341–350 of 841 posts
Just food for thought: If Github backed out, wouldn't someone else fill their spot by using Gitlab? And if so, isn't that transition cost paid for by tax payers? I'm mostly wondering what's the material impact of Github backing out, outside of optics.
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I am strongly against a private business being able to refuse service to a person/organization on political grounds, even when the "victim" may seem to be performing evil actions, as long as it is not breaking any laws. One should not discriminate on the basis of race, political orientation, gender, origin or religion. Refusing service is clearly a form of discrimination. When you aim that towards your own Government…
>I am strongly against a private business being able to refuse service to a person/organization on political grounds, even when the "victim" may seem to be performing evil actions, as long as it is not breaking any laws If a government was committing acts of genocide, do you believe private enterprise should be compelled to be complicit in these acts?
Besides, GitHub probably does offer services to the Chinese government bodies and it will be no surprise to anyone if it turns out they are committing acts of genocide against the Uyghurs. They are probably hosting code related to research and commercialisation of the facial recognition programs that various governments will be implementing.
To draw the line at Ice but not withdraw services from the Chinese mainland showcases the level of myopic politicisation that is being lobbied for here. They are a platform, they should act like one.
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> could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities That would, of course, be a terrible and illegal abuse of power and essentially be the government policing political speech by private individuals. What an indictment of our government (and I don't mean a single person, but of the system itself) that this seems to be an uncontroversial statement. Because I agree, it's true, and it's the mark of…
I’m not sure it needs to even be as nefarious as that. If I’m in charge of deciding what technology to use for another, less controversial, arm of the government and I see that one of the companies I’m considering has decided to stop doing business with another I might feel less confident in deciding whether or not to use them. What if they decide they don’t want to do business with me at some point in the future? Th…
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Politics is the process of making a decision, so my point is that decision-making is inherently political. Your comment — and subtle trailing insult — is not constructive and non-sequitur.
Your definition is a bit circular, friend. :)
Please don’t insult me and then call me “friend”. It’s passive-aggressive and not suitable for this site.
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> If you are not quitting then you are also profiting form ICE contract. This is reductive, right up there with "Why don't you move to Canada?" Do you agree with every single action done by all entities you belong to: family, employer, HOA, neighborhood, city council, state/province, and country? If you disagree with the actions of a family member - is your solution to cut them off immediately without talking to them…
> If you disagree with the actions of a family member - is your solution to cut them off immediately without talking to them? I don't think your employer is like "a family member", this analogy is too absurd to counter. > family, employer, HoA, neighborhood, city council, state/province, and country? one of these is not like the other. you get to participate in decision making process via voting in HOA, country ect.…
Since employment-as-family was not relatable for you, how about: if you disagree with your HOA/neighborhood watch/city council, is your first instinct to sell your house and move away? Wouldn't canvassing support for your PoV be more reasonable, as an initial action?
Doing cheap PR moves like blacking out logos or posting Twitter "support" posts from CEO accounts or announcing the end of default branches named "master" is, as I said, cheap. The real issue is dealing with the elephants in the room, such as the aforementioned ICE contract of GitHub. It is about time that corporations, with GitHub here as an example, noticed that backing this or that or another minority or "trying"…
Support by major companies, while admittedly less effective, is another signal that helps. Claiming that it's useless is false and claiming it's cheap is ignorant - the OP clearly demonstrates that a good deed never goes unpunished.
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That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably does not apply here). It's an important right, and probably many businesses would be more profitable and happy if they exercised that right more often. It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust (as well as some alli…
I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.
Is it within their moral rights for backhoe operators demand manual ditch digging too because that will benefit their friends who lost jobs to powered equipment?
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That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably does not apply here). It's an important right, and probably many businesses would be more profitable and happy if they exercised that right more often. It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust (as well as some alli…
I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.
That doesn't change the fact that I'm personally disappointed that they're executing that privilege on this particular issue.
And that's all assuming ICE really is the worse Company/Organization that Github has a contract with. As soon as you open up this can of worms, how do you define the line? And even once you do define the line, there will always be edge cases. And once there's enough examples, companies are going to stop going with Github just to avoid the possibility of having to move forcibly later. After all, what Github provides not only has a large number of competitors, both paid and open source, but is a frontend for an already free source control tool (Git itself). Cancelling the ICE contract is an inconvenience at best, ICE's day to day activities wouldn't be affected in the slightest.
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Your choice of language by saying "concentration camps" is unproductively hyperbolic and reminiscent of Nazis killing Jews in WW2. People found to have been here illegally are being kept in detention centers until deportation or trial. Nobody is getting gassed or burned in ovens.
Merriam-Webster definition of concentration camp: “a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard —used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners” Japanese internment camps from WW2 easi…