
Gitlab Makes a U-Turn - ameshkov
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/17/gitlab_reverse_ferret/
======
anm89
The most upvoted thing I've ever written on here by an order of magnitude was
a post on yesterday's story saying I applauded the move to ban politics and
censorship at gitlab. But sure enough it looks like they've given in to louder
angrier voices instead of holding their ground.

And that's the most insane part of how this works. They are doing this to
appease people but on average people hate these kind of politically correct
fear/shame tactics. But I guess it's difficult to measure that and those few
people sure sound angry so they buckle not realizing that they are ultimately
making a much more unpopular move.

------
chickenpotpie
If we've learned anything from Blizzard it is that it is impossible to be an
international company and not participate in politics. What would GitLab do if
the Chinese government ordered them to take down a repository because it's
being used by Hong Kong protestors? If they take it down they are saying that
China should get to control Hong Kong. If they leave it up they are saying
that Hong Kong should be free of Chinese rule. Either way it is a political
statement. Employees are going to have to talk about this and make decisions
that reflect their values.

~~~
veritse33
No, if the government orders you to do something you do it. Disobeying a legal
order would be a political statement. ('civil' disobedience)

The GitLab policy was meant to stop ideologically motivated employees from
sacrificing the reputation and interests of the company for their own personal
political objectives. Of course, enough other compainies have already been
taken over by allied ideologues that they pressured GitLab into allowing
politically motivated behavior.

~~~
chickenpotpie
Obeying a government order is also a political statement that you support that
government. GitLab is an international company, they don't owe an allegiance
to one specific country. One country might tell them to do something and
another one might tell them to do the opposite. They're going to have to pick
and choose sides sometimes.

------
dev_dull
For all of the praise of diversity, all I see is a monoculture in Silicon
Valley.

~~~
yellowapple
If you want actual diversity, go an hour or two inland. Sacramento and
Stockton are a fair bit more diverse politically/socially while having a very
similar degree of diversity ethnically. I can also attest (having grown up in
Sacramento, and currently living in the SF area) that there's a higher degree
of ethnic integration within neighborhoods and even within
households/families.

------
lacker
The downside of making so many internal documents public like GitLab does is
that policy tweaks like this can spur more external gossip. At most companies
I don't think this sort of policy change would have gotten any news coverage.

~~~
dredmorbius
OTOH, _very_ fast and hard reality checks.

------
Rebelgecko
The vaguest rule to me is the one against making derogatory statements toward
"our community". What community is that? Gitlab employees? Developers that
upload open source software on Github? Customers that have on-prem gitlab
deployments?

If a politician (or to invoke Godwin's law a literal Nazi) I don't like uses
Gitlab and I say "fuck that guy", do I need to worry about my account being
suspended?

~~~
zamadatix
That's the rule where the reality "you can't reliably encode a social decision
making framework in a markdown list and need to rely on human judgement
anyways" is hidden.

