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Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

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Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#491

Post by NoodleIncident »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #388
anoncake wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discriminating someone because of their Chinese ethnicity would be hard to justify but what about Chinese citizenship (especially if it's the only one) or ties to China like family living there? Those would make someone vulnerable to pressure by the Chinese government.

No. As long as someone has a green card or citizenship, who cares where their family lives? The only exception would be for national security clearances, and those affect Americans as well.

Is it legal for a private US company to apply (some of) the same tests used to determine national security clearances in its hiring decisions? Or is the government the only entity allowed to make decisions that way? I'm genuinely asking, I haven't thought about this conflict before.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#493

Post by TiNiPoNi »

kortilla wrote: post #423
arczyx wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Presuming that you are aware of these occurrences, do you agree with your government's positions and actions, and - if not - what actions, if any, do you take to make it clear your opposition? I'm not from China and I disagree with the action of the China's government you listed above. However I wonder why this kind of opinion (aka the Chinese should be responsible for their government) is not commonly held against…

Why are posts questioning China’s actions met with whataboutism regarding the US? The comment you replied to has nothing to do with the US.

Because Gitlab is an American company and now they're playing the American politis card.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#494

Post by thekevan »

apta wrote: post #343
thekevan wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, am I to understand that this law says I cannot boycott doing business with businesses located in Israel? I am in the US, so can not say, "I disagree with how the Israeli government is treating Palestine and thus don't want to do business with any entity located there."?

They'll simply accuse you of being an anti-Semite ;-)

Yeah, even if I have plenty of Jewish customers in the rest of the world. What if I am Jewish?

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#495

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

elefanten wrote: post #488
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very disputable whether or not China is "stealing" territory in the South China Sea or engaging in debt-trap diplomacy. The latter accusation is mostly hypothetical at the moment, based on a general fear that Chinese loans for infrastructure investment might in the future be abused to trap poor countries in debt. More generally, what's the point of raising these accusations? When you speak to an American, do you…

The South China Sea part really isn't debatable. Absolutely everyone outside China thinks the Line is bullshit.

That's not actually true. Taiwan agrees with China, because China's claims are simply those that successive Chinese governments held throughout the 20th Century. The United States used to agree with China - that is, until China went from being the ROC to the PRC.

As for what China is actively doing to assert these claims, I suggest you look at a map of which countries occupy which islands in the South China Sea. The PRC is not the worst offender there, by a long shot. Nobody's hands are clean in the matter.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#496

Post by AsyncAwait »

kortilla wrote: post #417
AsyncAwait wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, thanks GitLab for being so open about your bigotry. I wonder what would happen if GitLab started excluding say Israeli nationals, because a large number of companies that sell 0-days for profit are based there, I suspect that accusations of antisemitism would pour in from all corners & rightfully so, but since demonizing China has been cool since the USSR's collapse & Russia rejoined the club it never really…

> it never really left in the eyes of Americans Nice bigotry in a post complaining about bigotry.

Except when you look at Hollywood production, U.S TV news etc. that's exactly what you get. The Red Scare was a real thing, so was Russiagate. The anti-Chinese sentiment is very much real in the U.S. too, if the campaign rhetoric, current trade policies & the constant stream of accusations from newspapers of record are to be any indication.

Maybe I could have worded it better, but I am referring to American culture and the mindset that when you think 'anti-hero', it's going to be a Russian/Chinese most of the time.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#497

Post by TiNiPoNi »

sytse wrote: post #7
bluehatbrit wrote: post #3

The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees

Correct, this block would be for two functions (Site Reliability Engineer and Support) and we currently have no people in that role in China and Russia. Please note that we're still discussing this change. We work out in the open so you can see us working on it. I hope that people appreciate the difference between that and what you would see in a non-transparent company (probably nothing, they would just not open up…

Make sure your employees are all white Americans, or else they might be spies from other countries. Esp those Asian faces, they are untrustworthy. You should fire all of them.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#498

Post by TiNiPoNi »

sytse wrote: post #7
bluehatbrit wrote: post #3

The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees

Correct, this block would be for two functions (Site Reliability Engineer and Support) and we currently have no people in that role in China and Russia. Please note that we're still discussing this change. We work out in the open so you can see us working on it. I hope that people appreciate the difference between that and what you would see in a non-transparent company (probably nothing, they would just not open up…

Open source is dead when the open source community is run with American laws.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#499

Post by TiNiPoNi »

jhurewitz wrote: post #75
type0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant from the US perspective, Gitlab seems to have a few remote workers that aren't Americans, but still...

Well actually we have over 1000 team members (all are remote) and only half are in the US. The other half are in 63 other countries. If you want to see where we all work from you can check out our team https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/ . The reason this is viewed from a US legal perspective is because we are a US company so we are governed by US laws.

Make sure your employees are all white Americans, or else they might be spies from other countries. Esp those Asian faces, they are untrustworthy. You should fire all of them.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#500

Post by thekevan »

_n_b_ wrote: post #227
thekevan wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, am I to understand that this law says I cannot boycott doing business with businesses located in Israel? I am in the US, so can not say, "I disagree with how the Israeli government is treating Palestine and thus don't want to do business with any entity located there."?

If you're in the US, you can decide to do that. The law restricts your business with foreign entities that might engage in a boycott. The nuances of what might trigger these regulations are not always straightforward (look at https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac/7-enforcem... ) but normally you just have to avoid "bad words" in contracts, RFQs, etc. I would note my understanding is that fines for non-com…

Yeah, I also can't quite reconcile that.

I have a hard time believing that the government could do this but the way I read it says that if I said:

As a business, I disagree with the human rights violations the government of China is engaged in. I am again Saudis Arabia's ban of alcohol on its residents, its treatment of gay people--including death for simply being gay and the way it withholds rights from women. I also deplore Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, including the demolishing of houses.

Therefore, I will not allow my product to be sold in a way which results in any of these governments collecting tax on it, this supporting the government.

The way this reads, it seems the government can say, "Whoa, you can't to that to Israel though." and ignore the other two. Unfair and prejudicial in my opinion.

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