[munificent]

> It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust

Yes, doing the right thing often is dangerous and earns you hatred from other people doing bad things who love the freedom of hiding amongst a herd of other equally guilty people.

The reason we have so much respect for people who take stand and do what they believe is right is because doing so is so hard. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

[rattray]

If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win. Where your bold action will be the turning point towards victory of righteousness. And where the magnitude of that victory is commensurate with the risk of your business's failure.

Denying the use of racially biased facial recognition software is a much clearer example where the risks are lower and the impact much, much greater.

It's much less clear that a source code repository is the fulcrum that enables 40 children to be jammed into a room without hygiene. Maybe if you worked for a critical supplier for ICE you could have an impact (which I would much encourage).

[munificent]

> If you're going to risk your business's livelihood to bravely take a stand, it should be in a situation where you can win.

I fundamentally disagree with this. Your argument is akin to stating that there should never be any casualties in a war. There is no way to effectively win a war without sometimes sending some troops into situations where you know they will die.

Compared to soldiers who knowingly lay down their lives in losing battles to help win the war, choosing a moral course of action that merely ends a company seems like a pretty cheap sacrifice.

[rattray]

Within this analogy, I was saying you shouldn't start a war you can't win. It's typical for winners to sustain casualties.