'Everyone Should Have a Moral Code' Says Developer Who Deleted Code Sold to ICE

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm3xn/chef-sugar-author-deletes-code-sold-to-ice-immigration-customs-enforcement

by heshiebee • 7 years ago

58 73 7 years ago

"I was having trouble sleeping at night knowing that software—code that I personally authored—was being sold to and used by such a vile organization,"

I have bad news for almost every open source contributor then.

suyash• 7 years ago

lol, yes let's start with Linux first ;)

happytoexplain7• 7 years ago

Of course, like anything, this is a problem of degrees. Numbers, severity, evidence, etc. It's pointless to extend any given decision to its logical extreme and present that as some kind of evidence on whether or not the specific decision was justified.

AndrewKemendo2• 7 years ago

It's not a logical extreme at all. Chef-Sugar was a tiny library that did a very niche thing that wasn't even called in an ICE related project. In terms of degrees, this developer provided effectively zero support to ICE - but pulled out anyway. By the way, kudos to him, there aren't enough people who will stand on principle IMO.

That said, playing the FOSS game means that by default you risk supporting people you don't like, that's kind of the whole point of the "Freedom" part of it. Free as in speech.

Tons of major FOSS tools and libraries are used around the world by dictators and henchmen and unsavory people alike. Pick your favorite massive OSS project that you might have contributed to: Putty, Linux, OpenCV, Go, ROS, Elasticsearch, tar, Neo4j, MySQL etc.... and you'll have contributed some code that is used by some murderous regime somewhere.

Do whatever you have to do to make it feel like you didn't support those with some tiny OSS contribution, but just recognize it's pretty arbitrary and own that.

svd4anything• 7 years ago

So he temporarily sabotaged many customers to make a political point about ICE because he believes they are immoral. I’m not sure two wrongs can make a right like that.

afandian• 7 years ago

Isn't that the whole point? Everyone should have a moral code because everyone's moral code could be a different?

commandlinefan2• 7 years ago

This sort of thing hurts open source, too - when you buy software, the contract is that they'll continue allowing you to use it as long as the check clears. Now, with open source, you don't have to pay... but you have to run your business/government the way each individual developer agrees with?

olliej2• 7 years ago

...yes?

If you want to have availability guarantees you should arrange a paid contract. Otherwise you are literally demanding someone else do free work for you.

rdl• 7 years ago

Arguably he did people a service by reminding relying parties of this vulnerability. Both that upstreams might pull their repos, and that upstreams might incompetently run their distribution infrastructure (all the npm issues...)

cabaalis• 7 years ago

I'm going to have to say yes on this one. If you have no contract with the developer, you're SOL.

rsnor• 7 years ago

Not exactly.

Developers ultimately have judgement over which projects they contribute to, and if they feel that more harm is coming out of their work than good, then they have every right to cease development.

Open source, compared to other development models, suffers the least from this problem in that there is no single developer that has jurisdiction over how the product is used. FOSS projects can always be forked, if need be.

jen20• 7 years ago

when you buy software, the contract is that they'll continue allowing you to use it as long as the check clears

Have you ever actually read a proprietary software license?

olliej2• 7 years ago

No, Chef decided that they wanted to use someone else’s software, without paying that person, to do something that person didn’t want their software to be used for.

So they stopped allowing chef to use their software.

That Chef didn’t have an alternative is entirely on Chef.

Unless of course you are saying that you believe that individuals should be required to provide it to anyone who asks?

sdinsn4• 7 years ago

they wanted to use someone else’s software, without paying that person

Because the software was open source.

to do something that person didn’t want their software to be used for.

I didn't realize Chef had to analyze every open source contributors political opinions.

So they stopped allowing chef to use their software.

Which is against the entire idea of open source software.

Verdex• 7 years ago

My first thought was: Look, I don't exactly have any love towards ICE, but you can't delete code that you were paid for.

Then I read the article: Oh. You weren't paid for it. You wrote some code, hosted it (with the intent that a third party could use it), and then a third party used your code for a product sold to ICE.

Without saying anything about free software. Companies that repackage and sell free software really should have the logistics in place such that this event wouldn't be problematic.

If you host software for free and you don't like what people are doing with it, then I think you should be able to stop hosting that software.

SomeOldThrow3• 7 years ago

Look, I don't exactly have any love towards ICE, but you can't delete code that you were paid for.

You absolutely can. This is the point of a contract.

jgwil22• 7 years ago

Then you have to give the money back.

SolaceQuantum2• 7 years ago

Were they paid for this code? I was under the impression they were not (I think other comments here claimed they were not) please correct me.

mieseratte2• 7 years ago

If you host software for free and you don't like what people are doing with it, then I think you should be able to stop hosting that software.

GitHub was the host, he just deleted the project from his profile.

But you're right, Chef should've precluded this as a possibility a long time ago. The only reason this was possible was lack of proper Continuity-of-Business setup, but even then they had a new repo up within the day so it's not all that much impact.

Free PR for the involved, and free ad-dollars to those who choose to report on it.

DuskStar11• 7 years ago

Should we expect contributors to projects used by China in their 'reeducation' camps to do similar things, or is this just an isolated demand for morality?

happytoexplain7• 7 years ago

Sure, it seems like an obviously analogous scenario to me. Did you have something in mind about how they might differ?

DuskStar11• 7 years ago

Well, the Linux Foundation hasn't closed all their code repositories in retaliation, for one. And I'm pretty sure that China's reeducation camps use Linux. (In the cameras, for instance)

Sure, closing those wouldn't actually hurt China's reeducation camps, but then the same is true for this developer's repo and ICE. (Since I doubt ICE uses bleeding edge Chef, Chef's temporary downtime would have had no effect)

mieseratte2• 7 years ago

Well, if you're writing an FOSS project that happens to be picked up by the Chinese you're SOL. It's not as if the PRC has a history of giving a shit about your IP.

If you're talking about writing bespoke software for them, that's a different matter than this particular situation.

DuskStar11• 7 years ago

Well, if you're writing an FOSS project that happens to be picked up by the Chinese you're SOL. It's not as if the PRC has a history of giving a shit about your IP.

Not to mention, if it's FOSS they can respect your IP and still use it - after all, you did give them (and everyone else) a license...

jrochkind13• 7 years ago

As far as I can tell, what happened here is Chef the company went beyond writing FOSS that happened to be picked up by ICE, they have some business relationship with ICE where they get paid. I'm not clear on the nature of it, from this article.

Seth Vargo, was a former employee... and maybe also kept contributing FOSS after no longer being an employee? Unclear.

It's not quite either of your situations, but more like the bespoke software I'd say.

At any rate, if I wrote FOSS that happened to be used by ICE in a significant way, I'd feel really sad and confused and not sure what to think or what to do -- I'm not sure what the solution to this situation is, but I wouldn't feel good about it.

If I worked for CEO Crist/Chef Inc. -- I'd quit. Cause that shit is disgusting.

If I was Vargo, doing some combination of writing code for an employer on the job, and maybe also just contributing open source to the project after that, maybe cause it was a cool/interesting project/community he liked... but then discovering that Chef Inc. and Barry Crist were _using the code I wrote to make money by helping ICE with their information systems_....

I'd be fucking mad as hell.

I'm not sure anything can be done about it legally in the long term, if the code was released open source. But I understand the anger and attempt to be as disruptive as possible. Cause Fuck That Shit.

preston4tw• 7 years ago

I wonder if it would be possible to extend open source software licenses and include morals clauses.

codingdave• 7 years ago

Extending the license is easy. Enforcing it is a whole different question.

wolco3• 7 years ago

Sure you could but then it becomes risky to use as the moral code may be hard to qualify.

pgcj_poster• 7 years ago

Yes, but it is a bad idea: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

wolco3• 7 years ago

Every person does but it may not be the same as the author. My moral code would allow me to develop anything for anybody anytime.

jgwil22• 7 years ago

Doesn't sound like much of a code at all.

viiralvx• 7 years ago

Sounds like you don't have a moral code, if that's the case.

phkahler• 7 years ago

Just because it differs from yours doesn't mean theirs doesnt exist or isn't well defined.

nuffster• 7 years ago

Morality is subjective...It seems that you're saying because his moral code isn't in alignment with yours means it's invalid? Scary.

A lot of politically charged comments in here.

wolco3• 7 years ago

The moral code of complete development freedom without judgement is a moral code.

peterkelly• 7 years ago

This is what happens when you rely on a mutable package repository.

CM302• 7 years ago

Of course, everyone should have a moral code. And moral codes can differ substantially, and be used to justify pretty much anything.

Many think selling to ICE is wrong, but many others think it's entirely moral/justified.

And the same goes for everything else. Almost every political/moral position you can think of can probably be justified using one moral or ethical code or another. Are their actions right or wrong according to utillitarianism or deontology or virtue ethics? Well if you ask ten different people you'll get ten different answers.

So I'm not sure what to think there.

P.S. The whole 'right side of history' thing is super tiresome to read about, since the right side isn't necessarily the 'moral' one, but merely the one with the most cultural mindshare at the time.

MattRix• 7 years ago

Not even sure what you're trying to say here. Of course he's going by his own personal moral code.

CM302• 7 years ago

Honestly, I don't really know either, and regret that comment already.

Either way, I guess I'm just frustrated by how all these media stories seem to be about the software engineer annoyed by the likes of ICE/the military/whoever using their code rather the other way around. Or perhaps the constant focus on ethics in tech as if said ethics are somehow universal/can be agreed upon.

wbronitsky3• 7 years ago

There are so many comments attacking OP for the straw man that he dislikes ICE because they enforce immigration law. I highly doubt that is why OP dislikes ICE. Instead, it is much more likely that he dislikes the tactics used by ICE, such as separating families, and locking people in "ice boxes".

The comments attacking the straw man are seemingly only written to satisfy an attack against an other, which here seems to be the other that "supports illegal immigration", and I don't believe these attacks further the conversation. Nowhere do we have evidence that OP or anyone defending him is in favor of fully open borders, an accusation thrown around more than once in these comments.

Regardless of the "why", the more interesting discussion is the "should", as in "should people be allowed to rescind their open source work for any reason". Otherwise, we are just wading back into a political discussion where people are not interested in listening, only fighting.

DuskStar11• 7 years ago

which here seems to be the other that "supports illegal immigration", and I don't believe these attacks further the conversation. Nowhere do we have evidence that OP or anyone defending him is in favor of fully open borders, an accusation thrown around more than once in these comments.

Please, tell me how saying "you can't arrest people who cross the border illegally" is different from supporting open borders. (Since ICE is legally required to separate children from 'parents' when arresting them, just like every other law enforcement agency, "don't separate families" is equivalent to "don't arrest anyone crossing the border with someone who says they're a child")

EDIT:

To be clear, my argument is that the thing you called a strawman ("Nowhere do we have evidence that OP or anyone defending him is in favor of fully open borders") is equivalent to a belief you suggested to be much more likely ("Instead, it is much more likely that he dislikes the tactics used by ICE, such as separating families"). The argument is as follows:

"ICE should not separate families" is equivalent to "ICE should not arrest families", as ICE is required by law to separate families after arrest.

"ICE should not arrest families" is equivalent to "ICE should not arrest people crossing the border", as any competent border-hopping group will either have a child with them or someone who says they're a child. (Yes, they might not be related - that's what separating families was partially intended to find out)

"ICE should not arrest people crossing the border" is equivalent to "ICE should not enforce borders" is (IMO) equivalent to "Open borders should be a thing".

wbronitsky3• 7 years ago

Who said "you can't arrest people who cross the border illegally"? I will not discuss this with you while you continue to whip out Straw Man arguments, nor will I engage with your aggressive manner.

commandlinefan2• 7 years ago

dislikes ICE because they enforce immigration law

Well, stepping back from US immigration policy, it seems a little inconsistent, bordering on immoral, to contribute to open source (as in, anybody can use this) and then change your mind about who can use it later.

rudiv• 7 years ago

ITT: post facto justifications for why an open source developer should be forced to materially contribute to actions they find morally abhorrent. Along with many meaningless digressions about the validity of the developer's moral code (ignoring the whole point of a moral code not needing outside justification).

sdinsn4• 7 years ago

...for why an open source developer should...

This person is not an open source developer, since they restricted the usage of their code. They have the right to restrict usage of course, but please don't taint the idea of open source software.

aaomidi• 7 years ago

Open source software's definition isn't provided to us from the heavens. We've defined what it means. There's no reason to stick to that one definition we have - its convenient but please don't assume that the words we have won't change in meaning in the future.

This is human progression, trial and error, and societal evolution happening before our eyes. You won't be able to stop this, it's a natural process that drives society. All you can do is influence this progression.

sdinsn4• 7 years ago

I do have a moral code. And under my moral code, I'm happy to provide software to ICE

happytoexplain7• 7 years ago

You're agreeing with the headline, but your tone implies that you're disagreeing.

sdinsn4• 7 years ago

I'm not disagreeing with the headline, I'm disagreeing with the content.

I do have a moral code, and I believe that everyone should. However, this developer implies that everyone with a moral code should align with his actions.

jrochkind13• 7 years ago

So there is a debate about whether a license should be able to have "field of endeavor" limits and still be considered open source; how much control open source authors should (or can) have over it's use.

What is going on here does NOT seem to be simply a case of the government using open source code.

"While I understand that many of you and many of our community members would prefer we had no business relationship with DHS-ICE, I have made a principled decision, with the support of the Chef executive team, to work with the institutions of our government, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with their various policies," Crist wrote, who added that Chef's work with ICE started during the previous administration.

So it seems what happened here is Chef the company went beyond writing FOSS that happened to be picked up by ICE, they have some business relationship with ICE where they get paid.

I thought chef was open source, so was confused about what selling the code would entail, but googling discovered that it was "open core"... until apparently April of this year when they released all code apache? https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/02/chef-goes-100-open-source/

Which leaves me a bit more confused.

Vargo was a former employee of Chef the company... who maybe also made open source contributions to the project after he no longer worked there? Unclear.

But this quote from CEO Crist is just garbage:

"My goal is to continue growing Chef as a company that transcends numerous U.S. presidential administrations. And to be clear: I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country," he wrote.

And you determined there were no ways of "growing Chef as a company" that didn't require aiding and profiting from activities you yourself consider wrong?

Does he really think this is a sentence that makes sense and makes him look good? I think he simply told us he prioritizes money above his own values, basically that he is a moral coward unwilling to stand by his convictions.

But yeah, the article doesn't give the open-source-geeky details we developers interested in open source want. What exactly is the relationship between Chef Inc and ICE? Of Vargo to Chef Inc? Vargo stopped being a chef employee when, and.. continued to contribute to chef after that? What is this "revert to a previous version" going on, to what previous version, a version before Vargo even had any contributions, or what? Which came first, Chef Inc. or chef as a community open source project?

jrochkind13• 7 years ago

OMG, I just realized this statement from CEO Crist:

"My goal is to continue growing Chef as a company that transcends numerous U.S. presidential administrations. And to be clear: I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country,"

Is basically a paraphrase of the psychopathic CEO's statement in the movie _Sorry to Bother You_. To me, the most genius gut-punchingly funny part of the movie (which is full of genius laugh out loud and cringe-inducing parts).

"See? It's all just a big misunderstanding."

"This ain't no fucking misunderstanding, man. So, you making half-human half-horse fucking things so you can make more money?"

"Yeah, basically. I just didn't want you to think I was crazy. That I was doing this for no reason. Because this isn't irrational."

"Oh. Cool. Alright. Cool. No, I understand. I just, I just got to leave now, man. So, please get the fuck out of my way."

'Everyone Should Have a Moral Code' Says Developer Who Deleted Code Sold to ICE

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