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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#411

Post by oarsinsync »

jimbobimbo wrote: post #287
hannasanarion wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>America has sanctions. If the public wants corporations to not interact with certain countries, they can ask their legislators to fascilitate passing of sanctions (like we have today against Syria, making it illegal to provide services to them). This is a very confusing position to me. It is a bad thing to pick and choose your customers based on moral agreement, unless that morality is defined by the government in w…

Morality is not defined by the government - legality is. There're a lot of things that a lot of different people deem immoral - based on their religion, upbringing, media consumption and whatnot - which are not illegal. There's nothing wrong with the company conducting business compliant with the law, even if it may be viewed immoral from someone's point of view. It's a free country after all.

> There's nothing wrong with the company conducting business compliant with the law, even if it may be viewed immoral from someone's point of view.

Right and wrong are subjective, legal and illegal are objective.

From the perspective of the business owner who is focused primarily on maximising revenue / profits for their business, there is nothing wrong with simply focusing on legal compliance.

From the perspective of the employee who is motivated by things other than maximising revenue / profits / their own salary, there could be plenty wrong.

It’s a free country cuts both ways. Both parties are free to see things as right and wrong as they see fit.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#412

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #326
neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

The phone company analogy doesn't really work, because phone calls are by default private, between exactly two parties, usually just two people. If you look at the tech company equivalent of that, like FB messenger, or Hangouts, or other messaging systems, they behave more similarly to the phone company. It'd be difficult to get in trouble for something you said in a private message. If you want the analogy to make s…

We don’t need analogies.

It’s fairly clear how these organisations and their internet powered machination work.

So let’s talk about them in that context.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#413

Post by seamyb88 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #326
neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

The phone company analogy doesn't really work, because phone calls are by default private, between exactly two parties, usually just two people. If you look at the tech company equivalent of that, like FB messenger, or Hangouts, or other messaging systems, they behave more similarly to the phone company. It'd be difficult to get in trouble for something you said in a private message. If you want the analogy to make s…

The phone analogy is terrible because the vitriol doesn't prevail. You aren't bombarded with 100 people's bigotry every time you pick up the phone.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#414

Post by _-david-_ »

Hamuko wrote: post #208
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted but no comments addressing the points you raised. Can anyone provide an example of Nazi code being hosted on Gitlab? It might be nice to justify what otherwise looks like an absurd comparison made by this article. What would nazi code even look like? Or is "nazi" in this case just a catch-all for wrongthink?

What if for example the People's Republic of China was hosting its code on Gitlab? This is a state that has "re-education camps" (interment camps) for a specific group of people and it reported to be engaging in organ harvesting. I don't find it too hard to draw parallels between Nazi Germany and China at the moment.

So every time somebody signs up for any service you need to provide your address, name, date of birth, 2 forms of id, maybe even your SSN so they can run a background check on you?

At any random point in the future they can just revoke your access to the service if they decide something you were previously doing is no longer acceptable.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#415

Post by kelnos »

madrox wrote: post #385
anarchodev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use othe…

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." This sounds really good until someone refuses to bake a wedding cake for a couple because they're gay. The supreme court ruled in favor of the baker. You're advocating for a world where that's ok. Is that the world you want to live in?

I think these bakers suck, but I do agree with the Supreme Court. A private business should be allowed to refuse to serve customers for whatever reason they choose.

The only exception should be legal monopolies; they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate, because there are otherwise no other options.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#416

Post by zaroth »

starkruzr wrote: post #376
repolfx wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navajo speakers aren't a political bloc, they're a linguistic bloc, and support for languages is driven by revenue potential in any software company I've ever seen.

Cultural respect should not be contingent on monetary incentives.

A company choosing where in the world they want to do business has approximately nothing to do with “cultural respect” as far as I understand the term.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#417

Post by midnighttoker3 »

repolfx wrote: post #147
vowelless wrote: post #18

I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…

I don't think even Google actually encouraged people to discuss politics at work. They never did when I was there. It was more a side-effect of decentralising the power to create forums. Anyone could create discussion lists there without asking permission, this was highly useful for coordination, making it easy to spin up new projects and avoiding siloing of information into people's private mail accounts. The flip s…

[dead]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#418

Post by joshdover »

opportune wrote: post #327
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

I absolutely agree that politics is everywhere and picking and choosing which type of political discussion is allowed is itself political, (I’ve also never been convinced that URMs in tech isn’t primarily a pipeline problem but ofc wouldn’t want to shut off debate on that) I guess the difference in what is allowed is between “positive” vs “negative” politics. By that I don’t mean positive politics is absolutely the b…

I also agree with the parent comment here, but wanted to shed some light on your input.

The problem with your "negative" vs "positive" distinction is that it's quite subjective and not at all clear cut.

> “We want to empower marginalized groups” is positive and doesn’t bother that much people who.. don’t think it’s necessary, because it’s not a political position you can disagreee with per se

There are groups who have very big problems with this statement per se. See the numerous court cases over the past decade challenging affirmative action in university admissions. Many view helping one group as oppressing another (a view I find quite misinformed given the inequities in our society, but not completely irrational, given bad priors).

Maybe what you're trying to get at is progressive politics vs. oppressive politics. This distinction I can understand more clearly, however when you choose to oppress a group that is oppressing others, maybe this is justified?

For instance, banning ISIS from access to Twitter seems like a pretty morally sound decision to me as an American. Given that, is there really a difference between banning ISIS and banning white supremacists who discuss violence? Or Presidents who promote violence against journalists? What's the moral outcome of NOT banning any of these groups?

Any choice, including choosing not to act, is morally liable. I think Gitlab's stance here is quite morally lazy, if not wrong.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#419

Post by journalctl »

p4bl0 wrote: post #360
anm89 wrote: post #129

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product. If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal mea…

That's one part of it. The part were employee cannot discuss politics at work is very problematic however. What about unionizing?

It is ostensibly illegal to prevent employees from unionizing in the United States.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#420

Post by woobar »

pfranz wrote: post #202
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #37

I think this sounds very reasonable for the kind of tool that is being produced. Joel Spolsky has a great article on Big Macs vs Naked Chef https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/01/18/big-macs-vs-the-na... In there, he talks about bespoke development vs mass market products, using McDonald's Big Macs vs a chef. I think this provides a reasonable framework for approaching the present controversy. For example, if McDonal…

It's tough to make appropriate analogies (which are hyperbolic) without the topic being blasphemous. But companies like IBM, Hugo Boss, and Volkswagen still get talked about as supporting Nazis during WWII. BASF even has a page about their involvement manufacturing Zyklon B gas [1]. I do think you have a point of bespoke vs mass market, but I still think there's a line. Even in the bespoke category you hear about cel…

I am not sure why you include Volkswagen in this list. VW was founded by Nazis, it would be strange if it did not support them during WW2. On the other hand IBM had a choice.
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