/dear-github-2.0

📨 An open letter to GitHub from the maintainers of open source projects

Dear GitHub,

Almost 4 years ago, a group of open source maintainers wrote you a letter expressing their frustration that the platform they love most was ignoring their request for help. You stepped up your game, and started paying attention, fixing things that were broken, and building new experiences that have gone above and beyond what we asked for.

Now, we are asking you to help again. GitHub's leadership recently chose to renew a contract to provide GitHub Enterprise Server to the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division of United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This government agency is actively committing numerous crimes and human rights violations, in contravention of both US and international law. ICE conducts random violent raids throughout the United States, invades communities and workplaces with military equipment, detains buses and trains, and arrests people solely on the basis of their perceived nationality, skin color, or native language. Their agents lurk outside of schools in order to abduct the children of immigrants and force their families to surrender themselves into custody. ICE imprisons people in deplorable and unsanitary conditions and denies them medical care. They separate the children they imprison from their families and offer them for adoption by others via agencies with shady histories. ICE agents subject both the adults and children they imprison to horrific physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. They continue to commit these heinous acts in defiance of multiple judgments issued by US courts and condemnations by humanitarian organizations. Many people, including children, have now died in their custody.

At the core of the open source ethos is the idea of liberty. Open source is about inverting power structures and creating access and opportunities for everyone. We, the undersigned, cannot see how to reconcile our ethics with GitHub's continued support of ICE. Moreover, your lack of transparency around the ethical standards you use for conducting business is also concerning to a community that is focused around doing everything out in the open. We want to know that the platform we have invested so much of our time and energy in is operating in a way that is consistent with the values of open source software development.

We therefore call upon GitHub to:

  • Immediately cancel your contract with ICE
  • Commit yourself to a higher ethical standard with all of your business dealings, and share that standard with the open source community, the same way you do with your Terms of Service and other community standards.

We still believe in GitHub as a platform, as a place to help the open source community make the world a genuinely better place. Please, step up and join us.

Signed,

  • Daniel Appelquist, @torgo (Co-Chair, W3C Technical Architecture Group)
  • Tony Arcieri, @tarcieri (iqlusion, RustSec)
  • Anaïs Betts, @anaisbetts (ReactiveUI)
  • Jory Burson, @jorydotcom, (Web Standards & Open Source Community Liaison: Bocoup, Ecma International, OASIS Open, OpenJS Foundation, W3C)
  • Marcos Cáceres, @marcoscaceres (W3C Web Applications WG Chair, Mozilla)
  • Ada Rose Cannon, @lady_ada_king (Co-chair, W3C Immersive Web Working Group, Developer Advocate Samsung)
  • Paddy Carver, @paddycarver (Terraform contributor)
  • Taeyoon Choi, @tchoi8 (School for Poetic Computation)
  • Krzysztof Cieslak, @Krzysztof-Cieslak (CEO, OSS developer, Ionide, Saturn, FsAutocomplete)
  • Josh Comeau, @joshwcomeau (staff software engineer, Gatsby)
  • Marc Cornellà, @mcornella (Oh My Zsh)
  • Matt Cowley, @MattIPv4 (cdnjs)
  • Kushal Das, @kushaldas (Public Interest Technologist, Freedom of the Press Foundation)
  • Chris Dickinson, @chrisdickinson (Entropic)
  • Buck Doyle, @backspace (Nomad contributor)
  • Audrey Eschright, @aeschright (Calagator)
  • Steffen Forkmann, @forki (Paket, FAKE)
  • Brian Gesiak, @modocache (Swift, LLVM)
  • Don Goodman-Wilson, @DEGoodmanWilson (developer advocate, GitHub; board, Maintainerati)
  • Jordan Harband, @ljharb (TC39 Editor; Opendoor engineer; npm package author)
  • David Heinemeier Hansson, @dhh (Ruby on Rails)
  • Geoffrey Huntley, @geoffreyhuntley (ReactiveUI)
  • Vaidehi Joshi, @vaidehijoshi (basecs)
  • Zach Leatherman, @zachleat (Eleventy 11ty.io)
  • Glyph Lefkowitz, @glyph (founder, Twisted)
  • Jan Lehnardt, @janl (CEO Neighbourhoodie Software, PMC Chair Apache CouchDB)
  • Verónica López, @verolop (DigitalOcean/ Kubernetes contributor)
  • Tatiana Mac, @TatianaMac (Self-Defined Dictionary)
  • Kat Marchán, @zkat (Entropic)
  • Lauren McCarthy, @lmccart (p5.js, Processing Foundation)
  • Buster Neece, @SlvrEagle23 (AzuraCast)
  • David Nicholson, @NickleDave (contributor to scientific Python libraries)
  • Tim Pope, @tpope (Vim plugins)
  • Jordan Rose, @belkadan (Swift contributor)
  • Jordan Santell, @jsantell (immersive web tools)
  • Richard Schneeman, @schneems (CodeTriage creator, Puma, Sprockets, Ruby on Rails contributor)
  • Pam Selle, @pselle (former IOpipe maintainer, Terraform contributor)
  • Daniel Shiffman, @shiffman (Processing Foundation, The Coding Train)
  • C J Silverio, @ceejbot (Entropic)
  • Boaz Sender (Bocoup, OpenJS Foundation, Processing Foundation, W3C, Ecma International)
  • Daniel Stockman, @evocateur (Lerna)
  • Itamar Turner-Trauring, @itamarst (Eliot, formerly Twisted and Telepresence)
  • Natalie Weizenbaum, @nex3 (Sass)
  • Greg Wilson, @gvwilson (RStudio)

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  • Ron. A, @0xadada (Unredacted Word)
  • Felix Ableitner, @nutomic (/e/ foundation, former developer of syncthing-android)
  • Dave Ackley, @daveackley (Best effort advocate and developer of MFM, ulam, SPLAT)
  • Zac Adam-MacEwen, @ZAdamMac (KSL)
  • Zac Anger, @zacanger (Node packages maintainer)
  • Patrick Arnett, @patrickarnett (Software Developer)
  • Peter Aronoff, @telemachus (Lua modules split and tapered)
  • Christian Aust, @datenimperator (Software Developer)
  • Delan Azabani, @delan (software person)
  • Pierre-Yves Baccou, @pyb (Light Meta)
  • Evan Bailey, @cynicaloptimist (Improved Initiative)
  • Laryn Kragt Bakker, @laryn (Backdrop CMS and CiviCRM contributor)
  • Amr Bakry, @amrrbakry (Software Engineer)
  • Artur Barseghyan, @barseghyanartur (open-source contributor)
  • Daniel Bayley, @danielbayley (Motion/graphic designer and software developer)
  • Phil Beauvoir, @Phillipus (Archi)
  • Fynn Becker, @mvsde (Frontend Developer, Pangolin.js maintainer)
  • Shane Becker, @veganstraightedge (CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective @crimethinc)
  • Dan Bentley, @dbentley (Tilt)
  • Noah Berman, @bermannoah (small but mighty Ruby OSS projects, coffeebot)
  • Aatish Bhatia, @aatishb (aatishb.com)
  • Elliot Blackburn, @BlueHatbRit (mdpdf, and npm package author)
  • Hannah Blau, @hannahblau (research software engineer)
  • Daniel Bolivar, @ddanielbee (Software Engineer)
  • Remie Bolte, @remie (YouTransfer.io, gfc.io)
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  • Brian Cain, @briancain (Vagrant contributor)
  • Colin Caine, @cmcaine (Tridactyl and open scientific software)
  • Lachlan Campbell, @lachlanjc (Hack Club)
  • David Celis, @davidcelis (maintainer of and contributor to various Ruby gems)
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  • Matt Chapman, @matt2000 (Code Contributor to many open-source projects)
  • Mitch Chapman, @mchapman87501 (Software Developer)
  • David Chopin, @ChopinDavid (Software Developer, student)
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  • Jimmy Cuadra, @jimmycuadra (Lita, Ruma)
  • Tierney Cyren, @bnb (Node.js, OpenJS Foundation, Cutenode, Electron)
  • Paul D'Ambra, @pauldambra (Software Engineer)
  • Timothy Dang, @timdang (Software Engineer)
  • Michael Daryabeygi, @ginkgoMZD (CiviCRM Contributor)
  • Tom de Bruijn, @tombruijn (Software developer)
  • Matthew Dean, @matthew-dean (Less.js)
  • Suhas Deshpande, @suhasdeshpande (Typescript & Angular contributor)
  • Henry Desroches, @xdesro (Faculty)
  • iliana destroyer of worlds, @iliana (Amazon Web Services)
  • Chance Dickson, @chancedickson (Product Engineer @ Glitch)
  • Jason Dixon, @obfuscurity (ex-GitHub employee, Monitorama founder, open source contributor)
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  • Eric, @TheLastZombie (webpages, scrapers, bots, tools)
  • Matheus Fantinel, @matfantinel (Software Developer)
  • Jake Brussel Faria, @jacobbf (Developer, technical writer, working on open source type projects)
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  • Trevor Flowers, @TrevorFSmith (Chair of W3C Immersive Web CG, Invited expert of W3C Immersive Web WG, Principal at Transmutable)
  • Adam C. Foltzer, @acfoltzer (Lucet)
  • Liz Fong-Jones, @lizthegrey (Principal Developer Advocate, @honeycombio; @opentelemetry governance committee; affiliations for identification purposes only)
  • Jeff Forcier, @bitprophet (Fabric, Paramiko, etc)
  • Thomas Fuchs, @madrobby (Zepto, scriptaculous)
  • Chris Galardi, @ixtli (Engineer, iphone dev team)
  • Jason Garber, @jgarber623 (web developer and standards advocate)
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  • Florian Gilcher, @skade (Rust, Rust Berlin, Ruby Berlin e.V.)
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  • Elana Hashman, @ehashman (Open Source Initiative, Debian, Python Packaging Authority, Kubernetes)
  • Martin Heidegger, @martinheidegger (consento-org, jsconfjp, ...)
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  • Patrick Hickey, @pchickey (WebAssembly software developer)
  • Chris Hiestand, @chrishiestand (GitHub App Creator www.boss.dev)
  • Hannah Howard, @hannahhoward (Carbon Five, RxReact)
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  • Emma C Humphries, @emceeaich (Firefox and Bugzilla)
  • Tarjei Husøy, @thusoy (Megacool, saltstack contributor)
  • Jörn Huxhorn, @huxi (Software Engineer)
  • Ellie Huxtable, @ellmh (Software Engineer)
  • Fedor Indutny, @indutny (Node.js)
  • Andrew-David Jahchan, @AndrewDavid (Definitely Not A Co, Wild Gamut)
  • Tomas Jansson, @mastoj (VP Engineering, Unacast)
  • Marcus Jensen, @Lomztein (Software Engineering Student, Hobbyist Developer)
  • Avery Katko, @averykatko (Software Developer)
  • Omer Katz, @thedrow (Celery Project)
  • Eslam Khoga, @KhogaEslam (Software Engineer)
  • Espen Klem, @eklem (Interaction designer & opensource coder)
  • Zach Klippenstein, @zach-klippenstein (Square)
  • Brian Knox, @taotetek (GoCZMQ, contributor to CZMQ, Rsyslog)
  • Masafumi Koba, @ybiquitous (Software Developer)
  • Anna Krasner, @annakrasner (Software Engineer, Game Developer)
  • Kevin Krieger, @kkrieger85 (#Openmage, different Magento1 Modules/Shops)
  • Simon Kunz @MDSLKTR (Software Engineer, npm package author)
  • Jamie Kyle, @jamiebuilds (Babel, Yarn, Parcel, Lerna, Flow, Marionette, Dear GitHub 1.0)
  • Soni L., @soniex2 (GAnarchy)
  • Olivier Lacan, @olivierlacan (Keep a Changelog, Shields, Code School)
  • Kaylum Lally, @HiKaylum (Senior UX Developer, Accessibility Advocate)
  • Anthony Lee, @antwonlee (Software Engineer)
  • Jannis Leidel, @jezdez (Mozilla, Python Software Foundation, Django Software Foundation)
  • Judson Lester, @nyarly (Many small projects and contributions)
  • Myles Lewando, @codemacabre (CodeMacabre, OpenPlanetary)
  • Richard Littauer, @RichardLitt (Maintainer Mountaineer)
  • isis lovecruft, @isislovecruft (Cryptographer)
  • Joseph Luck, @josephluck (Software Engineer, various open source)
  • Jeremy Macaluso, @jvluso (Ethereum-oauth, Frame)
  • Mathew Maidment, @lioncash (Emulator developer; Dolphin, Citra, yuzu)
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  • Rob McLarty, @robmclarty (js, bikes, infosec)
  • Julie McMurry, @jmcmurry (Monarch Initiative, Oregon State Faculty)
  • Jeremy Meiss, @jerdog (DevRel, Community)
  • Federico Mena Quintero, @federicomenaquintero (GNOME)
  • Matt Mills, @photomattmills (Software Engineer, ElixirBridge co-founder)
  • Ryan Mottley, @ligerzero459 (Help.com)
  • Thomas Russell Murphy, @thomasrussellmurphy (iStyle Verilog maintainer)
  • Liam Newman, @bitwiseman (Jenkins project contributor, github-api, js-beautify)
  • Vui Nguyen, @vuinguyen (iOS and JavaScript Contributor of open-source projects)
  • Luna Nielsen, @Member1221 (Glimpse, PolyplexEngine)
  • Sebastian Vilhelm Nielsen, @VilhelmNielsen (Software Engineer)
  • Palash Nigam, @palash25, (Student, Contributor to various projects)
  • Kira Oakley, @noffle (Digital Democracy, Cabal Club)
  • Rhodey Orbits, @rhodey (RadioWitness)
  • Ken Arroyo Ohori, @kenohori (Delft University of Technology)
  • Ave Ozkal, @aveao (Lead Software Developer, open source contributor; team at @elixire, @lasagnaltd, @reswitched, @switchroot)
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  • Alexander Payne, @myrrlyn (Rust community)
  • Marco Perone, @marcosh (Statebox)
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  • Kay Rhodes, @masukomi (maintainer of and contributer to multiple projects)
  • Becca Ricks, @baricks (Mozilla Foundation, tendernet)
  • Sebastian Riedel, @kraih (Mojolicious)
  • Tiago Rodrigues, @trodrigues (Software Engineer, open source contributor, previously LXJS organizer)
  • Filipe Roman Veloso, @rovel (Umanni)
  • Felipe Rueda, @ferueda (Product Manager)
  • Carlos Rufo, @swcarlosrj (Software Engineer)
  • Jakob Runge, @runjak (Software Engineer)
  • Anton Rusinov, @RusinovAnton (JS tl;dr)
  • Ray Ryan, @rjrjr (Square)
  • Vikash Saini, @enigma10 (Software Engineer)
  • Alex Sanders, @sndrs (Software Engineer)
  • Dorothy R. Santos, @dorothysantos (Processing Foundation)
  • Aleph Santos Oliveira, @haple
  • Kaja Santro, @kajatiger, (software engineer, code curious organizer)
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  • Loren Segal, @lsegal (YARD, RubyDoc.info)
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  • Kyle Simpson, @getify (Getify, YDKJS)
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  • Thorr Stevens, @thorrstevens (Javascript Developer, date-fns contributor)
  • Christoph Stock, @stockulus (Software Engineer)
  • Colby Swandale, @colby-swandale (Bundler, Rubygems, RubyGems.org)
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