Dear David,

thanks for sharing your views. I was not aware of this issue (github and ICE) 
and would love to support you in any way possible
- even though I am based in old Europe. I'd personally vote for gitlab.com for 
now - that said being a temporary solution perhaps.

Best,
Peter

On 12/13/19 3:01 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> 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
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