[ianai]

I would strongly suggest people take their political concerns to the appropriate channels - write your representatives, be active in local town council meetings, stay informed on things that civic duty requires in the US (which is expensive, btw!), and vote. It might seem pointless, but all of those things do actually matter and have measurable impacts. Your representatives do actually listen to you if you vote for or against them - and they’re not gerrymandered into a lifetime appointment or some other political failure.

Drafting an online petition like this is not too far off from storming someone’s place of work and asking them to forego their main means of survival. I understand the outrage over human rights abuses, but this isn’t the forum.

[burkaman]

Are you saying that if you see somebody doing something wrong, asking them to stop is an "inappropriate channel"?

[ianai]

These aren’t the people doing something wrong. GitHub staff are probably treated like second class Microsoft employees all the way up to the top management at github. Any one of them voicing concern or outrage over Microsoft’s or GitHubs customer contract(s) could very well lead to their termination - even at the C-level of github or whatever is the top of their management chain.

[burkaman]

The letter is addressed to GitHub leadership. If Microsoft does not allow them to terminate a contract for widespread ethical and legal violations, they should quit.

The CEO of GitHub is not going to starve if he gets fired.

[malvosenior]

If the CEO of GitHub gets fired it should be because he mismanaged communicating that GitHub shouldn't be the moral arbiter its customers. I think GitHub leadership's morals align with Microsoft's here. I also share this moral framework, I don't want private companies creating an extra-judicial layer of subjective morals. You shouldn't pick and choose who your customers are for many reasons.

[burkaman]

Ok, fine, but I disagree and I'd like to tell the CEO that I don't share his moral framework. Why is sending him a letter an inappropriate channel?

[malvosenior]

Go for it! I didn't say it was an inappropriate channel (that was a GP post). I do think it's misguided and against the spirit of open source software though.

[013a]

If you see someone doing something which you believe to be wrong, but the law suggests is right, asking them to stop absolutely is an inappropriate channel.

But Companies are not People. So this is a dumb metaphor.

[staticassertion]

Writing your rep is not exclusive from contacting the organization.

Yes it is the forum. No it's absolutely nothing like telling someone to "forego their means of survival".