GitHub, the Microsoft-owned code-sharing service that forms the backbone of the open source software world, is under scrutiny for a customer deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the agency charged with enforcing the Trump administration's controversial immigration policies.
In an email to employees on Tuesday, CEO Nat Friedman said that the deal was worth less than $200,000 to the company. That email was originally leaked to an advocacy group called Fight for the Future, but is now posted publicly on GitHub's blog.
Friedman said that the contract was actually handled through one of GitHub's reseller partners, and was originally signed in April 2016, though in August the company learned it was up for renewal.
In that email, Friedman says that leadership consulted with employees and executives on what to do about the deal, but that GitHub doesn't plan to block the renewal of the contract. While GitHub and Microsoft oppose the current administration on immigration policies like family separation at the border and ending DACA, the company can't be responsible for what its customers use its products and services for, Friedman said.
"Just as Microsoft for more than three decades has licensed Microsoft Word without demanding to know what customers use it to write, we believe it would be wrong for GitHub to demand that software developers tell us what they are using our tools to do," Friedman wrote.
However, he said, GitHub will commit to spending $500,000 on immigration-related nonprofits — more than the value of this ICE contract, he noted — and advocate for political reform.
In response, over 150 GitHub employees, including a vice president at the company, signed a letter asking GitHub to cancel its contract with ICE, the Washington Post's Nitasha Tiku first reported. You can read the letter, posted on Twitter, here. GitHub was not immediately available to comment on the open letter.
—githubbers (@githubbers) October 9, 2019
—RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS) October 9, 2019
