
Lerna relicences to protest ICE - wwwigham
https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1616
======
eindiran
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. "

~~~
roblabla
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
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
Strangely, ICE itself isn’t on their list.

------
jsgo
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
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-
freed...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-
run.en.html)

" 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

------
Benjamin_Dobell
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.

~~~
jhanschoo
Per my understanding, unless other wise stated, relicensing is still pretty
much a fork; versions up to the relicense are still distributable under the
old license. In addition, MIT permits forking under a new license.

~~~
jymbo
If you can just do that, can I just be a downstream user, and as long as I
have a local license that says, "This is a rolling license fork of lerna" then
I can redistribute to said companies?

------
CaliforniaKarl
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.

------
jordigh
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-
freed...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-
run.html)

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.

------
Waterluvian
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
Trying to keep politics out of things isn't apolitical, it's the politics of
status quo.

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

~~~
mirimir
> 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
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.

~~~
nur0n
I believe you are the one lacking context. I'll assume your are not being
intentionally malicious and are just naive.

Abuse is almost certainly occurs in the presence of power structures with
severe disparity. Children are being placed in the custody of people who lack
appropriate training, background checks and supervision. Children can not
defend themselves and they are separated from the people who do protect them:
their parents. These are sufficient conditions for children to be mistreated;
I can't bear to think of what happens when the people who run these systems
choose to be actively malicious. These conditions are not only present in
these "detention centers" (a thinly disguised euphemism for prisons), but also
in places like poorly run orphanages and even some religious institutions, to
name a few.

I am disgusted by the lack of empathy when discussions such as this one come
up. I could care less by your stance on immigration policy; forcing children
into these systems, especially when there is no real need for it, is abhorrent
behavior.

\- [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/05/23/613907893...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/05/23/613907893/aclu-report-detained-immigrant-children-subjected-to-
widespread-abuse-by-officia) \-
[https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/us/undocumented-migrant-
child...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/us/undocumented-migrant-children-
detention-facilities-abuse-invs/index.html) \-
[https://sputniknews.com/us/201806211065644106-US-
Detention-C...](https://sputniknews.com/us/201806211065644106-US-Detention-
Center-Hired-Arrested-Child-Porn/)

~~~
EdSharkey
Is there human trafficking going on on the border or not? If yes, then the
detention policy and separating kids from their handlers upon ingest is
happening for legitimate reasons.

> forcing children into these systems, especially when there is no real need
> for it, is abhorrent behavior

HOW that detention is being executed is definitely worth debating and
certainly how individuals are treated can verge into tragic territory. Your
disagreement extends into the WHY, possibly for noble political reasons, but
which turns a blind eye to a serious humanitarian crisis.

> I am disgusted by the lack of empathy ...

This is where I got snarky, and deleted what I was going to say. I'll just
note that south of the US borders, there is a LOT of human suffering to be
disgusted about caused by failed approaches to government there.

------
dragontamer
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
> 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
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.

------
yellowapple
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

~~~
mikl
Yeah, I can’t see how Github can host Lerna with this license, since Github is
clearly “any subsidiary thereof”.

------
jancsika
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
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-
en...](https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-
donald-trumps-deportation-machine/)

~~~
jancsika
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
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.

~~~
jancsika
My point is that the license is the absolute worst place to put _anything_ \--
including a protest-- because licensing issues are _way_ outside the expertise
of most programmers.

For example, if they put the same information in a comment in the code, then
whatever flame war might ensue would at least be fully on the _social_
implications of it. Nobody will worry about the comment accidentally getting
interpreted improperly by various JS engines. Nobody will talk about how the
big company they work for will not touch code that has certain comments
because the comment department advised them those comments are radioactive.
Troglodytes won't pop up to poorly recite what they think they read on the
wall about comments and maximizing freedom.

All of that and more will happen when you write _anything_ non-standard in a
license for a FLOSS project. It's a dog-whistle to every programmer out there
who has dreamed of pretending to be a lawyer.

I offer into evidence the ratio of ICE-related posts to licensing-desiderata-
related posts in this thread.

If you've really got so much energy to waste that your thinking about writing
your own custom license blurb, just go reverse-engineer a baseband OS or
something.

~~~
jancsika
And now apparently the license has been reverted to MIT:

[https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1633](https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1633)

Someone had very decent aims-- protesting ICE-- and executed it in the wrong
scope-- a license change.

If you read the comments on that issue you'll see at least one person takes
that as a good lesson for avoiding the very decent aims in open source
projects.

That is unfortunate, and IMO a good reason to _avoid_ mucking around with
licenses at all.

------
ggreer
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
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
What stops someone from forking it and re-sublicensing it back to vanilla MIT?

~~~
sieabah
Nothing :D
[https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource](https://github.com/LernaOpenSource/LernaOpenSource)

------
nathan_long
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
And thus you see the issue... Open source isn't open source if your beliefs of
who uses the projects are involved.

------
DoofusOfDeath
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.

~~~
DubiousPusher
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.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
That's a great articulation of one way to view the issue, thanks!

I'd love to hear from people across the political spectrum as to whether or
not your model seems accurate w.r.t. their own personal views on the subject.

I.e., not whether or not they think your model accurately describes the people
with whom they disagree on this topic. Just whether or not they feel it
accurately captures their own view.

~~~
hokumguru
I personally find myself quite right-leaning in my beliefs and I find this
explanation to be quite on point. I however might add, for specificity's sake,
the ideas of optimism/cynicism on either side of the political spectrum -
specifically, how we view the fundamental nature of humans. In my experience
people on the right tend to be much more skeptical and cynical of human nature
while people on the left tend to be more trusting of humans. We see these
beliefs expressed in our political parties as well.

Conservatives tend to believe more in personal freedoms as, according to their
knowledge of human-nature, they cannot feasibly trust other people - most
especially the federal government.

In the same vein liberals tend to work more towards social programs and "the
greater good" because their knowledge of human nature says that humans are
fundamentally good and should deserve another chance.

I believe the view of human nature to be the most fundamental reduction of
modern politics - OP's interpretation of laws coincides with this.

------
augbog
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
…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
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
> 30 separate tweets in a row trying to explain something

Twitter is definitely not a good platform for something like this

------
aeneasmackenzie
Pointless. Here's a version without the restrictions:
[https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c35799600320...](https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/02a2380b8f18c3579960032091643b9d12fd41e5)

------
voidr
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
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
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.

~~~
exogen
My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are
already well established in the software ecosystem. This is not new. Whenever
someone posts a link about Emacs do you see people saying "it would be
hilarious if someone forked this and banned Stallman from using their
software"?

~~~
voidr
I used the word politics, I was not talking about ideology or morality, I was
referring to politics specifically.

> My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are
> already well established in the software ecosystem.

I don't recall saying that we never had ideologically or morally motivated
licenses, best example is JSLint license, which prohibits you from using the
software for "evil".

> This is not new.

You are refuting something I have never claimed.

This was my main point: "Mixing software with politics never ends well in a
democracy."

If you want to debate it, I would appreciate if you could stick to what I
actually wrote without changing its original meaning.

~~~
exogen
Because if you read the post, the author is clearly making this change on
moral grounds, that are only incidentally political to folks who choose to
reduce it to that (like you did). Specific immoral actions are named, not
political ideologies. The change is not to protest “ICE under conservative
leadership.”

It’s apparent by now that to many folks, it’s unbelievable that “ICE should
not rip toddlers from their families and put them in camps” is something that
could be dismissed as just a political opinion valid as any other (and could
you please not bring it up by the way because it’s rude to talk about
politics).

------
burfog
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
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
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-
freed...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-
run.en.html)

------
freditup
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/705cb008a59efb4d8...](https://github.com/Microsoft/fast-
dna/blob/705cb008a59efb4d8c905f4939be66798c88d2fd/package.json#L21) [1]:
[https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f733...](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/blob/3c360b50f6106f7330b995a2564936bde6aa757c/package.json#L56)

------
wemdyjreichert
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
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#issueco...](https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/25376#issuecomment-416795555)

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

~~~
javver
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.

------
alanh
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.

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

~~~
diegorbaquero
Yes

------
75dvtwin
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/mozill...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozilla-
ceo-resignation-free-speech/7328759/)

~~~
village-idiot
I'm getting tired of bigots crying about censorship right around the point
where they face consequences for being bigots.

~~~
75dvtwin
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
And they will not find in these "victims" favor, because this is not and has
never been a free speech issue.

Those that argue that this is a free speech issue are arguing in bad faith and
need to knock it off.

None of these men were legally prosecuted for their speech, they faced
personal consequences for their actions. That's not a free speech issue, it's
a "words matter" issue. That I need to point out that people need to take
personal responsibility for what they say is a sign of how far we've fallen.

------
EdSharkey
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.

------
mirimir
Also see [https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-
ice](https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice)

------
aphelion
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?

------
crankylinuxuser
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.

~~~
exogen
sub·sid·i·ar·y /səbˈsidēˌerē/

a company controlled by a holding company.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
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
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.

------
sbr464
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?

------
village-idiot
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
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...

------
mikequeue
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.

