Hi all, Thank you Serah and the rest of the Carpentries team for having this discussion.
I want to provide some context--I'm not sure what else might have given rise to this, but I know that it stems in part from an open letter to GitHub put together by open-source maintainers. The letter asks the company to drop their contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States: https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0 I'm well aware (and glad) that the Carpentries is an international organization, and some might ask why we should be concerned with what looks like, on the face of it, just US politics. But I also know that many of us are scientists, immigrants, refugees; sometimes all three of those things at once. And ICE has become a key instrument of oppression of immigrants and refugees in the United States. So I think it's worth discussing whether the Carpentries should promote a company that supports an agency like ICE. Right now, we basically provide free advertising for GitHub at version control workshops. I would not presume to tell anyone what to think, and I'm not sure I would have chosen the same articles linked to in the open letter to illustrate the issues with ICE. But personally I am having a hard time actively promoting GitHub because of its actions. Here is one article on why one employee choose to leave GitHub in the wake of the controversy: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7x5an4/why-i-quit-github Another question we might ask is, "if not GitHub, then what?" I don't know that there's a good answer right now. GitLab has updated their policies in response to public criticism: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/17/gitlab_reverse_ferret/ I wonder if, long-term, it would be possible to provide researchers with a non-profit alternative to GitHub for sharing code. Maybe this NPO could even boldly assert things like "we will not help state agencies punish refugees for fleeing repressive conditions in other countries that the same state helped create". I know, I'm a crazy dreamer. Anyway, I hope this helps frame the discussion. --David ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T0d0e93b3a52c01f4-Ma49c6e992af186ba68a29ae7 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
