 8y ago

This is a ridiculous thing to put in a software license and a completely toxic subject in general.

D3vMn9r 8y ago
Yea, these people have no culture of a political protest. Kids... Take your political concerns to your congressman / senator, leave your political views outside the door of your office. Anyways, they will learn
- astronautjones 8y ago
  Can't wait for the day VC gets into spines
mirimir 8y ago
> completely toxic subject I agree about "completely toxic". But it's the policy that's completely toxic, not the subject. I mean, separating babies from their parents? That is just fucking insane.
- hueving 8y ago
  Yes, when you phrase something without context it's easy to make it sound insane. When you include the context where they need to verify that it's not human trafficking and that children are separated from their parents every day when the parents are arrested for any other crime, it's not quite as insane.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    That sounds plausible. Except that this is happening on a much larger scale than your examples. And they're keeping families separated for months. Edit: And what really freaks me about this is what's likely over the next few decades. As global climate change disrupts marginal economies, and migration volumes increase hugely. We're basically looking at concentration camps. Edit: Some prisons now allow mothers to keep their children.

ggreer 8y ago

How can they change the license without getting the approval of everyone who contributed code? It doesn't look like they required contributors to sign CLAs.

village-idiot 8y ago
MIT allows sublicensing explicitly. It's why you can include MIT licensed code in proprietary software, something that the GPL is designed to prevent. What you can't do is retroactively apply this to old code. The named entities could use older versions of the code, but in newer versions the new license would apply.
- negativegate 8y ago
  What stops someone from forking it and re-sublicensing it back to vanilla MIT?
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    IANAL, but I believe that a sub-license has to be more restrictive than the parent license.
  - sieabah 8y ago
    Nothing :D https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource

dragontamer 8y ago

This is fundamentally anti-free software and completely against the point of the MIT License. If you want control over your code, you should use your powers of copyright more carefully. EDIT: In particular, whats to stop ME from grabbing the code, and then giving it to Microsoft? What prevents a particular individual AT Microsoft from downloading and using your code? And what enforcement mechanism do you plan if you ever discover that Microsoft is using your code? There are all sorts of questions and contradictions. I don't think this works.

evil-olive 8y ago
> In particular, whats to stop ME from grabbing the code, and then giving it to Microsoft? IANAL, but this other part of the MIT License [0] would require you to include the restriction in the copy you give to Microsoft, wouldn't it? > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. > what enforcement mechanism do you plan if you ever discover that Microsoft is using your code? I suspect the idea is, if this restriction is used widely enough, Microsoft themselves will have their legal department be sure to restrict usage of the given packages purely as a CYA move. Similar to how so many companies are allergic to the AGPL. 0: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
- dragontamer 8y ago
  IANAL either. But... > Permission is hereby granted, to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software I mean, I've seen successful copyleft done before (ex: GPL). Generally speaking, you start by using a copyleft license as a base... unless you have lawyers of your own to do it correctly for you. An MIT license is incredibly free, basically one step away from public domain. I apparently have the right to modify and sublicense Lerna. So... I could in theory, provide "Dragontamer Lerna" to Microsoft. Again, IANAL, but these are the reasons why GNU worked very hard on their copyleft license. > I suspect the idea is, if this restriction is used widely enough, Microsoft themselves will have their legal department be sure to restrict usage of the given packages purely as a CYA move. Similar to how so many companies are allergic to the AGPL. But AGPL is at least copyleft and "legally viral" in nature. I'm not sure if MIT is a viral license.

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago

As usual, this is only valid if every contributor has agreed to the relicensing. Otherwise the project maintainers are infringing the copyright of the contributors by violating the license granted to them by each contributor. I see this all too frequently. It's scary the legal recourse people open themselves up to by not understanding licensing. That aside, I know very little about these companies involvement in "ICE" and there's no references given. I imagine there are others like me who would like to better understand the situation.

evil-olive 8y ago
> I know very little about these companies involvement in "ICE" and there's no references given. Here's a few sources: Microsoft employees call on company to cancel contract with ICE: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-employees-call-on-company-to-cancel-contract-with-ice/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-em... Amazon employees demand company cut ties with ICE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/22/amazon-employees-demand-company-cut-ties-with-ice/?utm_term=.71ed66103e0b https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/22... Tech companies quietly work with ICE as border crisis persists: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-companies-quietly-work-ice-border-crisis-continues-n885176 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-companies-quietl... 15 Organizations Doing Business With ICE — and How Much They’re Making: http://time.com/money/5318933/organizations-doing-business-with-ice/ http://time.com/money/5318933/organizations-doing-business-w... If you were inclined to draw a very unfavorable comparison, many otherwise neutral companies did business with Nazi Germany. IBM was contracted to help with the German census, which then lead directly to roundups of Jews and the Holocaust: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers...
- Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to collate these for me. Very much appreciated.
TD-Linux 8y ago

wemdyjreichert 8y ago

Regarless of your views on ICE, this doesn't punish those execs which choose to work with them. Normal devs now have to learn/use something else. This also goes against the principles of open source.

audiolion 8y ago
definitely will cause developer pain. We are already seeing issues being closed in typescript related to monorepo and lerna support. [1] I think that if other repositories follow suit, imagine Babel doing something similar, it could cause a stir for execs, but until the cost to the company is greater than their business with the U.S. Govt it wont stop, and there will be a lot of crap before we get to that point. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/25376#issuecomment-416795555 https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/25376#issueco...
village-idiot 8y ago
While I'm sympathetic to the argument that this won't actually accomplish much, protests always cause inconvenience for non-involved parties, that's kind of the point. A protest that doesn't cause disruption and get attention tends to get ignored.

burfog 8y ago

Well, this can't be in Debian or OpenBSD. I like OpenBSD maintainer Theo de Raadt's take on the matter. He allows usage in baby mulching machines and usage for dropping atomic bombs on Australia: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Theo_de_Raadt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Theo_de_Raadt

exogen 8y ago
And? So what? OSI approved licenses are particular ends to particular means. They are not the only ends to the only means. Theo de Raadt's take isn't automatically morally righteous. Honestly, it just sounds like a nineteen year old libertarian thinking "a-ha! everyone should just be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others! it's so simple, we've figured it all out!" Some people want a better world, not just a more permissive one. Sometimes those things overlap! But not always.
- nameiscubanpete 8y ago
  Check out Stallmans argument. He ends up at the same place as Theo, but goes into the why's: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

jancsika 8y ago

This is about as effective as ripping an arm off your shirt and throwing it in the vicinity of an ICE agent. The result of that effort will be a day fielding questions from everyone but ICE about what the heck is wrong with your shirt.

augbog 8y ago
The main goal is less to hurt the companies that are supporting ICE by not allowing them to use an open source project, but actually bring a lot more awareness that these companies DO IN FACT support ICE. I had no idea Palantir was working on the technology to help deport people https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-donald-trumps-deportation-machine/ https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-en...
- jancsika 8y ago
  I'm honestly glad you are now aware of that fact. Now that we are both aware, let's talk about their license. Is it now a non-free license? How does it affect their current non-Palantir user base? Is it enforceable? Was it meant to be enforceable? Are there ways in which a license written by people who aren't themselves lawyers can come back to bite them? This entire digression goes away completely if they put the relevant information nearly anywhere else. Their front page, README.md, change log, etc. Hell, they could even put it as a "did you know" comment in the body of the code. They could do any or all of them and get just as much or more notoriety as they did by ruining their open source/free software compatible license.
  - jsgo 8y ago
    part that gives me pause, even though I'm 100% okay with being against the current policy of separation: what next? Totally silly, but what if it comes out that some food company is engaging in behavior that is deemed immoral. Lerna then tacks that onto the next revision of itself. But I, myself, really like food company's product and don't feel the controversy is warranted. Then what? I understand the motivation with wanting to protest in the best way you can, but I think in this case, it is going to do more harm than good.

aeneasmackenzie 8y ago

Pointless. Here's a version without the restrictions: https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c3579960032091643b9d12fd41e5 https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c35799600320...

75dvtwin 8y ago

very unfortunate to have this in the license. I guess in the future, we will use our selective outrage, to decide which formulas / research work can be used and by whom. Jamie Build is welcome to establish charity organization to help, whoever he believes the victims are. Given current practice of economic prosecution of conservative voices, Technology folks who would choose voice their support for Trumps administration, ICE, etc -- would end up loosing their jobs in the tech sector. Just like what happened to javascript creator, Brendan Eich [1]. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozilla-ceo-resignation-free-speech/7328759/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozill...

jasonlotito 8y ago
> Given current practice of economic prosecution of conservative voices, Technology folks who would choose voice their support for Trumps administration, ICE, etc -- would end up loosing their jobs in the tech sector. This is false. > Just like what happened to javascript creator, Brendan Eich [1]. This is you rewriting history to suit your agenda. This is literally not what happened. Your source does not in any way back up your statement.
village-idiot 8y ago
I'm getting tired of bigots crying about censorship right around the point where they face consequences for being bigots.
- 75dvtwin 8y ago
  Sorry you are getting tired. I am sure this debate will continue. Some would view that, not recognizing Jaime Demor, Brendan Eich as victims of blatant economic prosecution of free speech and political affiliation, -- is being, at least, tone-deaf. I am sure, that US courts will end up testing , whether this type of organized economic prosecution of Free Speech and political affiliations, is legal or not. Sooner, rather than later.
  - village-idiot 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

nerdponx 8y ago

It's a nice idea. But I still pay taxes in the US. Does that make me an ICE collaborator?

javver 8y ago
There is likely a difference to be made between willing and unwilling collaborators. The companies in the list don't face fines and jail time for not having contracts with ICE.

EdSharkey 8y ago

Just change the license to closed source and start charging for licenses from the companies you want to do business with so I have an excuse to spend the time ripping your shark-jumping software out of my build.

jordigh 8y ago

This kind of thing is old hat. It comes up from time to time. rms has written about it a couple of times. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... His basic argument is that it would achieve nothing because such restrictions based on copyright law are likely unenforcible. It just makes the software pointlessly non-free.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

Slightly off-topic, but: anyone know where I can find a solid debate / discussion on the political issues raised by illegal immigration in the U.S.? My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.

mirimir 8y ago
The key issue isn't allowing or not allowing illegal immigration. It's about how supposedly illegal immigrants are treated.
DubiousPusher 8y ago
I don't know a good resource but I think it largely comes down to how you see someone who commits a crime or breaks a rule. People on the right tend to see everyone as capable of following all the rules. To break them is a clear choice which has consequences. People who break the law or rules suffer from a character flaw. If a lot of people are breaking the law or a rule then there is some moral breakdown in society or a failure to enforce the law. People on the left tend to see breaking the law or rules as a natural consequence of ones needs. If a lot of people are breaking a law then there is something wrong v with that law or the systems around it. People on the right basically have faith in laws, law enforcement and are skeptical of the motives of law/rule breakers. People on the left basically have faith in people and their reasons for breaking laws/rules and the circumstances around their act. They are skeptical of law enforcement. Edit: I realize I failed to connect this to illegal immigration. So someone on the left will say, "this person crossed illegally or overstayed their visa for some good reason. So many people are doing so because the system or laws are cutting too strongly against human needs/nature. Whereas someone on the right will say. This person broke the immigration laws out due to a lack of character, ie. they didn't have the patience to wait or they have some I'll intent. Regardless, they've shown a lack of character, there should be consequences and we don't want flawed people here anyway. So in this regard is comes down to what you think law/rule breaking says about someone's integrity or nature.
- hippich 8y ago

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

1. Put said line in license: The following license shall not be granted to the following entities or any subsidiary thereof due to their collaboration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE").... 2. Hosts said code on Github 3. Github is owned fully by Microsoft 4. Repo invalidates itself due to using free goods paid in part by ICE, thereby becoming a subsidiary.

Gaelan 8y ago
Pretty sure that's not what "subsidiary" means legally. (IANAL)
exogen 8y ago
sub·sid·i·ar·y /səbˈsidēˌerē/ a company controlled by a holding company.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  honestly, im not exactly sure how that would work since the GH license does allow them complete nontransferrable ownership of code you keep there. it'd certainly be one for the courts to decide. that is, if this little stunt doesn't kill this repo and this branch.
  - exogen 8y ago
    GitHub absolutely does not require that. If GitHub required you to grant them nontransferrable ownership of code hosted there, that would be insane and nobody would use it. Thankfully it's much more reasonable. :) Here's what GitHub actually says: > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service. This includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. > This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content or otherwise distribute or use it outside of our provision of the Service.

Waterluvian 8y ago

Licenses aren't retroactive, right? The commit just before that one is still the previous license and could be forked from?

diegorbaquero 8y ago
Yes

freditup 8y ago

I wonder if the companies mentioned will cease to use lerna or cease to update lerna? Or if they'll just ignore the clause since the likelihood of any meaningful enforcement is about zero? For example, I checked the top two companies on the list and both Microsoft [0] and Palantir [1] are using lerna currently. [0]: https://github.com/Microsoft/fast-dna/blob/705cb008a59efb4d8c905f4939be66798c88d2fd/package.json#L21 https://github.com/Microsoft/fast-dna/blob/705cb008a59efb4d8... [1]: https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f7330b995a2564936bde6aa757c/package.json#L56 https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f733...

Waterluvian 8y ago

I use BlueprintJS a lot. And about a year into use I realised that "Palantir" is apparently a company people don't like. All I could think about is how this might become a nuisance if a colleague or customer decides they're going to be political about it. These moves are frustrating. I just want to make neat stuff. I don't want to get involved in the politics of a country I have no interest in.

village-idiot 8y ago
Trying to keep politics out of things isn't apolitical, it's the politics of status quo.
- aeorgnoieang 8y ago
  Perhaps you're failing to properly appreciate how wonderful the status quo actually is because you're comparing it to a fantasy instead of plausible alternatives. I don't know your specific politics but I bet you don't constantly find ways to inject it into every conversation and every relationship.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Holy strawman Batman!
mindcrash 8y ago
Well the sad thing about this is that Palantir is actually doing some very good things with Lerna, Babel and Yarn and they tried to explain that... ...BUT SOME PEOPLE ALREADY MADE UP THEIR MIND AND JUST REFUSE TO LISTEN TO ANY REASON. Do you want to hear what Palantir is ACTUALLY doing using these tools? Here you go: "[...]We appreciate your concerns based on the article you linked to. We would like to clarify that Palantir's contracts are with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the ICE directorate responsible for investigating serious transnational criminal activity such as human trafficking, child exploitation, and counter-terrorism as opposed to the activities theorized in the article. We're happy to discuss your concerns in person if you're interested, please get in touch." https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870 https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870 TL;DR: Palantir is helping the HSI unit within ICE to FIGHT CHILD ABUSE, STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND STOP TERRORISM. Now can anyone explain to me what is so terribly wrong and evil about THAT? Anyone???

mirimir 8y ago

Also see https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice

voidr 8y ago

It would be really funny if at least one of the following would happen: - the companies on the list would band together and fork lerna - one of the projects that lerna depends on would tell them that they are no longer welcome to use their code because they hold the opposite belief - the lerna community to implode because maybe not all the 169 contributors hold the same political position Mixing software with politics never ends well in a democracy.

exogen 8y ago
Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support? > Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent society where software users can help each other, and to have control over their computers. Choosing an open source license itself has political implications and moral reasoning behind it, at least historically. People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed. It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance.
- voidr 8y ago
  The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse. There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system. > It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance. How is me making my code public to anyone regardless of beliefs a political act? What is political in your mind? > People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed. You would need to prove your claim that "politics was already in software" before you get to call everyone who disagrees with you "uninformed". It's also not nice to attack the people making the arguments instead of attacking their arguments.
  - 8y ago

yellowapple 8y ago

So, if I'm understanding this correctly: - Lerna is no longer free software (per the FSF's definitions) or open source software (per the OSI's definitions), so calling it "open source" is inaccurate - Lerna is effectively illegal to host on GitHub, since its license terms prevent GitHub's parent company (Microsoft) from being able to legally distribute it in source form - Lerna probably can't relicense anyway without explicit consent from all contributors, since there was no CLA establishing copyright assignment

village-idiot 8y ago
That last bit is not true. MIT allows sublicensing.
mikl 8y ago
Yeah, I can’t see how Github can host Lerna with this license, since Github is clearly “any subsidiary thereof”.

village-idiot 8y ago

It's distressing how many people seem to be either fine with, or active apologists for child abuse so long as it's done to immigrants.

nubianwarrior 8y ago
As someone who grew up on both sides of the border it's created a new weight in my gut and every situation is always awkward now. But I am lucky, I am a citizen. I can't even begin to try and understand the trauma these families go through...

augbog 8y ago

Don't worry Microsoft has their own fork of lerna anyways lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257

bb010g 8y ago
…did you read through the issue [1] linked in the first comment there? Nobody could actually find evidence that Rush was a fork. Thanks for bringing up a libre Lerna alternative, though. [1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/web-build-tools/issues/673 https://github.com/Microsoft/web-build-tools/issues/673
- augbog 8y ago
  For people who missed it, Microsoft didn't actually fork Lerna and potentially copy-pasted the code. https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696931527700481 https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696931527700481 And quite honestly yeah I read that Github issue. Hard for me to believe they would just be like "OH YEAH WE COPIED SORRY ABOUT THAT!"
  - rotred 8y ago
    > 30 separate tweets in a row trying to explain something Twitter is definitely not a good platform for something like this

alanh 8y ago

I’m just here to point out that this boneheaded effort makes no effort to solve for the following cases: - Companies becoming “collaborators” in the future - Companies that are on the list ceasing “collaboration” with ICE The latter is especially dumb when you figure it is the exact outcome this move is trying to inspire. This leaves aside more fundamental questions of enforceability and so forth.

nathan_long 8y ago

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, not wanting your work to be used for purposes you deem evil seems commendable. On the other hand, imagine how a trend of this could look. Library X is off-limits for companies doing GMO. Library Y is off-limits for advertising companies. Database X can't be used by anyone who contracts with the defense department. And the restrictions are updated as various issues come into the news. In that case, using open source would suddenly be very risky. What if your company is deemed bad by someone who makes something you depend on? The rational move would be to use proprietary software, whose standard is "whoever pays us".

sieabah 8y ago
And thus you see the issue... Open source isn't open source if your beliefs of who uses the projects are involved.

jsgo 8y ago

Remember when people were apprehensive about using React because Facebook might weaponize your usage of it? This project is explicitly stating it can: you might not be on this list today, but there's nothing preventing you from being on it tomorrow. So do you want to commit to integrating it to your stack? While I'm not against their stance at all (at the end of the day, they've gotta do what is going to help them sleep at night and if it is barring the usage of their software, so be it), I really worry about the possibility of this becoming prevalent. What happens if libraries start restricting usage if you support the work of ACLU or Planned Parenthood or any other number of things? Now, I may be able to work with a specific library because I check the right boxes. But what if a collaborator can't because they'd violate it? This just feels like a slippery slope leading to a net negative for everyone

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Indeed. I'll stick with unadulterated Open Source Definition licenses. I know those; I know how to integrate; I know how to comply. They're known entities, and licensing is well aware how and what they are used for. This tirefire of a license is untested and a "Social Justice of the Week". Frankly, the further I am away from the likes of these, the better. I also greatly appreciate what Stallman said, here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... " There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music. " - RMS
andrew_ 8y ago
The author of that change follows the same pattern in nearly every project found on their Github account, and many that they contribute to: MIT licenses with added prohibitions targeting specific groups. Disturbing and toxic to say the least.

mikequeue 8y ago

James Kyle who did that license change is one of the biggest attention seeker in open source. He is jubilating right now on Twitter and it looks like he got what he wanted as Vice wants to interview him https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034883723273990144 https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034883723273990144 James also though he likes to lecture people is also one of the biggest bully in open source, even the creator of Ember called him out https://twitter.com/tomdale/status/937618418471198720 https://twitter.com/tomdale/status/937618418471198720 Let's not give this toxic person more attention. As for the license change, it is useless as it is already being forked. Also, if we are going to ban every company that does business with evil government institutions, there would be no one left to use the software. This just looks like what a 12 year old would do, James is kind of too old for these kind of things. Oh well.

sbr464 8y ago

1 point by sbr464 3 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete [-] | on: Lerna adds clause to MIT license blocking certain ... I respect their decision and rights, but I don't really understand this move. I also believe this sets a dangerous potential pattern within the developer community. I personally don't agree with certain statements/immigration/ICE etc. but I'm more put back by this. Coding is becoming easier and will increasingly include more of the general population (which is a good thing). This means it's about to become much more diverse in regards to religion, political beliefs, personal morals, citizenship, etc. I don't mean this in the political/philosophical sense. I mean soon people will start showing up in Github/twitter comments, contributing pull requests, with a genuine interest about coding, who look like people you personally dislike. Maybe they are wearing a Trump t-shirt in their profile photo, but their code is great. Are you going to reject their pull request or ignore their comments? Governments & company policies change frequently. There's also an unlimited combination of potential beliefs, moral stances, crimes by an unlimited number of people and companies. At what point would you decide to add or remove amendments to your license? I also feel it's hypocritical to use a product owned by Microsoft (github), while calling them out in your license by name. I mean, are you protesting Microsoft or aren't you? How do you know that an upstream dependency you are benefitting from wasn't created by one of these companies? To highlight the humor of this line of thinking, why not block oppressive regimes, serial killers (>= 6 people, <6 are ok), certain religious groups with worse principals than ICE?

jymbo 8y ago

So I heard ICE forked lerna...

aphelion 8y ago

Passing over the politics of this decision, is there any plausible outcome that doesn't involve every organization with any sense at all forking or abandoning Lerna?