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
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 allies, though they may be the type to just ask for more, as others on this post have mentioned).

>>rattra+wm
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.

>>49531+ys
What if developers find it morally wrong to automate away jobs? Do they get a say?

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?

>>mc32+ez
> 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?

This seems like an unfruitful digression.

OP already agreed that the actions of ICE are immoral and that this action is within the moral rights of the workers.

The main question is about efficacy. That isn't elucidated by introducing a thought experiment where you believe the moral rights of developers are not as clear cut.

>>jancsi+nn1
For most Americans and, I’d guess most citizens of most countries, enforcing immigration laws isn’t a big debate and enforcement is routine and companies don’t question enforcement by their government.

So the question is can employees who have diverging moralities have direct input on what a company considers moral and immoral outside the common take of the population at large?

>>mc32+so1
Can they? It seems so, yes.

Should they? Well, one hardly can force someone to work for one's self nowadays.

Companies aren't democracies. Why should "the population at large"'s opinion matter in anyway? Most people don't even know Github exists, let alone what it's for.