zlacker

>>Xordev+(OP)
What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it.

I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies).

But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. It'd attract extreme negative attention from the rest of the government, and great fear from all paying customers that an internet mob could separate them from their code at any time.

We should absolutely be lobbying hard for changes to immigration law, the restrictions placed on ICE, and justice for their wrongdoings.

But I can't see how this helps improve immigration, and it certainly seems likely to cause a lot of negative consequences for GitHub. The employees are putting their employer in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I love the vision of a world where executives don't take actions their workers will protest. I think that in order to get there, the protests need to be reasonable, and I think this one isn't.

EDIT DISCLAIMER: I own a small amount of MSFT stock, which was not on my mind as I wrote this. I use GitHub's free service and have no other relationship I can think of with MSFT or GitHub.

>>rattra+Rh
> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy.

Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service on political grounds.

>>jobeir+Wj
GP didn't say they should be required to work with certain entities, only that it could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities.

>>marpst+Yk
> 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 terrible corruption.

>>elicas+Tm
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?

That might be overly naive and I agree that there’s great potential for corruption here as well.

>>alonmo+7p
Or not even an arm of the government. The same reasoning would be applied by other companies buying services. Vendors with a reputation for stopping service to clients because of bad news coverage are a risker bet.

>>iguy+3z
That doesn't seem to affect Google much, and we all know how big G loves killing off products.

>>pmille+lq1
Have they killed many paid products?

I think there is justified wariness about building too much on top of any service given away for free.

>>iguy+ns1
Explain all the businesses built on YouTube, then. YT is "free" to most consumers (paid for by ads), but there are literally people who make their livings as YouTube personalities.

>>pmille+2w1
What's to explain? All the people who chose not to do this, because it didn't seem like a safe enough business model?