11 ms·

Chef CEO Defends Contract with ICE

69 points by mbbennis 7y ago

notus 7y ago
Terrible response, companies totally can pick and choose who they work with and who their customers are. > I want to be clear that this decision is not about contract value — it is about maintaining a consistent and fair business approach in these volatile times. Doublespeak for, this decision is 100% about contract value. I am interested more in the former employee that removed the ruby gem though. Cool form of protest IMO.
- shakezula 7y ago
  exactly, especially when the sentence before it mentions he worked with their executive team to make the decision. This is entirely about money. > former employee that removed the ruby gem I hadn’t heard of this, do you have a link to that by chance?
  - notus 7y ago
    Here is the developer's statement: https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar Article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/developer-takes-down-ruby-library-after-he-finds-out-ice-was-using-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/developer-takes-down-ruby-libr... Note this is the same developer who left Chef in 2014 because he received death threats from their open source community.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- weare138 7y ago
  Calling that a terrible answer is a little extreme. It's a really complicated issue and I'd be lying if I said I had the answer to it. Would you agree that religious fundamentalists should have the right to deny services to people they find morally objectionable? Should a medical service provider deny LGBTQ people vital services because they "morally" object to it? Obviously not. What if landing a contract like this is the only way to keep the business financially afloat? Laying off employees also has moral implications. Should we single out this company when major tech companies like Microsoft have contracts with ICE? Why aren't we boycotting MS over this? Personally I don't agree with Chef's decision and sure as hell don't agree with ICE. Seriously, f*ck ICE. I'm descended from immigrants. It's a free country and anyone who thinks I shouldn't be here or any other immigrant for that matter is free to kiss my Irish ass. I just don't agree this is the way to change things. We should be fighting for what's right ourselves rather then admonishing someone else for not doing it for us but if we are going to admonish corporations for their associations with ICE, it should be all of them.
badrequest 7y ago
> to be clear: I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country. "I simply have all the ability and none of the desire to do anything about it"
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  I can see where he's coming from: if he refuses to do business with ICE because he disagrees with something they're doing (whether he or they are actually wrong), he's implicitly endorsing every aspect of every customer he does choose to do business with.
  - tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
    Also committing to scrutinize the internal business practices of every future partner. It's easy enough to point at ICE and say that they're actions don't align with your values. But you're setting a precedent for your company - one that will be very hard to live up to down the road.
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      Mr. Crist is not just the CEO of Chef. He is also a citizen of the United States of America. As a citizen, he has duties that should take priority over his responsibilities as Chef CEO. By virtue of his position as CEO, his influence and his responsibility to wield that influence in the public interest are greater.
    - maxwell 7y ago
      You don't see the divide between those who operate concentration camps, and those who do not?
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      No they aren't. They haven't scrutinized ICE at all - they're operating on nationally reported information.
  - 7y ago
kylek 7y ago
Well, this seems more effective than a toothless walkout at least. I'm not sure what to think of this really. Does the axed employee deserve praise? What legal ramifications will he/she be facing for the act?
Porthos9K 7y ago
Having read this, I think that Barry Crist's use of "my country's government, right or wrong" in defense of supporting Trump-era ICE's indefensible methods proves that an old adage still holds true. "[false] Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." --Samuel Johnson, 1775 Barry Crist thinks he is doing the principled thing, but I see him for what he is: the most despicable of cowards, a man who has the power to help change the world for the better, but chooses instead to uphold a profitable status quo. Any person of conscience working for Chef should resign in protest immediately.
- rmah 7y ago
  That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that Chef is in the business of providing devops software. They're not a government watchdog. They're not the ethics police. They're not political or social activist organization. I fail to see the problem. Finally, not selling chef to ICE won't change anything.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    I bet that's the same sort of sophistry that allowed IBM's management to justify doing business with the Nazi regime. I know what Crist is saying. And it smells like self-serving bullshit to me. He doesn't want to do the right thing as a human being and as an American citizen because it would cut into Chef's revenues and upset the company's shareholders and investors. As far as I am concerned, this is unforgivable moral cowardice. As soon as I learned that Accenture was taking ICE blood money, I quit without notice and lived off my savings for three months until I could find another job at a company that didn't profit from human rights abuses at the hands of the Federal government. I'm just a middle-aged college dropout who doesn't even make six figures, and I still managed to do the right thing as an American and a human being. What's this guy's excuse?
    - rmah 7y ago
      Pretty much every tech company, hundreds of consulting firms, dozens of construction firms, etc, etc do business with DoHS and ICE. These are huge organizations with thousands of employees that buy products and services from thousands of suppliers. Everything from software to sock. Are you gonna get angry with all of those companies too? And what about the DEA, FBI, NSA, CIA and DoD? They all do things that some Americans consider evil. And they all buy from the hundreds of tech firms big and small. Everyone from Amazon to Oracle. From HP to Cisco. It just seems mean and petty to pick on Chef to me.
frakkingcylons 7y ago
I took the liberty of invoking Godwin's Law and re-purposed this template, it should make you consider how weak this statement really is. """ While I understand that many of you and many of our community members would prefer we had no business relationship with the Third Reich, I have made a principled decision, with the support of the IBM executive team, to work with the institutions of our government, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with their various policies. """
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  That was the first thing I thought of when I read Crist's statement, and it is the reason I have been so harsh in my condemnation.
- shakezula 7y ago
  I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head with this. This is the most accurate and succinct way to show how this looks.
  - ng12 7y ago
    Godwin's Law is supposed to demonstrate the reductive nature of comparing everything to Nazism, it's supposed to be a logical fallacy.
    - shakezula 7y ago
      Except for we're not comparing "everything" to Nazism. We're comparing an organization running concentration camps to another organization that ran concentration camps.
      - ng12 7y ago
        The lazy mis-characterization of our border facilities as concentration camps is exactly what I'm talking about, while also being a wildly inappropriate comparison in a country with many Holocaust survivors.
gavanwoolery 7y ago
For the record (if it matters) I am very pro-immigration and pro-immigrant rights, but I don't think denying chef services to ICE will actually do anything - let me explain. Lets look at this from another perspective (couldn't hurt, right?). I am a company that sells paper. Some companies might use this paper for very bad things (printing out patents?). Do I comb through all my clients and determine what they are using the paper for? Doesn't seem to make sense, and worse yet, it seems like an entirely subjective process. Who says which companies are "good" and which are "bad" ? When I stop selling paper to an entity, they will just find another paper provider. I have not really done anything meaningful aside from signalled my intentions, which I could do more effectively in other ways (lobbying, etc).
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  Paper is an interchangeable commodity with many suppliers. Specific software products often are not. Furthermore, there's a difference between "someone bought this commodity from a distributor" and "we have a contract specifically with this entity".
  - gavanwoolery 7y ago
    I agree, I think its not an apples-to-apples comparison, and that is slightly intentional. I want to highlight the same decision to be made under a less frictional commodity to ask the question: where does one draw the line on what they supply? There are some obvious lines probably. You would not want to be a gun manufacturer that sold guns directly to drug cartels, for example.
    - JoshTriplett 7y ago
      I think it's reasonable to say "this software is open and anyone can use it, and we don't control who downloads and runs it themselves". I also think it's reasonable, given an entity you don't want to do business with, to say "we don't enter into contracts (even our standard contracts) with these entities, and we don't provide any kind of support to these entities".
jdubz79 7y ago
Fuck you! thats my response to that spineless response. Thank you for validating my decision to not recommend Chef for quite some time. I used to be quite a big fan of chef, mostly with chef-solo/zero. This company has stagnated and has not released anything innovating for quite some time. You are a stale tool that deserves to wither into the ether. And now you choose to support an organization that treats humans worse than garbage. Heres me kicking the door shut, hoping it hits you on the way out.
darkstar999 7y ago
> U.S. Department of Home Security These security doorbells are getting serious.
tr33house 7y ago
Regarding the deleted Ruby gems: I think it's unprofessional for developers to try and bring down production services just because they disagree with a company move. It's also a bit immature. The thing to do in this case is to quit. Down your tools and quit, but don't destroy the hard work of your teammates and betray the trust of all your investors and customers.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  More fundamentally, this was an attempt to damage the customers of a former employer. In effect, it's no different from logic bombs and tech vandalism in general. While there may be a case for "their public work, they can do whatever" I'd put money on this person announcing their intent to take down customer systems which makes it malicious.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    I'm OK with sabotage that does not resort in injuries or loss of life as a means of nonviolent protest.
    - dazilcher 7y ago
      Are you also ok with this means of protest being directed at your property?
      - Porthos9K 7y ago
        I have insurance. :)
- mcantelon 7y ago
  Ideologues often don't that care much about being professional or reasonable.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    Sometimes you reach a point where being reasonable and professional becomes counterproductive. Sometimes you reach a point where the doublethink necessary to seem reasonable and professional leaves you despising yourself. Sometimes it isn't enough to ask, "What would John Galt do?" In times like these, sometimes the only reasonable question is, "What would Howard Roark do?" His answer, when his work was misused in a manner he could no longer bear to tolerate, was to break out the dynamite.
mychael 7y ago
This is a very professional and tempered response supported by reason and sound company values. I applaud the CEO for not giving in to the mobs.
ng12 7y ago
Good. Every company which refuses to work with ICE makes their job more difficult. That's not going to make ICE go away, it's just going to increase the likelihood that they make beaurocratic mistakes (e.g. detain US citizens), inappropriately secure their data, or a million other little operational failures.
jmpman 7y ago
I’m genuinely curious - what is the government supposed to do with illegal immigrants before they’re sent back home (after asylum hearing). Are they supposed to be put up in apartments? Barracks? House per family? I’ve heard that people disagree with the immigrants current treatment, but I expect there’s a spectrum of accommodations which people would consider acceptable. I haven’t considered the logistics and legalities of housing adults with minors who may or not be their actual parents. Do they need to be separated? I suspect there’s a complexity which I don’t appreciate.
- atonse 7y ago
  What typically happened in the past is that most migrants have family in the US. So they let them into the country while they’re being processed. They are given a court date and can continue to live life here until that court date. What probably happens often is that these folks don’t show up to their court date, because they never planned to. By then they’ve already assimilated into the local economy with no papers. Some middle ground seems in order here. So yeah I’d say we don’t separate the families and find other ways to track them, either keeping them in a refugee camp (together) if the numbers are hard to manage, OR using some kind of technology to track them while you release them until their court dates. The key here is that we are a civilized nation of laws, and it is simply cruel to separate families, especially when the kids have done nothing wrong but tag along with their parents. They’re given essentially a life sentence through trauma that they may never shake. And that’s just cruel and unusual punishment in any circumstance, let alone given to an innocent sort of accomplice.
throwawaysea 7y ago
Good. Businesses passing judgment on their customers due to public pressure from vocal activists is not a good precedent.
- robertfw 7y ago
  You make it sound like this is some squeaky minority pressure group, as opposed to people making the bold claim that perhaps we should not be holding children apart from their parents in camps with despicable care standards including lack of basic medical care.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
maxwell 7y ago
https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar
- ace1309 7y ago
  If my Infrastructure code includes only chef recipes and chef objects, will this yank lead to breaking changes(even though we don't use chef sugar)
yalogin 7y ago
This is actually a tough thing to deal with for executives. I can see some black and white issues like providing software to the Chinese government or some other authoritarian regime like that. In the US where the government only lasts for 4 years would it be prudent to sever ties like that? Software and services contracts are meant to last longer than (hopefully). So the slot once gone is gone. Also, the same people who are with ICE procurement will be there after Trump leaves. Will they be willing to talk to them later on? Even if the government's agenda changed, chances are the personal agendas of the employees in ICE have not. So how should that impact the decision making? Would it not be better to provide funding to causes you (or the employees) believe in rather than severing ties with organizations when its within the US?
empy 7y ago
It's everyone's duty to help ICE to deport illegal immigrants to secure your country.
paggle 7y ago
This whole thing has gone too far. By “thing,” I mean that every action of every person, past or present, must inform all future interactions with any other person or entity. It’s a problem caused by the information we have today (who would have known this in the past?) but the end result is that we as a people are more divided and isolated from all people other than those who share our worldview exactly.
McSwag 7y ago
This is a case that could set a precedent for other companies and is worth a good debate. I believe it comes down to values. Here's a simple example to explain. Suppose I am a CEO of a consulting firm. I have a client who pays us a lot of money and have had a good relationship with for years. Now suppose I've hired and brought another person to meet this client for several months. The meetings seem to go well but (let's say 9 months later), Another employee brings to my attention that the client had been consistently harassing the person I hired to manage the account. I now have two choices, re-assign the person I just hired or "fire" the client, permanently ending the relationship. What are the values of my company? That's the question that needs to be asked. What's the right thing to do? If I choose to re-assign the person I hired, I would not be addressing the problem, not holding the client to the same bar I would have for my own employees. I'm telling the client and my employees that I value the contract more than them and more than the values of my company. The side effect is that it reinforces the bad behavior. This is essentially what has occurred in this scenario. Except the harassment is not towards Chef's employees it's towards civilian children and their parents. Having said that, companies don't always get it right the first time but it's our job to inform them of their error. Executive teams often are flooded pools of confirmation bias where dissent rarely occurs. I don't think "combing" is really necessary but like anything else, when the spotlight shows up. It's usually in the company's best interest to distance itself. [edit: fix grammar]
apolymath 7y ago
I am pro-ICE, pro-immigration, and anti-human-trafficking. Ice separates children from human traffickers and parents alike. Human traffickers bring children to the U.S. for sale by the tens of thousands every year. We should praise ICE for their commitment to protect children & their families who have traveled to America illegally. If they want to seek refuge, they should use our immigration system to seek refuge instead of sneaking into our country.
- robertfw 7y ago
  Praise, for putting people in camps with inadequate medical care and inhumane treatment? I'll pass on the praise,thanks
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    So isn't the solution to improve the medical care and treatment? How is removing a library for a DevOps program going to do that? Isn't it just useless virtue signaling that won't actually have any effect?
    - nojvek 7y ago
      Everyone has a right for what they believe. Removing a library does as much effect as someone protesting on the street with a sign holding what they believe. Like that 13 year kid (can’t rememer name) alone in front of parliament on school strike with a sign. Then more kids joined. Now entire cities are like Melbourne have massive protests for school strikes. Suppose developers of Google, Microsoft and Amazon all protest against ICE and refuse to work for a project their involved, it’s a big signal. But reality is money can buy most people’s souls. Kudos to the guy.
      - lazyasciiart 7y ago
        Greta Thunberg
RickJWagner 7y ago
I am pro-immigration and wish for every immigrant to be given a good shot at great opportunities. Chef did the right thing. It's not up to individual employees to sabotage company assets because of their own political viewpoints. I hope that employee is thrown in jail.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Gee, what about companies that supply things to Planned Parenthood? There are a lot of people that think PP is immoral (especially given the origins in eugenics). Should employees of those companies rise up and try to harm their employers, too? For the record, I am against such action. Firmly against. Politics is personal and should not extend beyond your personal rights.
IdontRememberIt 7y ago
Where is the limit? Linux is certainly used somewhere by criminal rings to sell drugs killing children. PHP is certainly used by criminal groups advertising escorts victim of human trafficking. Are open source projects now at risk? Will phpmyadmin break because an antispecist contributor discovered that McDonalds is using this tool? Will ubuntu break because an anti-vaxxer contributor has discovered that GSK is using this os?
- slooonz 7y ago
  Or when some right-wing pastry cooker will discover than the wedding cake he's making will be used in a same-sex marriage ?
IdontRememberIt 7y ago
Seth Vargo works now at Google Cloud. Will he break it next? Is Google Cloud a risk for our company?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Is your company engaged in running or supporting the operation of concentration camps?
  - IdontRememberIt 7y ago
    Seth's move impacted Chef's customers. Google Cloud may have contracts with ICE. So Seth may want to do something against Google and therefore impact us indirectly.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Would he be morally wrong to do so? What does this say about doing business with firms of low moral standards?
      - IdontRememberIt 7y ago
        ...
        dredmorbius 7y ago
        I'm more than familiar with the quote. There is the matter of degree. Sounds like you're trying to say "yes" without actually saying "yes", though, in truth.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
dredmorbius 7y ago
Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp
gremlinsinc 7y ago
> "I want to be clear that this decision is not about contract value — it is about maintaining a consistent and fair business approach in these volatile times. I do not believe that it is appropriate, practical, or within our mission to examine specific government projects with the purpose of selecting which U.S. agencies we should or should not do business." So if this were 1940, and he lived in germany would he gladly continue doing business w/ the country knowing they're gassing jews? I mean it's the government they always have our best interests in mind right? We should always support the government we live in no matter what right? Seriously? Without question? This CEO is obtuse, and probably shouldn't be running a tech company.

69 points by mbbennis 7y ago

Terrible response, companies totally can pick and choose who they work with and who their customers are. > I want to be clear that this decision is not about contract value — it is about maintaining a consistent and fair business approach in these volatile times. Doublespeak for, this decision is 100% about contract value. I am interested more in the former employee that removed the ruby gem though. Cool form of protest IMO.

shakezula 7y ago
exactly, especially when the sentence before it mentions he worked with their executive team to make the decision. This is entirely about money. > former employee that removed the ruby gem I hadn’t heard of this, do you have a link to that by chance?
- notus 7y ago
  Here is the developer's statement: https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar Article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/developer-takes-down-ruby-library-after-he-finds-out-ice-was-using-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/developer-takes-down-ruby-libr... Note this is the same developer who left Chef in 2014 because he received death threats from their open source community.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
weare138 7y ago
Calling that a terrible answer is a little extreme. It's a really complicated issue and I'd be lying if I said I had the answer to it. Would you agree that religious fundamentalists should have the right to deny services to people they find morally objectionable? Should a medical service provider deny LGBTQ people vital services because they "morally" object to it? Obviously not. What if landing a contract like this is the only way to keep the business financially afloat? Laying off employees also has moral implications. Should we single out this company when major tech companies like Microsoft have contracts with ICE? Why aren't we boycotting MS over this? Personally I don't agree with Chef's decision and sure as hell don't agree with ICE. Seriously, f*ck ICE. I'm descended from immigrants. It's a free country and anyone who thinks I shouldn't be here or any other immigrant for that matter is free to kiss my Irish ass. I just don't agree this is the way to change things. We should be fighting for what's right ourselves rather then admonishing someone else for not doing it for us but if we are going to admonish corporations for their associations with ICE, it should be all of them.

badrequest 7y ago

> to be clear: I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country. "I simply have all the ability and none of the desire to do anything about it"

commandlinefan 7y ago
I can see where he's coming from: if he refuses to do business with ICE because he disagrees with something they're doing (whether he or they are actually wrong), he's implicitly endorsing every aspect of every customer he does choose to do business with.
- tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
  Also committing to scrutinize the internal business practices of every future partner. It's easy enough to point at ICE and say that they're actions don't align with your values. But you're setting a precedent for your company - one that will be very hard to live up to down the road.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    Mr. Crist is not just the CEO of Chef. He is also a citizen of the United States of America. As a citizen, he has duties that should take priority over his responsibilities as Chef CEO. By virtue of his position as CEO, his influence and his responsibility to wield that influence in the public interest are greater.
  - maxwell 7y ago
    You don't see the divide between those who operate concentration camps, and those who do not?
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    No they aren't. They haven't scrutinized ICE at all - they're operating on nationally reported information.
- 7y ago

kylek 7y ago

Well, this seems more effective than a toothless walkout at least. I'm not sure what to think of this really. Does the axed employee deserve praise? What legal ramifications will he/she be facing for the act?

Porthos9K 7y ago

Having read this, I think that Barry Crist's use of "my country's government, right or wrong" in defense of supporting Trump-era ICE's indefensible methods proves that an old adage still holds true. "[false] Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." --Samuel Johnson, 1775 Barry Crist thinks he is doing the principled thing, but I see him for what he is: the most despicable of cowards, a man who has the power to help change the world for the better, but chooses instead to uphold a profitable status quo. Any person of conscience working for Chef should resign in protest immediately.

rmah 7y ago
That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that Chef is in the business of providing devops software. They're not a government watchdog. They're not the ethics police. They're not political or social activist organization. I fail to see the problem. Finally, not selling chef to ICE won't change anything.
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  I bet that's the same sort of sophistry that allowed IBM's management to justify doing business with the Nazi regime. I know what Crist is saying. And it smells like self-serving bullshit to me. He doesn't want to do the right thing as a human being and as an American citizen because it would cut into Chef's revenues and upset the company's shareholders and investors. As far as I am concerned, this is unforgivable moral cowardice. As soon as I learned that Accenture was taking ICE blood money, I quit without notice and lived off my savings for three months until I could find another job at a company that didn't profit from human rights abuses at the hands of the Federal government. I'm just a middle-aged college dropout who doesn't even make six figures, and I still managed to do the right thing as an American and a human being. What's this guy's excuse?
  - rmah 7y ago
    Pretty much every tech company, hundreds of consulting firms, dozens of construction firms, etc, etc do business with DoHS and ICE. These are huge organizations with thousands of employees that buy products and services from thousands of suppliers. Everything from software to sock. Are you gonna get angry with all of those companies too? And what about the DEA, FBI, NSA, CIA and DoD? They all do things that some Americans consider evil. And they all buy from the hundreds of tech firms big and small. Everyone from Amazon to Oracle. From HP to Cisco. It just seems mean and petty to pick on Chef to me.

frakkingcylons 7y ago

I took the liberty of invoking Godwin's Law and re-purposed this template, it should make you consider how weak this statement really is. """ While I understand that many of you and many of our community members would prefer we had no business relationship with the Third Reich, I have made a principled decision, with the support of the IBM executive team, to work with the institutions of our government, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with their various policies. """

Porthos9K 7y ago
That was the first thing I thought of when I read Crist's statement, and it is the reason I have been so harsh in my condemnation.
shakezula 7y ago
I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head with this. This is the most accurate and succinct way to show how this looks.
- ng12 7y ago
  Godwin's Law is supposed to demonstrate the reductive nature of comparing everything to Nazism, it's supposed to be a logical fallacy.
  - shakezula 7y ago
    Except for we're not comparing "everything" to Nazism. We're comparing an organization running concentration camps to another organization that ran concentration camps.
    - ng12 7y ago
      The lazy mis-characterization of our border facilities as concentration camps is exactly what I'm talking about, while also being a wildly inappropriate comparison in a country with many Holocaust survivors.

gavanwoolery 7y ago

For the record (if it matters) I am very pro-immigration and pro-immigrant rights, but I don't think denying chef services to ICE will actually do anything - let me explain. Lets look at this from another perspective (couldn't hurt, right?). I am a company that sells paper. Some companies might use this paper for very bad things (printing out patents?). Do I comb through all my clients and determine what they are using the paper for? Doesn't seem to make sense, and worse yet, it seems like an entirely subjective process. Who says which companies are "good" and which are "bad" ? When I stop selling paper to an entity, they will just find another paper provider. I have not really done anything meaningful aside from signalled my intentions, which I could do more effectively in other ways (lobbying, etc).

JoshTriplett 7y ago
Paper is an interchangeable commodity with many suppliers. Specific software products often are not. Furthermore, there's a difference between "someone bought this commodity from a distributor" and "we have a contract specifically with this entity".
- gavanwoolery 7y ago
  I agree, I think its not an apples-to-apples comparison, and that is slightly intentional. I want to highlight the same decision to be made under a less frictional commodity to ask the question: where does one draw the line on what they supply? There are some obvious lines probably. You would not want to be a gun manufacturer that sold guns directly to drug cartels, for example.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    I think it's reasonable to say "this software is open and anyone can use it, and we don't control who downloads and runs it themselves". I also think it's reasonable, given an entity you don't want to do business with, to say "we don't enter into contracts (even our standard contracts) with these entities, and we don't provide any kind of support to these entities".

jdubz79 7y ago

Fuck you! thats my response to that spineless response. Thank you for validating my decision to not recommend Chef for quite some time. I used to be quite a big fan of chef, mostly with chef-solo/zero. This company has stagnated and has not released anything innovating for quite some time. You are a stale tool that deserves to wither into the ether. And now you choose to support an organization that treats humans worse than garbage. Heres me kicking the door shut, hoping it hits you on the way out.

darkstar999 7y ago

> U.S. Department of Home Security These security doorbells are getting serious.

tr33house 7y ago

Regarding the deleted Ruby gems: I think it's unprofessional for developers to try and bring down production services just because they disagree with a company move. It's also a bit immature. The thing to do in this case is to quit. Down your tools and quit, but don't destroy the hard work of your teammates and betray the trust of all your investors and customers.

caseysoftware 7y ago
More fundamentally, this was an attempt to damage the customers of a former employer. In effect, it's no different from logic bombs and tech vandalism in general. While there may be a case for "their public work, they can do whatever" I'd put money on this person announcing their intent to take down customer systems which makes it malicious.
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  I'm OK with sabotage that does not resort in injuries or loss of life as a means of nonviolent protest.
  - dazilcher 7y ago
    Are you also ok with this means of protest being directed at your property?
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      I have insurance. :)
mcantelon 7y ago
Ideologues often don't that care much about being professional or reasonable.
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  Sometimes you reach a point where being reasonable and professional becomes counterproductive. Sometimes you reach a point where the doublethink necessary to seem reasonable and professional leaves you despising yourself. Sometimes it isn't enough to ask, "What would John Galt do?" In times like these, sometimes the only reasonable question is, "What would Howard Roark do?" His answer, when his work was misused in a manner he could no longer bear to tolerate, was to break out the dynamite.

mychael 7y ago

This is a very professional and tempered response supported by reason and sound company values. I applaud the CEO for not giving in to the mobs.

ng12 7y ago

Good. Every company which refuses to work with ICE makes their job more difficult. That's not going to make ICE go away, it's just going to increase the likelihood that they make beaurocratic mistakes (e.g. detain US citizens), inappropriately secure their data, or a million other little operational failures.

jmpman 7y ago

I’m genuinely curious - what is the government supposed to do with illegal immigrants before they’re sent back home (after asylum hearing). Are they supposed to be put up in apartments? Barracks? House per family? I’ve heard that people disagree with the immigrants current treatment, but I expect there’s a spectrum of accommodations which people would consider acceptable. I haven’t considered the logistics and legalities of housing adults with minors who may or not be their actual parents. Do they need to be separated? I suspect there’s a complexity which I don’t appreciate.

atonse 7y ago
What typically happened in the past is that most migrants have family in the US. So they let them into the country while they’re being processed. They are given a court date and can continue to live life here until that court date. What probably happens often is that these folks don’t show up to their court date, because they never planned to. By then they’ve already assimilated into the local economy with no papers. Some middle ground seems in order here. So yeah I’d say we don’t separate the families and find other ways to track them, either keeping them in a refugee camp (together) if the numbers are hard to manage, OR using some kind of technology to track them while you release them until their court dates. The key here is that we are a civilized nation of laws, and it is simply cruel to separate families, especially when the kids have done nothing wrong but tag along with their parents. They’re given essentially a life sentence through trauma that they may never shake. And that’s just cruel and unusual punishment in any circumstance, let alone given to an innocent sort of accomplice.

throwawaysea 7y ago

Good. Businesses passing judgment on their customers due to public pressure from vocal activists is not a good precedent.

robertfw 7y ago
You make it sound like this is some squeaky minority pressure group, as opposed to people making the bold claim that perhaps we should not be holding children apart from their parents in camps with despicable care standards including lack of basic medical care.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

maxwell 7y ago

https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar

ace1309 7y ago
If my Infrastructure code includes only chef recipes and chef objects, will this yank lead to breaking changes(even though we don't use chef sugar)

yalogin 7y ago

This is actually a tough thing to deal with for executives. I can see some black and white issues like providing software to the Chinese government or some other authoritarian regime like that. In the US where the government only lasts for 4 years would it be prudent to sever ties like that? Software and services contracts are meant to last longer than (hopefully). So the slot once gone is gone. Also, the same people who are with ICE procurement will be there after Trump leaves. Will they be willing to talk to them later on? Even if the government's agenda changed, chances are the personal agendas of the employees in ICE have not. So how should that impact the decision making? Would it not be better to provide funding to causes you (or the employees) believe in rather than severing ties with organizations when its within the US?

empy 7y ago

It's everyone's duty to help ICE to deport illegal immigrants to secure your country.

paggle 7y ago

This whole thing has gone too far. By “thing,” I mean that every action of every person, past or present, must inform all future interactions with any other person or entity. It’s a problem caused by the information we have today (who would have known this in the past?) but the end result is that we as a people are more divided and isolated from all people other than those who share our worldview exactly.

McSwag 7y ago

This is a case that could set a precedent for other companies and is worth a good debate. I believe it comes down to values. Here's a simple example to explain. Suppose I am a CEO of a consulting firm. I have a client who pays us a lot of money and have had a good relationship with for years. Now suppose I've hired and brought another person to meet this client for several months. The meetings seem to go well but (let's say 9 months later), Another employee brings to my attention that the client had been consistently harassing the person I hired to manage the account. I now have two choices, re-assign the person I just hired or "fire" the client, permanently ending the relationship. What are the values of my company? That's the question that needs to be asked. What's the right thing to do? If I choose to re-assign the person I hired, I would not be addressing the problem, not holding the client to the same bar I would have for my own employees. I'm telling the client and my employees that I value the contract more than them and more than the values of my company. The side effect is that it reinforces the bad behavior. This is essentially what has occurred in this scenario. Except the harassment is not towards Chef's employees it's towards civilian children and their parents. Having said that, companies don't always get it right the first time but it's our job to inform them of their error. Executive teams often are flooded pools of confirmation bias where dissent rarely occurs. I don't think "combing" is really necessary but like anything else, when the spotlight shows up. It's usually in the company's best interest to distance itself. [edit: fix grammar]

apolymath 7y ago

I am pro-ICE, pro-immigration, and anti-human-trafficking. Ice separates children from human traffickers and parents alike. Human traffickers bring children to the U.S. for sale by the tens of thousands every year. We should praise ICE for their commitment to protect children & their families who have traveled to America illegally. If they want to seek refuge, they should use our immigration system to seek refuge instead of sneaking into our country.

robertfw 7y ago
Praise, for putting people in camps with inadequate medical care and inhumane treatment? I'll pass on the praise,thanks
- sdinsn 7y ago
  So isn't the solution to improve the medical care and treatment? How is removing a library for a DevOps program going to do that? Isn't it just useless virtue signaling that won't actually have any effect?
  - nojvek 7y ago
    Everyone has a right for what they believe. Removing a library does as much effect as someone protesting on the street with a sign holding what they believe. Like that 13 year kid (can’t rememer name) alone in front of parliament on school strike with a sign. Then more kids joined. Now entire cities are like Melbourne have massive protests for school strikes. Suppose developers of Google, Microsoft and Amazon all protest against ICE and refuse to work for a project their involved, it’s a big signal. But reality is money can buy most people’s souls. Kudos to the guy.
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      Greta Thunberg

RickJWagner 7y ago

I am pro-immigration and wish for every immigrant to be given a good shot at great opportunities. Chef did the right thing. It's not up to individual employees to sabotage company assets because of their own political viewpoints. I hope that employee is thrown in jail.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Gee, what about companies that supply things to Planned Parenthood? There are a lot of people that think PP is immoral (especially given the origins in eugenics). Should employees of those companies rise up and try to harm their employers, too? For the record, I am against such action. Firmly against. Politics is personal and should not extend beyond your personal rights.

IdontRememberIt 7y ago

Where is the limit? Linux is certainly used somewhere by criminal rings to sell drugs killing children. PHP is certainly used by criminal groups advertising escorts victim of human trafficking. Are open source projects now at risk? Will phpmyadmin break because an antispecist contributor discovered that McDonalds is using this tool? Will ubuntu break because an anti-vaxxer contributor has discovered that GSK is using this os?

slooonz 7y ago
Or when some right-wing pastry cooker will discover than the wedding cake he's making will be used in a same-sex marriage ?

IdontRememberIt 7y ago

Seth Vargo works now at Google Cloud. Will he break it next? Is Google Cloud a risk for our company?

dredmorbius 7y ago
Is your company engaged in running or supporting the operation of concentration camps?
- IdontRememberIt 7y ago
  Seth's move impacted Chef's customers. Google Cloud may have contracts with ICE. So Seth may want to do something against Google and therefore impact us indirectly.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Would he be morally wrong to do so? What does this say about doing business with firms of low moral standards?
    - IdontRememberIt 7y ago
      ...
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        I'm more than familiar with the quote. There is the matter of degree. Sounds like you're trying to say "yes" without actually saying "yes", though, in truth.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

dredmorbius 7y ago

Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp

gremlinsinc 7y ago

> "I want to be clear that this decision is not about contract value — it is about maintaining a consistent and fair business approach in these volatile times. I do not believe that it is appropriate, practical, or within our mission to examine specific government projects with the purpose of selecting which U.S. agencies we should or should not do business." So if this were 1940, and he lived in germany would he gladly continue doing business w/ the country knowing they're gassing jews? I mean it's the government they always have our best interests in mind right? We should always support the government we live in no matter what right? Seriously? Without question? This CEO is obtuse, and probably shouldn't be running a tech company.