Chef dependency removed after agreement with ICE

[cousin_it]

Can someone explain what the guy's action accomplished? If you yank your code from the internet, and people have backups of it, and it was under the Apache license, it seems to me that people can just restore the code and keep working with it as if nothing happened. The license is perpetual, no? And that's not just a technicality - if FOSS licenses were revocable by the author at any time, only idiots would use FOSS in their business...

[Crinus]

He removed his repository because it was used by a company that he thinks it did something he disliked. I don't know why it matters, at least in the grand scheme of things. For him it probably matters due to his personal views and it'll probably matter for those who align with his views (assuming they know about that move).

In any case, anyone is free to do with their code whatever they like. If you depend on anyone else's code keep in mind that you do not have control over them and any expectations you may have about their actions may not match theirs, so take that into consideration when making those dependencies.

[tdewitt]

Seth is a big deal in the Chef community, so it's important to understand that. In fact, he's a big deal in the devops community.

What he did was make a statement. He made it clear to the Chef _company_ that he can not,non good conscience, contribute code to organizations that he feels are working with extremely bad actors. This is his way of protesting. Chef is able to (and in fact already has) ignored him and restored a copy of his code and formed it under a new name. (Citation needed but I believe that was a statement from Seth I'm Twitter.)

To everyone snubbing Seth for doing this, let's go "Nazi" with it. If Chef did a deal with the Aryan Nation and FOSS contributors pulled their core and support, would people feel the same? Probably not, right? Well, to many, what ICE is doing is _literally_ along the lines of what the Nazi party did. (I'm not asking that anyone agree with that sentiment, just that they acknowledge that it exists.)

So, Seth exercised his right to free speech and right to protest by publicly pulling support for an organization that he has helped significantly. This is a loss for the Chef org and the Chef community. It has also been quite effective because this isn't the first place where I've seen this conversation and it won't be the last, in the next few days.

[huntaub]

The CEO of Chef responded to this with a blog post: https://blog.chef.io/2019/09/19/chefs-position-on-customer-e...

[mc32]

It’s the only logical conclusion. Any other would result in inconsistencies and uneven application. One cannot continually evaluate and determine worthiness (as defined by you) of all users.

Moreover this program began under the Obama admin. So the decision itself is internally inconsistent.

[lixtra]

Ironically it’s hosted on github owned by Microsoft which certainly works with ICE.

[dragandj]

Even more ironically, it comes from a Google employee, when Google is so much widespread, that it's guaranteed to be working with morally questionable actors left and right; or (according to many people) being /the/ morally questionable actor.

[KevinEldon]

The cited contract is with C & C INTERNATIONAL COMPUTERS & CONSULTANTS, INC. who purchased $95k of Chef licenses.

C & C INTERNATIONAL COMPUTERS & CONSULTANTS, INC. is listed in the contract with these business types:

- Woman Owned Business

- Women Owned Small Business

- Economically Disadvantaged Women Owned Small Business

- Minority Owned Business

- Black American Owned Business

- Corporate Entity Not Tax Exempt

- For Profit Organization

- DoT Certified Disadvantaged Business Enterprise

- Small Disadvantaged Business

- 8a Program Participant

[goatinaboat]

Am I reading this correctly: a business owned by a black woman sold a product, and a white male has responded by sabotaging it?

Not a great look, for him or his employer.

[chomp]

Am I missing something? It looks like a generic procurement /federal contractor company entered the contract, and not Chef.

That’s like ICE buying Cisco switches from a 3rd party and getting mad at Cisco isn’t it?

[nofinator]

I originally thought so too, but based on the CEO's blog post, it sounds like they are more involved with ICE for this project than simply licensing their product to an independent contractor: https://blog.chef.io/2019/09/19/chefs-position-on-customer-e...

[derp_dee_derp]

Yes, let's get mad at the people enforcing the laws instead of the people who write the laws.

Then, we can turn off our code, make a big announcement, and feel good about ourselves without making any meaningful effort to actually help.

What. A. Great. Plan.

[gerbilly]

You can do both, it's not mutually exclusive.

[marcosdumay]

On this case, I don't think your Law requires children to be imprisoned away from their parents, nor that it requires that illegal immigrants be imprisoned instead of deported. If that is really the case, the blame falls entirely on the people enforcing it.

[mateus1]

This is whataboutism. You can and you should engage politically against every level of institutions who hurt moral principles you believe in.

[jchanimal]

Best context I could find https://twitter.com/sethvargo/status/1174451060263530502?s=2...

[tin-foil-hat]

Related article https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/20/chef_roasted_for_ic...

[ketsa]

Wtf is chef...

[sgift]

"Chef is a company and the name of a configuration management tool written in Ruby and Erlang."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(software)

[ginko]

All I could think of was this[1] and was wondering how a silly esoteric language can cause human rights issues.

[1] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Chef

[goatinaboat]

It’s a tool for webdevs to do simple configuration of web servers without leaving their comfort zone of Ruby On Rails.

[xtracto]

What people used in the past before Ansible was a thing.

[victorbojica]

What is the contract about? Can't seem to find any details regarding this.

[mieseratte]

> I apologize for the disruption to your workflow. I will be happy to restore the old repository and gem versions if Chef cancels their contract with the agency.

Great, take something out on me because of your personal politics!

I, for one, look forward to a future of navigating politicized open-source constraints of each creator.

And of course, the creator of Chef-Sugar works for Google.

Edit: Here's a mirror: https://gitlab.openminds.be/mirror/chef-sugar/-/branches

Edit: Appears Chef itself has taken over: https://github.com/chef/chef-sugar

[scandox]

I think it's reasonable whatever one's view. He made it. He can pull it. This is literally what this freedom is all about. I don't understand when the personal expression of developers of free software became constrained by some kind of nebulous corporate responsibility.

[onion2k]

I, for one, look forward to a future of navigating politicized open-source constraints of each creator.

You get what you pay for.

[missosoup]

If you have a problem with FOSS and authors having ownership of their creations, feel free not to use it.

[Cthulhu_]

So what's stopping anyone - e.g. Chef or ICE - from just forking the code and continuing as before?

[mc32]

This is ridiculous. It’s unsustainable. There is no way you can audit all your users to determine how law abiding, ethical, moral and whatever other measure you want to use.

It’s a bit of immature posturing.

If I need something and I can’t buy it directly I’ll go to a third party who will buy it for me. So it’s kind of futile anyway.

Imagine if Bernie wins and then everyone who doesn’t like socialized medicine (physicians, etc., go on strike — oh, my bad, they wouldn’t be allowed). Or big pharma said, we’re not selling to government, they are telling us to depress prices, we disagree!

[chris_wot]

It wasn't taken out on you, personally.

[Ar-Curunir]

I think we can all agree that, whatever your politics, working for ICE is abhorrent and deserves punishment.

[notyourday]

The best part of this debacle is the author is still getting a paycheck from Google.

[goatinaboat]

Moral of the story: do not do business with Google because you can’t tell when some random employee of theirs will decide to pull the plug on you. Or maybe you’re just collateral damage in their country’s internal political squabbles. Either way you have no recourse, because Google.

[dragandj]

and ICE is likely using Kubernetes, too ;)