Re:Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone ...
by tptacek on Saturday December 08, 2018 @06:46PM
(#18638204)
You can call them "primadonnas" if you like, and maybe they are! If it's just one or two people, and they aren't irreplaceable, and they're being noisy, then that's exactly what they are.
But if it's the bulk of the team, or it's key team members, then being noisy about something --- an ethical boundary, a workplace demand, whatever --- it isn't "primadonnery". It's the marketplace at work. In our industry, workers often have a lot more power than they understand, let alone wield. Getting angry about it won't change that.
There are all sorts of organizations we would refuse to do business at our firm. I can't see how it's any different in this scenario.
Re:Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone ...
by bhhaskin on Friday December 07, 2018 @07:57PM
(#18633116)
Exactly. And the reality is if you don't take their money, a competitor will.
Re:Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone ...
by kazinator on Friday December 07, 2018 @10:16PM
(#18633670)
I don't agree with "if I don't perpetrate this harm, someone else will, so it's okay" because that pattern can be used to justify any harm. If I don't perpetrate this harm, and someone else does, the moral culpability rests with them and not me; and that makes all the difference.
I'm saying that doing business with people who oppose abortion isn't the perpetration of harm. We as a society do not economically ostracize people who hold a pro-life position. There is no need for some random software developers of some groupware to be doing that.
Re:Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone ...
by tptacek on Saturday December 08, 2018 @07:01PM
(#18638259)
We don't? Sure we do. We boycott all sorts of things. Economics and market relationships are one of the most potent tools people in our capitalist society have for effecting change.
kernel.org and gnu.org will gladly give those pro-life people an OS, mozilla.org a browser. Free of charge, and all.
microsoft.com will lavish software upon those pro-lifers, much of it for a fee.
Safeway will sell a loaf of bread and bottle of milk to a pro-lifer.
But some primadonnas don't want their employing software organization to sell them event organizing software?
They really are in the wrong business. Because if you make software for event organizing, half the customers will be groups that half of you don't agree with. That's because events are often political or religious or whatever.
You're not going to have much of an income from organizing bake sale fund raisers for school trips or baby showers --- and what if some on your team are against even that sort of thing?
Let them go and replace them with "pro-money" and "pro-business" team members.