
An open letter to GitHub from the maintainers of open source projects - dr_linux
https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0
======
013a
These open source projects certainly love the very high quality, free services
Github offers them, until they start learning how the sausage is made.

ICE has done, and continues to do some terrible things. Horrible, horrible
things; all legal things, but nonetheless horrible. But, frankly, if its
legal, I am much less comfortable with Github's users subverting the US legal
system by backdooring their moral code into products these legal entities rely
on. Go to your senators. Go out and vote. Go protest. It's not that hard, but
it is much harder than signing your name on a petition.

~~~
ergothus
> But, frankly, if its legal, I am much less comfortable with Github's users
> subverting the US legal system by backdooring their moral code into products
> these legal entities rely on

I don't follow this logic. If it's legal, we should not take moral stances in
our actions outside of political actions? Doesn't the concept of "voting with
your wallet" expressly involve taking moral stances in ALL actions? Sure, the
open source projects may not be paying Github directly, but I'm VERY
uncomfortable with saying that money is the only way to take a moral stance.

The idea that there's some set of actions that should be categorically immune
to moral reactions is...weird at best and feels pretty darn dangerous. Almost
no one wants to make every decision an intense moral debate, but the OPTION
should exist. Otherwise you just create places to foster corruption.

> It's not that hard, but it is much harder than signing your name on a
> petition.

This feels like a false choice. Doing one doesn't mean the other is
unavailable, and doing one doesn't mean you SHOULDN'T do the other. Indeed, if
you think the stakes are high, doing both seems to be the best option.

~~~
013a
They're threatening a boycott. They're not actually boycotting.

I'll start paying attention when they actually start deleting repositories.
That's also when Github will start paying attention; they've gotten enough
warning.

But no one will actually do that, because everyone who signed this but still
has a community and a repository on Github is a coward. They love all the free
stuff, and they'd love for Github to just do whatever they tell them to do,
but without any of that icky hard work like migrating a community to someone
with more aligned morals.

Prove me wrong. Delete your account, NOW. Please. Prove me wrong. No one will.
Because all anyone ever does is whine; no one acts. Its so easy to sign your
name and complain; its hard to actually Act.

------
cronix
Sounds like a great time to start your own woke git service. So you have maybe
10-15 open source packages in your product, at a minimum. I guess we're at
such an intolerant point now that all 10-15 of those companies political
policies and viewpoints must align with your own - to use their _software
/service_.

I guess we've politicized code now. Has anyone looked at the political system
of discourse lately? Keep that shit out of code, or we're doomed as a
profession.

~~~
staticassertion
"Keep that shit out of code", you say, while software services take millions
of dollars in government contracts, and spend millions more lobbying.

Like ???????????

~~~
ratsmack
Taking a government contract is not the same as politicizing code.

~~~
hacknat
To you. Peoples' politics are, definitionally, subjective.

------
malvosenior
> _At the core of the open source ethos is the idea of liberty. Open source is
> about inverting power structures and creating access and opportunities for
> everyone._

I think the core idea of open source is that code should be shared for free.
Not shared for free (with people I politically agree with). By policing who
can use software, the author's of this letter are very much going against the
spirit of open source.

It should not be the position of the tool maker to dictate who can use the
tool they create. Once you put it out in the world, people you don't agree
with _will_ use your software (if you're lucky enough to have users that is).

I see no difference in slamming Github for having a customer certain activists
don't like vs the MPAA cracking down on DeCSS.

~~~
anarchodev
Yes, the idea of liberty (for everyone to use free software regardless of
intent) and the liberty of immigrants in the US to live without harassment and
terrorism of their communities are indeed in conflict. So you have to choose
one. By not choosing one, you're choosing the existing system -- ICE uses this
software to accomplish these goals.

We're not trying to infringe on ICE/CBP's ability to use popular open-source
software. We're simply asking some companies not to help them with support
contracts.

Hope this helps!

~~~
malvosenior
As stated I choose the liberty of everyone to use free software regardless of
intent.

> _By not choosing one, you 're choosing the existing system_

It's become quite popular to say that being ok with the status quo is a
political position. And while I couldn't disagree more, I've always believed
in free software and I'll proudly stand by that status quo as my political
position if that's how others want to view it.

------
kristiandupont
I probably share political stance with most of the people signing this and
it's a very interesting type of dilemma that I haven't thought quite through
just yet but I think I disagree with this.

It's common for especially B2C corporations to have highly documented CSR
policies. They will not work with suppliers that perform testing on animals.
Or employ child workers. And they will not work with suppliers who have
suppliers that do those things. The entire chain is potentially audited. I
approve of this concept and I vote with my wallet.

This situation, however, is different. Whereas companies choose suppliers,
they don't really _choose_ customers. At least by some definition, the
customers choose them. I know that this gets muddy because sales, but still.
And I don't like the idea that companies should start auditing their
customers. What if some company that deals with ICE uses Github? Or say
someone who used to work at ICE formed a company -- is that company in the
clear? Doesn't seem like a viable direction to me.

------
dang
This was discussed extensively a couple days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21703631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21703631).
Unfortunately it also turned into a flamewar with many users disregarding the
site guidelines. Please read and follow those when commenting here, no matter
how strongly you feel about political questions. Indeed, when strong feelings
are present, that's when we need to follow them the most. That's the point of
this rule:

" _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic
gets more divisive._ "

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
samatman
Yikes! It’s terrible that BitMover is doing things with BitKeeper which are
against the interests of the open source community.

Someone should develop a distributed version control system...

------
jedberg
As a side note to the letter, it's interesting to watch how pull requests are
used to add signatures _in alphabetical order_. That's actually a really
interesting exercise to watch.

~~~
kgwxd
Shouldn't they have instructions on how send a pull request without a GitHub
account? I'm already boycotting for an unrelated reason.

------
decebalus1
Honestly, who gives a shit? The whole free market deal everyone is preaching
about should just fix the problem. Git is decentralized. If you have a
political/ethical problem with Github, move your stuff to Gitlab or host it
yourself. It's not a big deal. Although I share some of the feelings in that
letter, Github is free to do whatever it wants and we are (still) free to take
our business wherever we want.

~~~
qwerty110291
GitHub is a near monopolist. Several large projects like Python have been
moved to GitHub under eager participation of Microsoft employees.

Open source is no longer free, so we do not have a choice.

~~~
decebalus1
> GitHub is a near monopolist. Several large projects like Python have been
> moved to GitHub

No. No no no no. Stop using Git like SVN. Fork the projects if you don't agree
with the maintainers choosing to stay with Github. Don't ask nicely, write
manifests, sign petitions, etc.. fucking act!

------
squidsurfer
Wonder if these social justice keyboard warriors know that most of the stuff
at ICE that they are upset about happened under Obama. Where was the outrage
then?

------
batterystd
An intelligent comment on there: [https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-
github-2.0/issues/215#issue...](https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-
github-2.0/issues/215#issuecomment-562239055)

------
squidsurfer
Letter forgot to mention all the killers and rapists ICE removes form USA and
keeping America SAFE #498 [https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-
github-2.0/issues/498](https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0/issues/498)

This issue makes a very good point!

------
lidHanteyk
So many of these folks were forced by their communities of users to move to
Github from their old, bespoke infrastructures. I can understand the
bitterness.

