
Update from Chef - kyoob
https://blog.chef.io/2019/09/23/an-important-update-from-chef/
======
minimaxir
Another reminder that bad press and community/customer pressure indeed
_works_. And there's nothing wrong with that.

~~~
swsieber
I have mixed feelings. It was basically a mob-driven decision. Mob made
decisions can have good or bad outcomes, but the action being pressured for by
mobs is usually irrational.

I think there's something to be said for listening to your customers and
community. But how much of the pushback was from the community? Certainly the
developer who yanked their code. And from what I've read the internal
developers too.

But I think having to fear crowds of probably less than completely informed
people generally lacking nuance is not something to be lauded.

~~~
floatingatoll
Do you consider the specific action requested by the mob in this specific
instance to be irrational?

~~~
swsieber
I'm honestly not sure. Other people will take up the up the contract, and the
work will get done, but probably not quite as cheaply.

~~~
dragonwriter
If evil is more expensive, it will be harder for evil doers to get as much of
it done.

~~~
swsieber
So yeah, I say "I'm not sure" because I don't know the personal motives of the
individual outspoken people. It really depends on what they thought it was
going to accomplish, and why they wanted those things to happen.

Thwarting ICE? Incredibly unlikely and impractical . Slowing ICE down?
Probably.

~~~
cjbprime
The individual outspoken developer who started it seemed reasonably clear: he
didn't want helping ICE through his code to be on his conscience.

~~~
swsieber
I completely agree.

------
ARandomerDude
The problem with this is the mob too quickly concludes CBP provides _no_
valuable service to the nation (i.e., service worth contract support) because
of a policy I don't like. That really is unjustified, I think.

The same is true of law enforcement generally. Police get a lot of hate on HN
because of some obviously over-the-top policies that need to be corrected. But
we would have major problems without law enforcement, including CBP.

We should address the issues without taking them to the extremes. This applies
pretty broadly in politics these days, sadly.

~~~
happytoexplain
>Police get a lot of hate on HN because of some obviously over-the-top
policies that need to be corrected. But we would have major problems without
law enforcement

This seems like a fantastic leap. I think there are zero or borderline zero
instances of calls, _even implicitly_ , for the abolishment of law due to
individual horrors.

~~~
tracker1
There are plenty of politicians and candidates advocating for abolishing
CBP/ICE.

~~~
nraynaud
ICE, because it’s useless. There is a service for catching criminals it’s
called the police. There is absolutely no need for a nazier one that would
handle only one type of misdemeanors in the most brutal And devastating way
they can do.

~~~
newfriend
There is obviously a current need for ICE. There are more than 10 million
illegal aliens currently living in the US illegally, and this problem has been
happening for decades. It's disingenuous to call this a misdemeanor when it's
in regard to people who have no legal right to be in the United States.
Immigration law is a federal issue, and local law enforcement is not setup to
deal with these situations.

I agree with you though that it would be great if local police were enabled to
find and deport all of the illegal aliens currently residing in the US
illegally.

~~~
ceejayoz
> It's disingenuous to call this a misdemeanor when it's in regard to people
> who have no legal right to be in the United States.

Why? It _is_ a misdemeanor.

You've got no legal right to park in a handicapped spot, either, but that
doesn't make it a _felony_.

~~~
newfriend
Because there are no other misdemeanors where the penalty is deportation. You
are knowingly likening it to minor infractions by legal residents as an
attempt to frame it in a palatable manner.

The only reason to point it out as a misdemeanor is to make it seem like it is
not a problem.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Because there are no other misdemeanors where the penalty is deportation.

This is false.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/immigra...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/immigration-
obama-deportation-misdemeanor-felony/383920/)

"The U.S. government initiated deportation proceedings in May 2007 against
Saul as he returned from a holiday in Mexico. Saul is a British citizen, born
in London, and at the time his removal proceedings began, he had been living
in the United States for almost a full decade as a legal permanent resident...
As grounds for deportation, the government cited a misdemeanor—check
fraud—that Saul had committed at the age of 19."

"Aggravated felonies sound serious, and many of them are (kidnapping, theft,
and bribery make the list, among many others), but there are also many
misdemeanors that could fall within this term’s scope due to the mismatch
between federal and state law. Crimes of moral turpitude are equally tricky."

> The only reason to point it out as a misdemeanor is to make it seem like it
> is not a problem.

It's to put it in perspective when folks try to act like crossing the border
is a crime against humanity.

~~~
newfriend
The penalty for check fraud is not deportation, I'm sure you know that. The US
is free to decide who gets to reside here and who doesn't. Obviously the case
you linked is an outlier.

I don't understand why you're being so pedantic about this. You absolutely
know that people use the 'misdemeanor' phrasing to make it seem like crossing
the border is as innocuous as jaywalking. It's not. It has real effects and
has been a major problem in the US for many decades.

> It's to put it in perspective when folks try to act like crossing the border
> is a crime against humanity.

Sure, crossing the border is not a crime against humanity, but neither is
enforcing the law.

~~~
1111236112347
> I don't understand why you're being so pedantic about this. You absolutely
> know that people use the 'misdemeanor' phrasing to make it seem like
> crossing the border is as innocuous as jaywalking.

It's not pedantic, the distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor offense
has very real consequences on how a case is processed. ICE ERO officers are
dealing with a variety of cases, and the outcome of a specific enforcement
action will depend on the severity of the offense.

One common situation is someone came to the country on a visa, and they
remained in the country and continued working after the visa expired. This is
not a felony, and the person is likely to be released while the legal process
plays out. This person might obtain authorization to remain in the country and
never be deported, for example by obtaining a different visa.

Another common situation is someone who overstayed their visa as above, but
ERO officers also discover a large quantity of drugs and/or weapons in the
vicinity. In this case, there is a strong reason to believe the person has
committed a felony, and that person is very likely going to remain in custody
while the legal process plays out. This person is also very likely to be
deported, since a felony conviction would rule out pretty much all pathways to
legal authorization to remain in the country.

------
nvahalik
> Policies such as family separation and detention did not yet exist.

Um... what? ICE has been around since Bush. And Obama, IIRC< did some
"detention reforms" while he was in office.

Look, ICE does more than just "separate families" they also fight human/sex
trafficking and they also a bunch of other stuff. I get that you may disagree
with the detention stuff, but what about their work in other areas?

~~~
kungtotte
So because they fight human trafficking (which is undoubtedly a good thing),
we should overlook people dying in their concentration camps and children
being kept in inhumane conditions?

Is there some sort of scale we measure these things on where if you do enough
good things you're allowed a certain amount of atrocities without
intervention?

~~~
tracker1
Were you this outraged about the conditions when Obama was in office?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Conditions weren't like this when Obama was in office.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21052376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21052376)

~~~
tracker1
That's fair.. it's also fair that the US takes in roughly 1/5 of the world
refugees, more than any other nation by a wide margin. And illegal crossings
alone are nearly double those numbers this past year.

------
INTPenis
That's harsh. Once you're dug into a conf mgmt system it's hard to dig
yourself out.

I've never used Chef myself but I have noticed some message board posts lately
claiming it's dead in the water and Ansible is the victor.

I've used Ansible since it came out, came straight from Puppet, so I'm biased.
But I don't care what you use, as long as it works.

~~~
Twirrim
It's an open source project. ICE can, and likely will, continue to use the
software.

Chef is just no longer going to provide them with a paid support contract.

~~~
sl1ck731
Which, in my experience, makes continued use of it completely impossible.
There is no other product I've had to sit through vendor calls as much with
while trying to do some kind of maintenance on the Chef server.

~~~
dodobirdlord
ICE will likely contract at great expense with individual ex-Chef engineers.

------
quotemstr
Good. Actions like Chef's create a business opportunity for the rest of us.
There's nothing wrong with working with defense and security sector. When SV
companies refuse to enter this sector, they create a vacuum for others to fill
and profit.

This sector is important. Quality is essential. The stakes are high. I'd
rather the work get done by people who are proud to do it than by people who
detest the whole enterprise. Which do you think is going to lead to higher
quality?

Thank you, Chef.

------
briffle
I don't know much about chef (have used ansible and salt-stack). In a previous
story, it talked about how a developer removed his code from a repository of
Ruby Gems that chef uses, and broke many systems that had that as a
dependency. And that Chef then "fixed the issue" after a bit of time.

I'm just wondering, to publish these GEMS for chef, do you have to sign over
your copyright? or is there a specific licensing requirement?

~~~
Four8Five
They fixed the issue by literally forking and removing his name from
everything.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Um. Do you mean that they directly took the existing code and took his name
out of it? That would be a pretty big no-no from a copyright perspective. (But
it also wouldn't _do_ anything, so I assume I'm misunderstanding)

~~~
davidcelis
They removed his name from everywhere _except_ the license notices. Which is
kinda worse.

------
commandlinefan
Isn't chef open source? This just means that ICE will hire a few people to
maintain their build pipeline rather than outsourcing it to a third party.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This just means that ICE will hire a few people to maintain their build
> pipeline rather than outsourcing it to a third party

Assuming ICE made the most efficient decision in the first place, the new
option will be less efficient, imposing a cost.

If the most efficient alternative is also unwilling to contract with ICE for
the same reason, the cost is higher. Etc.

Of course, the goal in any refuse-to-participate campaign is to build to reach
more essential rather than peripheral service providers, most particularly the
people directly implementing (not setting) the opposed policy.

------
jdm2212
I'm curious with choices like this: how, concretely, does this change anything
for the better? Was Chef on the critical path for any of ICE's distasteful
work? If not, which part of the agency (and in support of which mission) was
Chef working with, and is it good to impair that?

------
AzzieElbab
This kind of making IBM look smart wrt to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866)

------
cfv
So much pearl clutching and "but Obama" in this thread.

You've poisoned discourse to a degree where you no longer can see the plain
truth that publicly acting like a hateful ghoul does not ingratiate you with
the general public.

The invisible hand of the free market has spoken, and it isn't touching that
with a 10-foot pole. Get over it.

~~~
75dvtwin
People mention that ICE polices are Obama-era polices, because it shows
something.

It shows that the people in US, are influenced, to a large degree by selective
outrage.

Selective outrage, is not just a sign of intellectual dishonesty.

Selective outrage leads to selective justice, selective justice leads to
unfair justice, and that leads to Orwellian state or dictatorship.

So showing the poison in selective outrage is totally appropriate.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Intellectual dishonesty is pretending that Trump's policies are identical to
Obama's.

For example, at least one of the infamous chain-link-cage detention centers
was indeed built under Obama. That's worth knowing, and it's also worth
knowing that, by law, children were to be kept there for no more than 72 hours
before being transferred to better quarters.

The zero-tolerance policy that separated children from parents as the norm
rather than an exception, that resulted in children being stuffed in those
cages far beyond their intended capacity and left there for weeks, in
unsanitary conditions, was all Trump. The deaths of an unprecedented seven
children in one year in ICE custody, despite the total number of detainees
nationwide being lower, was on Trump's watch.

Sources:

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-
immigran...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigrants/)

[https://www.apnews.com/fdfbafe1f2784a759bc7c3a8e8ddbcab](https://www.apnews.com/fdfbafe1f2784a759bc7c3a8e8ddbcab)

[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/why-are-migrant-
children...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/why-are-migrant-children-
dying-u-s-custody-n1010316)

Downvoters: I'm curious if you believe my facts are incorrect, or if you're
just downvoting because you don't like my politics.

------
ProAm
Who is Barry? (legitimate question) Im assuming head of sales at Chef? After a
quick search on Twitter and Youtube he's the CEO

------
buboard
I love this kind of free-market activism. I just wish people didnt force
people to bake cakes

~~~
tracker1
I'm not sure that I agree on liking this... the direction things can go, such
as payment processors acting as censors, etc. can get pretty Orwellian.

~~~
buboard
businesses can have ideologies. the problem is when there aren't alternatives,
or can't be alternatives because of regulation

------
not_enough
Good, but not enough.

They also need to cancel their contracts with DHS, the Police, the Army, and
any other US Gov agency, especially while Trump is in power.

~~~
prepend
I don’t know how they can live with themselves by allowing Coca Cola as a
customer. Any idea how much damage sugar does? Chef is contributing to the
obesity epidemic and Coca Cola costs more lives than ICE.

~~~
tylermac1
That's quite the stretch. Equating the moral issue of detaining children
indefinitely to producing a beverage is really something.

~~~
ng12
This is the territory we get into when we pressure tech companies to not work
with very specific politically unfavorable customers. Does helping ICE with
their CI/CD stack do more damage to children than advertising freebase sugar
to them? I'd say probably not, especially since ICE is just going to migrate
to a new stack.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
But, generically, "how do we minimize harm to all children" is not what is
being asked here. What is being asked here is "how do we dissociate ourselves
with this specific harmful action" which is a much, much lower bar to clear.
If you wish to propose a secondary harmful acction, you are free to take down
your repos that Coca-Cola uses, same as anyone else?

(I realized this sounded quite caustic when I typed it. I do mean minimum
causticness when discussing this. I'm admittedly super baffled by this Coca-
Cola thing, because the contexts are completely different.)

~~~
dodobirdlord
> What is being asked here is "how do we dissociate ourselves with this
> specific harmful action" which is a much, much lower bar to clear.

Trying to live by a practice of avoiding any specific harmful actions can
easily compromise ones ability to pursue more general goals. CBP does
important and essential work combatting human and drug trafficking, and
handling what remains of the good parts of their imigration management mission
that ICE has contorted. This choice will limit their effectiveness. Degrading
the efficiency of an organization at this scale has meaningful costs; 1% of
100 people saved from trafficking is an entire person. Will the degradation of
capabilities here effect CBP in this manner? I am unprepared to speculate, but
it seems worth factoring into an ethical decision about whether specific
activities by ICE make ICE+CBP intolerable to work with.

Moreover, down the road this is probably the end of any business arrangement
between Chef and US Government agencies. Administrations change, and if Chef
can be expected to end contracts over public pressure like this then it cannot
be relied upon to be involved with any sort of system that is going to need to
last across multiple administrations, which is most of them. Minor degradation
of efficiency across the whole US Government has very meaningful costs in
human life and suffering.

I think the forest has been missed for the trees, and I'm not convinced that
from a utilitarian perspective those advocating against Chef's contracts with
CPB+ICE aren't also in the moral wrong.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I'm not advocating for anything. I'm merely stating that the premise(if a dev
can rip out a repository b/c a company that uses it has ICE relations, how
come we're not outraged over coca-cola relations?) is ridiculous on its face
due to a severe misunderstanding of the scope of the action.

Similarly here, your post is mistaking the scope of the action and drawing a
line between one dev deleting their reposity and being responsible for killing
people (of note, ICE has lost children to human trafficking already so the
boat has already sailed).

------
abnoxae
I really don't understand how can people associate a tool with an ideology.

Do we stop manufacturing cars because it helps support many unfavorable
people/organizations?

~~~
dominicr
Car manufacturers are not really accurate metaphors as it is CBP and ICE
themselves who are carrying out actions that many people strongly disagree
with. Whereas a car company has no control over its customers

If Ford were separating children from their parents and imprisoning them in
warehouses then I'm sure many people would stop buying Fords or doing business
with them.

There have actually been campaigns against vehicle manufacturers because of
who they sell to. I recall that JCB and Land Rover have had campaigns against
them as they sell vehicles (mainly armoured) to the armies of countries with
questionable human rights records.

------
user5994461
Summary: "After deep introspection and dialog within Chef, we will not renew
our current contracts with ICE and CBP when they expire over the next year.
Chef will fulfill our full obligations under the current contracts."

What's ICE and CBP?

~~~
braythwayt
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs and Border Protection.

~~~
user5994461
Thank you very much.

------
StreamBright
>> Policies such as family separation and detention did not yet exist.

Family separation has exited way before 2014 and in most criminal cases they
do not let the child with a criminal who committed a crime. If police catches
you with DUI while you have your children in the car they will separate you.
It also existed under Obama. Not sure where anybody with internet connection
and the ability to read and understand English gets this idea that it is a new
thing.

~~~
cjbprime
Seeking asylum is not a crime.

~~~
StreamBright
Who said it was? You can go to any ____legal____ port of entry of the United
States and apply for asylum. There is 2.3% chance for a Mexican to get it
granted (based on 2015 data). The problem is when people try to cross the
border illegally (which is a crime) dragging their children along. Not too
surprisingly this is what the US CBP people want to stop.

------
crispyporkbites
I assume they pay taxes in america? Shouldn’t they also move the company to a
different country and stop employing American citizens?

------
sarcasmatwork
Succumbed to the political biases/fake news of this country. Too bad as Chef
did not have to say anything or do anything. Where was the outrage under
previous admins? hypocrisy x10

I for one, do not support Chef and will never use their product as Ansible is
better anyways.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
The creator of Ansible's thoughts on this situation:
[https://twitter.com/laserllama/status/1176145869072207874](https://twitter.com/laserllama/status/1176145869072207874)

~~~
rlt
This seems like poor form coming from a competitor.

~~~
amyjess
He could've told people to switch to Ansible, but he didn't. In fact, he's
explicitly telling people not to switch and suggesting they fork Chef instead:
[https://twitter.com/laserllama/status/1175780701020577792](https://twitter.com/laserllama/status/1175780701020577792)

~~~
cyanmide
Michael hasn’t had anything to do with Ansible for the last few years.

