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Github provides software lifecycle management services. It is apolitical. I do not believe we should be trying to police the providers of apolitical software.

aalleavitch 7y ago
This is bullshit, nothing is apolitical. To pretend otherwise is the height of dishonesty. Claiming that there are no political consequences for your actions is simply burying your head in the sand. You have a measurable effect on the world around you. If you do something, you are responsible for the effect it has on the world around you. You don't get to just dump toxic waste into the environment and claim it's an externality so it's not your problem. Your political effect on the world is just as real as any other effect you have on the environment, you are responsible.
- andonisus 7y ago
  There are political consequences for everything we do. I never said there weren't any. All I said was that I don't think we should be concerned with the politics of selling apolitical software.
  - aalleavitch 7y ago
    Right? Imagine the horror of companies having to take strong ethical stances on the use of their software and how their company influences the world around them. If companies had to care about ensuring that the fruits of their labor had impacts that were in accordance with the moral beliefs of their employees, that might even cut into shareholder profits. The terror!
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
"Technology is not neutral." -- Godfrey Reggio
tus88 7y ago
Except politics has become so divided each side views supporting the other as a crime against humanity/the national interest.
parkovski 7y ago
The human rights violations that ICE commits should not be considered a political matter regardless of whether one party endorses them. Supporting those that enable atrocities is not politics, it's publicly announcing that you are a defect of evolution. However, ICE will do what they are told and allowed to do and I don't see how this makes any difference. If they're forced off GitHub, they'll just take more taxpayer money to migrate to another platform because those above them in the hierarchy support what they're doing. The anger toward ICE is valid, but just like in medicine, treating a symptom does nothing toward treating the root cause.
- cryoshon 7y ago
  >treating a symptom does nothing toward treating the root cause imagine if someone told you that it won't make a difference to give you a painkiller for your broken leg because it won't cure the broken leg. the root cause is not easily accessible. but that doesn't mean all other approaches to lightening the burden are useless. it means that a plurality of approaches will be necessary to solve the problem.
  - parkovski 7y ago
    Ok imagine that you have a broken leg and the only painkillers we've invented are local, and when you take those another limb breaks just to spite you. That's where we are with this. It doesn't get to be nice and painless while it heals and I can't see anything making any difference unless enough of us under no circumstances vote for anyone that supports this stuff.
claudiawerner 7y ago
>Github provides software lifecycle management services. It is apolitical. It is immeditately political the moment you sell your product to people working along politically charged lines, for political ends. It is no different (speaking of being political or apolitical, that is) to US companies selling software to the Chinese state. You have posited that technology is neutral without anything to back that up, and in opposition to the current scholarship on the intersection beween technology and politics[0]. [0] https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/portal/files/615442/guid-18864b37-af96-490e-8d71-24f240d4f6b5-ASSET1.0.pdf https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/portal/files/615442/gui...
- andonisus 7y ago
  Github's software is apolitical. This is not up for debate. Source code hosting is not a political thing.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    It only seems to be "not up for debate" because you say so. The product does not have any particular political goal, of course. But the choice of who it is sold to, for what purpose, and what price, absolutely is. My argument is that Github should use its right to "vote with its wallet" - since this is the only way to control outcomes in the economic sphere without the state - because in this case, the state is the objectionable party.
- hnlurker 7y ago
  All the ICE workers wear pants, we should organize and boycott all manufacturers of pants. Where does it end under your rules? Seriously, how about food? Farmers need to unite!
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
GitHub gave discounted rates to ICE. That's not an apolitical move.
- dorkinspace 7y ago
  What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates? Do companies over X emplopyees get a discount? Do Government agencies get a discount by default? I don't think it is fair to make a judgement that this is a politically charged action rather than just business as usual.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    ” What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates?” The decision to continue to service specific entities is a political move, same as selling weapons to Saudi Arabia or Iran, or the stance the NBA has taken with China regarding its pro-HK player. It’s why finance institutions have some amount of checking that they’re not being used to help wire funds to terrorist groups.
    - dorkinspace 7y ago
      In my opinion, an American company selling to an American government agency is wildly different than an American company selling to a foreign government.
- danpalmer 7y ago
  While I see your point, and have some very mixed feelings on this whole subject, I'm not sure that enterprise sales and negotiation should be seen as a political move rather than just part of how this sort of business works.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
LiquidSky 7y ago
This in itself is a political stance.
- cmcd 7y ago
  Providing a service to a any political entity is considered taking a stance? What stance is Verizon taking when they provide cell service for leaders of both the NRA and Planned Parenthood?
  - gowld 7y ago
    It's a stance that says they respect those organizations right to cell phone service. You may agree or disagree that their stance is good, even if you hate one of those orgs, but it's still a political stance.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    ” Providing a service to a any political entity is considered taking a stance?” I mean, yes? Working with China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, etc. are stances.
    - cmcd 7y ago
      There is a big difference between supporting a country like North Korea and a domestic government organization. Imagine if companies started bowing down to this kind of behavior and stopped supporting politically contentious entities. There is a large portion of the country who would agree that Planned Parenthood is doing things just as bad as ICE. Should companies stop supporting Planned Parenthood because large groups of people are offended by their services?
      - fzeroracer 7y ago
        I mean, let's put this to an example. Let's say GitHub was working with domestic intelligence agencies to add backdoors to various repos for the sake of increasing US security. Would you say that is apolitical? Or does it only become political when you disagree with it?
astrodust 7y ago
Nothing is "apolitical". Everything has consequences. You have the luxury of painting those consequences as "politics" when they don't impact you.
- LiNeXT 7y ago
  Don't be silly. Plenty of things are apolitical.
  - aalleavitch 7y ago
    Pretending you have nothing to do with the consequences of your actions doesn't make it so. Saying you're "apolitical" only means that you bury your head in the sand regarding the very real political consequences of your operations.
    - LiNeXT 7y ago
      Claiming that everything is political doesn't make it so.
      - aalleavitch 7y ago
        And claiming that something is apolitical doesn't make it so. Are you going to present an actual argument? The reality of the world is that no company operates in a vacuum. If a political organization gains power it wouldn't have had because you willingly entered into a contract with it, you are absolutely responsible for that. Pretending otherwise is just trying to absolve yourself of the real harm that you have done.
        LiNeXT 7y ago
        It's software. What you or anyone else does with it is your own responsibility.
        aalleavitch 7y ago
minimuffins 7y ago
"In a fact sheet circulating within GitHub, employees opposing the ICE contract wrote that the GitHub sales team actively pursued the contract renewal with ICE. The Times reviewed screenshots of an internal Slack channel after the contract was renewed on Sept. 4 that appear to show sales employees celebrating a $56,000 upgrade of the contract with ICE. The message, which congratulated four employees for the sale and was accompanied by emojis of a siren, bald eagle and American flag, read “stay out of their way. $56k upgrade at DHS ICE.” Five people responded with an American flag emoji." https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31/github-ice-contract-defense https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31... Doesn't sound very apolitical.
- LiNeXT 7y ago
  This is how enterprise sales are done.
  - minimuffins 7y ago
    I don't care.
    - LiNeXT 7y ago
      You don't? Then why are you commenting here?
    - lykr0n 7y ago
      that's a good way to get people to care about the points you're making.
      - minimuffins 7y ago
        The main point is clear. The way that Github, a big, influential tech company owned by an even bigger more influential tech company, decides to align itself with ICE, is inherently political, regardless of "how enterprise sales works."
jonny_eh 7y ago
So it was ok for IBM to help the Nazis conduct the Holocaust? It's convenient to pretend there are no lines, but there are always lines.
- LiNeXT 7y ago
  ICE aren't "the Nazis" and immigration enforcement isn't the Holocaust.
  - jonny_eh 7y ago
    I'm saying there are lines. I used an example that everyone should be able to agree is a line that should not have been crossed.
    - Goladus 7y ago
      Everyone knows there are lines, and you just coincidentally made a Nazi analogy. Discussions about immigration (and the rhetoric of progressives in the US in general) is constantly plagued by inflammatory and inappropriate Nazi references. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but it's still a mistake.
      - jonny_eh 7y ago
        Can you suggest a better example of a tech company taking on business that in retrospect isn't morally defensible?
        jariel 7y ago
        Dow Chemical / Agent Orange. But like all things, it's complicated. We didn't know quite the fallout. Human life was simply valued less back in the day - this was a time when many cars still didn't even have seat belts.
  - the_jeremy 7y ago
    They made a fake university[1] to lure in foreigners on student visas, then arrested everyone who enrolled for not attending a real university, including some who had already transferred out after realizing it was fake. It's not the Holocaust, but it's not ethical. [1]:https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/ice-arrested-250-foreign-students-fake-university-metro-detroit/4277686002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/i...
weego 7y ago
This is also a contract renewal. I can't find any information on there being any publicly announced discontent before. Developer activism is very fashionable to report on though I guess.
- _-david-_ 7y ago
  It seems like the only difference is who the president is. Very few people seemed to care when Obama and Clinton did the exact same thing. Suddenly Trump is now in power and ICE is compared to Nazis.
mc32 7y ago
GitHub cannot let that happen. It opens a Pandora’s box. If they are successful here, the activists will not declare “mission accomplished”. Nope. They will then search for other contracts to be cancelled. And then there will be infighting as to why one should remain and another cancelled as disagreements mount. Don’t get into politics when you’re providing enterprise services. Stay away from it as far as you can.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  Like so many libertarian-esque arguments, this sounds reasonably good on the surface, but I think real life is a bit more complex, and nuance matters. Just to use an absurd example, let's imagine an alternate universe where Hitler and the Nazis were in power in the U.S. here in 2019. Would it be acceptable, then, for Github to cancel their contracts? Or would that be playing politics too? Please note: I'm not suggesting ICE is equivalent to Nazis. I'm simply suggesting there is a limit to your assertion that enterprise services should always avoid politics. It's easy to bucket politics as this thing that doesn't really matter. We're privileged as hell in the U.S. in 2019 that that is mostly true. But for the majority of world history, politics has dire consequences for major segments of the population. With respect to ICE, they absolutely are violating some pretty fundamental human rights. I don't think it's beyond the pale for technology companies (often heavily reliant on immigrant labor) to take a stand here.
  - mpfundstein 7y ago
    which human rights do they violate?
    - the_gastropod 7y ago
      Child separation, for starters. The UN Human Rights Office agrees that it's a human rights violation: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/06/1011391 https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/06/1011391
      - _-david-_ 7y ago
aqme28 7y ago
I strongly disagree. Companies make choices of who they partner with based on PR all of the time. GitHub isn't immune to this. I don't want to support companies partnering with organizations I don't like, whether it's ICE or e.g. Nazis or ISIS.
- LiNeXT 7y ago
  It's a software sale, not a partnership.
- logifail 7y ago
  > I don't want to support companies partnering with organizations I don't like How is this not the mother of all slippery slopes? Should all political parties - apart from the one you currently support - ought to be denied service from, well, any and every possible service provider?
  - aqme28 7y ago
    Denied service? We're not talking about legislation preventing GitHub from working with ICE, we're talking about public opinion. My (and these developers) opinion of GitHub is tarnished by this. If they partner with a far-left organization, it will be a different situation. Companies find a balance. Companies make or break partnerships based on how they affect public opinion (see the recent Chick-fil-A situation)
    - logifail 7y ago
      > We're not talking about legislation preventing GitHub from working with ICE, we're talking about public opinion Which particular fragment of "public opinion"? Allowing public opinion to directly and immediately govern whether something is allowed to happen risks handing power to tiny but vocal - or simply well-funded - groups. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
    - Goladus 7y ago
klyrs 7y ago
If Github was providing their services to the government of North Korea, especially at a discount, things would get awfully political right quick.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  Wait you aren’t actually implying that an organization that protects the borders and enforces laws is the same as North Korea.
  - dublinben 7y ago
    ICE doesn't 'protect the borders' that's the job of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
    - refurb 7y ago
      Enforcing immigration laws is a part of protecting the border. Even if it’s not in their name.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    All I'm saying is that providing services to governments is political. Nowhere did I claim equivalence of parties in question.
    - username90 7y ago
      I'd argue that refusing to provide services to your own democratically elected government is undemocratic, you are then trying to have bigger influence on the country than your one vote allows. Only time that would be reasonable is if your democracy is failing. Would you say that USA's democracy is failing currently?
      - klyrs 7y ago
        > Would you say that USA's democracy is failing currently? Well that's quite the pigeonhole, and I will not duck my head to enter. I refute your premise as fundamentally un-American. As a business, you are under no obligation to compete for government contracts. That notion, IMO, would be a sure sign of a broken democracy. I'd describe such a policy as authoritarian. It's happened before, under martial law; a constitutional mechanism to temporarily suspend democracy. It's happened elsewhere, under communist regimes. Of all things, the third amendment informs how the founders might address this. Don't see that one every day.
zer00eyz 7y ago
If the contract is canceled what changes. Ice needs to find a new tool and the people at Github who didn't like it can pat themselves on the back and say "we did something" The problem is that all the energy and effort they are putting into this, doesn't fix the fundamental underlying issue that caused this problem in the first place. It is a "feel good" move by the people at GitHub, if they don't like what is going on they should quit their jobs and write software for an activist group, or many activist groups... There are plenty of ways their talents could be put to use making actual change!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bsder 7y ago
> It is apolitical. No, it is not. Choosing to do business with the PRC is political. Period. If that means the PRC will develop their own services and not have access to the rest of the world, fine. The "China will open up" rhetoric was wrong. Since it was wrong, it's time for the West to change tack.
Brain_Thief 7y ago
No matter how attractive it may be to pretend that business decisions exist in some sort of apolitical moral vacuum the simple fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of them do not. Making money is not an excuse for improving the surveillance efficiency of autocratic regimes, building gas chambers, or supporting an organization that engages in mass-scale detention of child refugees. I fully support the rights of employees to peacefully encourage their organizations to weigh the moral components of business decisions. It is obvious that, left to their own devices, large businesses will support slavery, genocide, and any number of horrors in the pursuit of profit - something has to restrain their behavior and it certainly isn't going to come from the C-level without serious pressure being applied.

aalleavitch 7y ago

This is bullshit, nothing is apolitical. To pretend otherwise is the height of dishonesty. Claiming that there are no political consequences for your actions is simply burying your head in the sand. You have a measurable effect on the world around you. If you do something, you are responsible for the effect it has on the world around you. You don't get to just dump toxic waste into the environment and claim it's an externality so it's not your problem. Your political effect on the world is just as real as any other effect you have on the environment, you are responsible.

andonisus 7y ago
There are political consequences for everything we do. I never said there weren't any. All I said was that I don't think we should be concerned with the politics of selling apolitical software.
- aalleavitch 7y ago
  Right? Imagine the horror of companies having to take strong ethical stances on the use of their software and how their company influences the world around them. If companies had to care about ensuring that the fruits of their labor had impacts that were in accordance with the moral beliefs of their employees, that might even cut into shareholder profits. The terror!
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

"Technology is not neutral." -- Godfrey Reggio

tus88 7y ago

Except politics has become so divided each side views supporting the other as a crime against humanity/the national interest.

parkovski 7y ago

The human rights violations that ICE commits should not be considered a political matter regardless of whether one party endorses them. Supporting those that enable atrocities is not politics, it's publicly announcing that you are a defect of evolution. However, ICE will do what they are told and allowed to do and I don't see how this makes any difference. If they're forced off GitHub, they'll just take more taxpayer money to migrate to another platform because those above them in the hierarchy support what they're doing. The anger toward ICE is valid, but just like in medicine, treating a symptom does nothing toward treating the root cause.

cryoshon 7y ago
>treating a symptom does nothing toward treating the root cause imagine if someone told you that it won't make a difference to give you a painkiller for your broken leg because it won't cure the broken leg. the root cause is not easily accessible. but that doesn't mean all other approaches to lightening the burden are useless. it means that a plurality of approaches will be necessary to solve the problem.
- parkovski 7y ago
  Ok imagine that you have a broken leg and the only painkillers we've invented are local, and when you take those another limb breaks just to spite you. That's where we are with this. It doesn't get to be nice and painless while it heals and I can't see anything making any difference unless enough of us under no circumstances vote for anyone that supports this stuff.

claudiawerner 7y ago

>Github provides software lifecycle management services. It is apolitical. It is immeditately political the moment you sell your product to people working along politically charged lines, for political ends. It is no different (speaking of being political or apolitical, that is) to US companies selling software to the Chinese state. You have posited that technology is neutral without anything to back that up, and in opposition to the current scholarship on the intersection beween technology and politics[0]. [0] https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/portal/files/615442/guid-18864b37-af96-490e-8d71-24f240d4f6b5-ASSET1.0.pdf https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/portal/files/615442/gui...

andonisus 7y ago
Github's software is apolitical. This is not up for debate. Source code hosting is not a political thing.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  It only seems to be "not up for debate" because you say so. The product does not have any particular political goal, of course. But the choice of who it is sold to, for what purpose, and what price, absolutely is. My argument is that Github should use its right to "vote with its wallet" - since this is the only way to control outcomes in the economic sphere without the state - because in this case, the state is the objectionable party.
hnlurker 7y ago
All the ICE workers wear pants, we should organize and boycott all manufacturers of pants. Where does it end under your rules? Seriously, how about food? Farmers need to unite!

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

GitHub gave discounted rates to ICE. That's not an apolitical move.

dorkinspace 7y ago
What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates? Do companies over X emplopyees get a discount? Do Government agencies get a discount by default? I don't think it is fair to make a judgement that this is a politically charged action rather than just business as usual.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  ” What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates?” The decision to continue to service specific entities is a political move, same as selling weapons to Saudi Arabia or Iran, or the stance the NBA has taken with China regarding its pro-HK player. It’s why finance institutions have some amount of checking that they’re not being used to help wire funds to terrorist groups.
  - dorkinspace 7y ago
    In my opinion, an American company selling to an American government agency is wildly different than an American company selling to a foreign government.
danpalmer 7y ago
While I see your point, and have some very mixed feelings on this whole subject, I'm not sure that enterprise sales and negotiation should be seen as a political move rather than just part of how this sort of business works.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago

LiquidSky 7y ago

This in itself is a political stance.

cmcd 7y ago
Providing a service to a any political entity is considered taking a stance? What stance is Verizon taking when they provide cell service for leaders of both the NRA and Planned Parenthood?
- gowld 7y ago
  It's a stance that says they respect those organizations right to cell phone service. You may agree or disagree that their stance is good, even if you hate one of those orgs, but it's still a political stance.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  ” Providing a service to a any political entity is considered taking a stance?” I mean, yes? Working with China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, etc. are stances.
  - cmcd 7y ago
    There is a big difference between supporting a country like North Korea and a domestic government organization. Imagine if companies started bowing down to this kind of behavior and stopped supporting politically contentious entities. There is a large portion of the country who would agree that Planned Parenthood is doing things just as bad as ICE. Should companies stop supporting Planned Parenthood because large groups of people are offended by their services?
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      I mean, let's put this to an example. Let's say GitHub was working with domestic intelligence agencies to add backdoors to various repos for the sake of increasing US security. Would you say that is apolitical? Or does it only become political when you disagree with it?

astrodust 7y ago

Nothing is "apolitical". Everything has consequences. You have the luxury of painting those consequences as "politics" when they don't impact you.

LiNeXT 7y ago
Don't be silly. Plenty of things are apolitical.
- aalleavitch 7y ago
  Pretending you have nothing to do with the consequences of your actions doesn't make it so. Saying you're "apolitical" only means that you bury your head in the sand regarding the very real political consequences of your operations.
  - LiNeXT 7y ago
    Claiming that everything is political doesn't make it so.
    - aalleavitch 7y ago
      And claiming that something is apolitical doesn't make it so. Are you going to present an actual argument? The reality of the world is that no company operates in a vacuum. If a political organization gains power it wouldn't have had because you willingly entered into a contract with it, you are absolutely responsible for that. Pretending otherwise is just trying to absolve yourself of the real harm that you have done.
      - LiNeXT 7y ago
        It's software. What you or anyone else does with it is your own responsibility.
        aalleavitch 7y ago

minimuffins 7y ago

"In a fact sheet circulating within GitHub, employees opposing the ICE contract wrote that the GitHub sales team actively pursued the contract renewal with ICE. The Times reviewed screenshots of an internal Slack channel after the contract was renewed on Sept. 4 that appear to show sales employees celebrating a $56,000 upgrade of the contract with ICE. The message, which congratulated four employees for the sale and was accompanied by emojis of a siren, bald eagle and American flag, read “stay out of their way. $56k upgrade at DHS ICE.” Five people responded with an American flag emoji." https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31/github-ice-contract-defense https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-31... Doesn't sound very apolitical.

LiNeXT 7y ago
This is how enterprise sales are done.
- minimuffins 7y ago
  I don't care.
  - LiNeXT 7y ago
    You don't? Then why are you commenting here?
  - lykr0n 7y ago
    that's a good way to get people to care about the points you're making.
    - minimuffins 7y ago
      The main point is clear. The way that Github, a big, influential tech company owned by an even bigger more influential tech company, decides to align itself with ICE, is inherently political, regardless of "how enterprise sales works."

jonny_eh 7y ago

So it was ok for IBM to help the Nazis conduct the Holocaust? It's convenient to pretend there are no lines, but there are always lines.

LiNeXT 7y ago
ICE aren't "the Nazis" and immigration enforcement isn't the Holocaust.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  I'm saying there are lines. I used an example that everyone should be able to agree is a line that should not have been crossed.
  - Goladus 7y ago
    Everyone knows there are lines, and you just coincidentally made a Nazi analogy. Discussions about immigration (and the rhetoric of progressives in the US in general) is constantly plagued by inflammatory and inappropriate Nazi references. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but it's still a mistake.
    - jonny_eh 7y ago
      Can you suggest a better example of a tech company taking on business that in retrospect isn't morally defensible?
      - jariel 7y ago
        Dow Chemical / Agent Orange. But like all things, it's complicated. We didn't know quite the fallout. Human life was simply valued less back in the day - this was a time when many cars still didn't even have seat belts.
- the_jeremy 7y ago
  They made a fake university[1] to lure in foreigners on student visas, then arrested everyone who enrolled for not attending a real university, including some who had already transferred out after realizing it was fake. It's not the Holocaust, but it's not ethical. [1]:https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/ice-arrested-250-foreign-students-fake-university-metro-detroit/4277686002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/i...

weego 7y ago

This is also a contract renewal. I can't find any information on there being any publicly announced discontent before. Developer activism is very fashionable to report on though I guess.

_-david-_ 7y ago
It seems like the only difference is who the president is. Very few people seemed to care when Obama and Clinton did the exact same thing. Suddenly Trump is now in power and ICE is compared to Nazis.

mc32 7y ago

GitHub cannot let that happen. It opens a Pandora’s box. If they are successful here, the activists will not declare “mission accomplished”. Nope. They will then search for other contracts to be cancelled. And then there will be infighting as to why one should remain and another cancelled as disagreements mount. Don’t get into politics when you’re providing enterprise services. Stay away from it as far as you can.

the_gastropod 7y ago
Like so many libertarian-esque arguments, this sounds reasonably good on the surface, but I think real life is a bit more complex, and nuance matters. Just to use an absurd example, let's imagine an alternate universe where Hitler and the Nazis were in power in the U.S. here in 2019. Would it be acceptable, then, for Github to cancel their contracts? Or would that be playing politics too? Please note: I'm not suggesting ICE is equivalent to Nazis. I'm simply suggesting there is a limit to your assertion that enterprise services should always avoid politics. It's easy to bucket politics as this thing that doesn't really matter. We're privileged as hell in the U.S. in 2019 that that is mostly true. But for the majority of world history, politics has dire consequences for major segments of the population. With respect to ICE, they absolutely are violating some pretty fundamental human rights. I don't think it's beyond the pale for technology companies (often heavily reliant on immigrant labor) to take a stand here.
- mpfundstein 7y ago
  which human rights do they violate?
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    Child separation, for starters. The UN Human Rights Office agrees that it's a human rights violation: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/06/1011391 https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/06/1011391
    - _-david-_ 7y ago

aqme28 7y ago

I strongly disagree. Companies make choices of who they partner with based on PR all of the time. GitHub isn't immune to this. I don't want to support companies partnering with organizations I don't like, whether it's ICE or e.g. Nazis or ISIS.

LiNeXT 7y ago
It's a software sale, not a partnership.
logifail 7y ago
> I don't want to support companies partnering with organizations I don't like How is this not the mother of all slippery slopes? Should all political parties - apart from the one you currently support - ought to be denied service from, well, any and every possible service provider?
- aqme28 7y ago
  Denied service? We're not talking about legislation preventing GitHub from working with ICE, we're talking about public opinion. My (and these developers) opinion of GitHub is tarnished by this. If they partner with a far-left organization, it will be a different situation. Companies find a balance. Companies make or break partnerships based on how they affect public opinion (see the recent Chick-fil-A situation)
  - logifail 7y ago
    > We're not talking about legislation preventing GitHub from working with ICE, we're talking about public opinion Which particular fragment of "public opinion"? Allowing public opinion to directly and immediately govern whether something is allowed to happen risks handing power to tiny but vocal - or simply well-funded - groups. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
  - Goladus 7y ago

klyrs 7y ago

If Github was providing their services to the government of North Korea, especially at a discount, things would get awfully political right quick.

nodesocket 7y ago
Wait you aren’t actually implying that an organization that protects the borders and enforces laws is the same as North Korea.
- dublinben 7y ago
  ICE doesn't 'protect the borders' that's the job of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
  - refurb 7y ago
    Enforcing immigration laws is a part of protecting the border. Even if it’s not in their name.
- klyrs 7y ago
  All I'm saying is that providing services to governments is political. Nowhere did I claim equivalence of parties in question.
  - username90 7y ago
    I'd argue that refusing to provide services to your own democratically elected government is undemocratic, you are then trying to have bigger influence on the country than your one vote allows. Only time that would be reasonable is if your democracy is failing. Would you say that USA's democracy is failing currently?
    - klyrs 7y ago
      > Would you say that USA's democracy is failing currently? Well that's quite the pigeonhole, and I will not duck my head to enter. I refute your premise as fundamentally un-American. As a business, you are under no obligation to compete for government contracts. That notion, IMO, would be a sure sign of a broken democracy. I'd describe such a policy as authoritarian. It's happened before, under martial law; a constitutional mechanism to temporarily suspend democracy. It's happened elsewhere, under communist regimes. Of all things, the third amendment informs how the founders might address this. Don't see that one every day.

zer00eyz 7y ago

If the contract is canceled what changes. Ice needs to find a new tool and the people at Github who didn't like it can pat themselves on the back and say "we did something" The problem is that all the energy and effort they are putting into this, doesn't fix the fundamental underlying issue that caused this problem in the first place. It is a "feel good" move by the people at GitHub, if they don't like what is going on they should quit their jobs and write software for an activist group, or many activist groups... There are plenty of ways their talents could be put to use making actual change!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bsder 7y ago

> It is apolitical. No, it is not. Choosing to do business with the PRC is political. Period. If that means the PRC will develop their own services and not have access to the rest of the world, fine. The "China will open up" rhetoric was wrong. Since it was wrong, it's time for the West to change tack.

Brain_Thief 7y ago

No matter how attractive it may be to pretend that business decisions exist in some sort of apolitical moral vacuum the simple fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of them do not. Making money is not an excuse for improving the surveillance efficiency of autocratic regimes, building gas chambers, or supporting an organization that engages in mass-scale detention of child refugees. I fully support the rights of employees to peacefully encourage their organizations to weigh the moral components of business decisions. It is obvious that, left to their own devices, large businesses will support slavery, genocide, and any number of horrors in the pursuit of profit - something has to restrain their behavior and it certainly isn't going to come from the C-level without serious pressure being applied.