News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @01:43PM (#22868979)
Transparency can give bad actors a way to game and workaround the system.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by vbezhenar on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:04PM (#22869292)
We're living with transparent juridical system and it works fine. Imagine that you could be thrown to jail without explaining a reason. That would be outrageous.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by candiodari on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:29PM (#22871063)
1) You can be thrown into jail without any explanation whatsoever.

2) You can be shot without any explanation whatsoever.

3) Your possessions can be taken away, and sold off without any explanation and without recourse.

Links about each of these claims:

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/07/innocent-people-who-plead-gu...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/09/11/how-cops... (also applies to, say, cars)

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by Mountain_Skies on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:40PM (#22874275)
So GitHub should aspire to do the same?
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by toyg on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:25PM (#22869570)
> transparent juridical system and it works fine

Yeah, criminals are always arrested and convicted. /s

It's a balance. With something as essential as human rights and personal freedom, people (tend to) err on the safe side. Online moderation can err on the other side, since consequences are relatively modest. If you get banned on GH, move to Gitlab or host your own, that's hardly a tragedy.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by FpUser on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:09PM (#22870844)
That is exactly what I do. I use self hosted solutions for my source code repositories. I just can't digest my code being handled by some other entity. Too important.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by endgame on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @07:33PM (#22872745)
Amazing that you got downvoted for this. I pay for code hosting precisely because I want to see an ecosystem of code hosts, and monocultures are dangerous.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by FpUser on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @12:57AM (#22874659)
Well I've never downvoted a single post no matter how much I disliked it. Personally I consider this a kind of weakness and the whole system as promoting herd mentality. But whatever floats their boat.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @02:51PM (#22881531)
Exactly. Screw around and try to game/skirt the law IRL and the risk is way too high that you'll goto jail anyway. There are usually no consequences for doing this online.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by saagarjha on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:59PM (#22870022)
Online moderation is an issue of personal rights.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by pc86 on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @03:21PM (#22870298)
Not in the Constitutional sense, and not in anything administered by GitHub.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by aaron_m04 on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @10:36AM (#22878195)
It should be!
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by koheripbal on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @06:22PM (#22872209)
Are you willing to pay taxes for github usage!? You get what you pay for.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by int_19h on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @04:40AM (#22875711)
If it guaranteed that the repos stay up in perpetuity, that sounds amazing, actually.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by bhk on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:07PM (#22869342)
How is "game and workaround the system" different from "comply with policies"? Is compliance not the objective?
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by pc86 on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @03:20PM (#22870284)
Compliance with the spirit is the objective. Sometimes the spirit and the letter differ for any number of reasons (many of which are completely reasonable).

People tend to get pretty upset when someone is very clearly complying with the letter while flying in complete opposition to the spirit, and it's not always an easy fix.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by renata on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @03:28PM (#22870368)
In that case, it sounds like the letter needs to be fixed. It's not fair to expect people to follow an ephemeral ideal of what the rules are rather than what they're told the rules actually are.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by pc86 on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @03:34PM (#22870459)
Like I said, it's not always that simple. When it's not, something less than 100% transparency allows one to look at the given particulars of a case and determine whether or not someone is simply trying to evade the spirit of a rule or not. It gives enforcement actors a little lee-way that they wouldn't otherwise have.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by yellowapple on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @01:13AM (#22874746)
> It gives enforcement actors a little lee-way that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Which can be and often is subject to abuse.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by pc86 on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @09:39AM (#22877542)
One of the worst things about engineers in general and HN specifically is we all pretend that law is executed like code, in a vacuum, idempotently based on the inputs. That's was, is, and will never be the case.

Abuse can be exposed and punished, and very often is.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by yellowapple on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @04:27PM (#22882627)
> Abuse can be exposed and punished, and very often is.

But nowhere near often enough.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by xapata on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:35PM (#22871117)
Law in many countries comes down to "I know it when I see it" from the judges.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by searchableguy on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @05:48AM (#22876013)
That sounds like it will lead to a lot more restrictions than there are today.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by jonny_eh on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:20PM (#22870955)
That's why the letter of the law needs to be updated to better reflect the spirit. Imagine if police could arrest you, and keep you, without telling you why. That's something that society figured out a long time ago isn't healthy.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by darkarmani on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @05:06PM (#22871445)
> Imagine if police could arrest you, and keep you, without telling you why. That's something that society figured out a long time ago isn't healthy.

The judicial system that backs it is a massive beast. If someone wants that level of assurances, they should be paying thousands of dollars for a github account. You get the level of perfection you pay for.

Re:GitHub is now free for teams by koheripbal on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @06:21PM (#22872201)
Do you honestly not understand a difference between people who comply in good faith vs people who simply skirt the rules?
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by underdeserver on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @01:48PM (#22869041)
More likely, ammo in a potential legal battle between GitHub and the banned party.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by Cthulhu_ on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:46PM (#22869854)
So far it's been mostly small / independent developers or organizations that were banned, and Github has Microsoft behind it, a $125bn / year revenue company with a legal team 1,500 strong (https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2019/12/02/how-brad...). I don't think fear of litigation is the issue.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by koheripbal on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @06:23PM (#22872218)
The very first thing a corporate lawyer does is proactively prevent litigation through protective policies that specifically do NOT emphasize transparency.
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by Notorious_BLT on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @02:57PM (#22870003)
So just to be clear, are you arguing that rules shouldn't be clearly laid out, because then people would be able to follow them?
Re:GitHub is now free for teams by popinman322 on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:11PM (#22870868)
Not taking a side on this, but there do exist people who exactly follow the letter of the law to circumvent the spirit of the law.

For example, people who harass others just within the confines of the rules so that they can't be banned from a community solely using the rules.

This is why we need humans to judge the spirit of the rules.