Resolve the tension between giving contributors enough data to decide how to not work on projects enabling ICE while not encouraging feelings of shame and blame to the maintainers whose projects are being used by ICE without their consent.

[zspencer]

From what I understand, part of what makes Icebreaker feel like it's more about naming and shaming than encouraging positive action is that project maintainers cannot "opt-out" of being listed.

This was decided because we chose to prioritize allowing contributors to choose not to contribute to projects used by ICE over the safety of maintainers. This appears to have been a design mistake.

I believe there are several ways we could help alleviate that tension.

1. We could allow maintainers to request removal of their project from being listed. On the one hand, this grants power to existing open source maintainers who do not want to feel coerced into yet more uncompensated labor (relicensing, defending that copyright) out of social shame. On the other, it does mean that we may "lose" our ability to see the wall being chipped away over time. It also makes the project less useful as a way for people to recognize unrealized ways they are contributing to white supremacy through contributions to these projects. (The fact that this sucks does not necessarily make it untrue, and I would encourage people who feel like this is an unfair characterization to refrain from derailing this conversation with that perspective. Please feel free to cuss me out on Twitter or Mastodon :).)

2. We could allow maintainers to "anonymize" their packages on the home page only. It takes some of the feelings of heat while still giving visibility into how the power of the OSS community is, slowly but surely, being taken back from Palantir and ICE. Perhaps we allow these packages to be found when people search for them by name? This way contributors may still use the tool to make decisions about which projects they want to spend their time and attention on.

3. We could do nothing. I do not consider this an acceptable path forward. To operate in solidarity we cannot shift or encourage blame onto the abused for receiving abuse. I have observed enough discontent with how we have framed the project at present that I would not feel comfortable contributing to the project unless action was decided upon and taken.

4. Some options I do not yet see.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[CoralineAda]

Resolved

[zspencer]

Hey @CoralineAda, I appreciate the copy changes that you made! However, I'm not sure they are enough to call this issue resolved.

Because the tension is between the broader community and us as maintainers, I would prefer to wait for community comment before closin. Ideally from some of the folks who raised the concern about icebreaker being a project that unjustly targets maintainers.

Is that OK with you?

[CoralineAda]

Yep, sounds good.

[CoralineAda]

@zspencer comfortable with closing this now?

[zspencer]

@CoralineAda - I have yet to see any of the critics who have raised this issue agree that the tension has been resolved. If you have receipts for both the initial critique and the follow up that they feel better about the new framing; I would be happy to consider closing it, but at present it seems like the tension still exists and most of the initial critics are keeping their heads down to preserve their personal mental and emotional health.

I believe we have to make structural changes and not merely framing ones in order for this to truly be resolved; and I have not yet had the time or attention to make those structural changes.

[nateberkopec]

So, my packages aren't on Icebreaker, but I can be reasonably certain puma is used at Palantir somewhere because it is the most popular Ruby application server. I have also had Palantir as a customer of my educational products.

Icebreaker made me think about my personal contribution to the current situation. I haven't actually done anything different yet like change licenses or change my relationship to Palantir (though I did contribute financially to the ES movement), but I'm thinking about it. And I think Icebreaker is effective at making people think.

We could do nothing. I do not consider this an acceptable path forward. To operate in solidarity we cannot shift or encourage blame onto the abused for receiving abuse.

This shifted from "people don't like Icebreaker" to "this is abuse". I am not sure that making people think about wrongdoing is abusive. I do think we can do it in a smart way that's most likely to turn people to the ethical source cause. Removing your packages from the wall without actually doing anything about your involvement is like saying "it's OK to ignore your moral complicity" to me.

[nateberkopec]

Also:

blame to the maintainers whose projects are being used by ICE without their consent

To me, this is sort of "the point". Free software licenses allow your software and labor products to be used without your consent by anyone for any purpose. There are consequences to that action - it can be used for evil. Are you OK with that? Do you share any of that moral responsibility?

[nateberkopec]

I just went back through the Twitter criticism. Admittedly it's hard to get a full picture because I can't find the subtweets by searching for "icebreaker.dev" but to me the responses fall into two categories:

• Rejecting the moral premise (aka responder takes the "Guns don't kill people, people do" stance). This is fine, it just means Icebreaker didn't cause this person to think.
• The "this puts pressure on people with no power" argument. More interesting, but I think the point of Icebreaker is that we (maintainers/authors) do have power and agency in this situation. Our relative lack of economic/political resources does not exempt us for moral responsibility, either.

[zspencer]

Thank you for your thoughts @nateberkopec! I agree we do not want to focus on those who reject the underlying moral premise. They are "not our customer" so to speak.

I also agree we want to make this a tool that prompts thought and eventually action. At present, the current framing of the problem appears to prompt feelings of shame, embarrassment or helplessness. Some amount of evidence indicates that when people feel these emotions they're higher-level cognitive ability shuts down and they engage in fight-or-flight responses.

While we cannot prevent people from feeling those emotions; I do think we can shift the framing and design in such a way that it prompts indignation, solidarity, and hope.

In particular, I am thinking through framing and design changes that:

• Prompt visitors to opt-in to exploring the involvement a package has within the Palantir/ICE ecosystem.
• Provide clear, actionable and achievable next steps for visitors who wish to support the broader Ethical Source movement.
• Provide visibility into how the economic advantages granted to Palantir and ICE shift over time as the ethical source movement evolves.

I don't quite have a clear design vision for how to do that yet, but it's getting less fuzzy as I muse on it and talk with people.

P.s. Re: Abuse - Open source is a socioeconomically abusive ecosystem. The way it is used as a hiring rubric makes it a gatekeeper that mandates uncompensated labor in exchange for the chance of a stable economic future. I do not want to dive too deeply into this topic in this thread, but would happily discuss in a different issue or via email :).

[nateberkopec]

Prompt visitors to opt-in to exploring the involvement a package has within the Palantir/ICE ecosystem.

This is interesting! Not a bad idea. Like "Seven (well really probably two) Degrees of ICE" but for your project. Probably accomplishes the same effect.