God forbid I have some sort of say in how my labor is used.
Sure you have a say, you also (likely) have the luxury of having a skill set that makes you able to make these choices.
A while back there was an ask HN post about surviving through the first bubble (2001). If you find a group of engineers of that vintage it is likely that you can quickly find someone who worked putting up adult content. (Note I don't have an objection to the topic but realize that some do and this isn't exactly the most glamorous work in tech).
Quitting on moral grounds is a luxury in the scope of human history, and is a luxury for MOST Americans today. Im not sure it is a realistic stance for most people (but probably for most of HN).
I don't think GitHub is going to (or should) change its stance. I'm sure there are plenty of things on GitHub that are worse, or have been used to worse ends than providing source control for ICE.
> I tend to think labor should have more power over what it creates.
I do a lot of contract/freelance work.
The trade off is that control means I am also liable in the event that my work causes an issue (legally as well as from the stand point of being a good citizen and business person).
Indemnity is a wonderful thing. Indemnity is why we have open source. Lots of things work because labor, and its products are decoupled from the end use. Should we stop making guns because someone might kill another person? Should we stop making fertilizer because it can be turned into a bomb? The end result of both products is the same but the intent in the production of either is not HARM.
So what? Freedom of speech is a luxury in the scope of human history as well.
Moreover, someone is making these choices. If it's within your power to have an effect on the choice, and one choice is more moral in your estimation, you're practically obliged to act, even if other people don't have that power.
What do you mean by this? I don't see any necessary connection between open source and indemnities. Professional developers might want to release free software but accept payment to guarantee its fitness for purpose. Conversely, malware authors shouldn't be able to disclaim responsibility for their actions simply by publishing source code.
The rest of your comment seems irrelevant.
Additionally, the freedom argument in the Jim Crow era, "let racist businesses remain racist and eventually they'll be replaced by non-racist businesses" was tried out for a hundred years, and the status quo did not change for people of color. It took the civil rights era and outright banning of discriminatory behavior by businesses for the status quo to change for the better/fairer/more equal. I don't think it would be a good idea to return to that older state of affairs, even if it means business owners must serve people of color, gay people, whatever, because, from my reading of history, that experiment failed.
But you are also being compensated for them having the right to use the product of your labor as they see fit.
Implicitly, and probably explicitly in any decent work contract, is that they are the sole owners of the product of your labor and get to decide how it is used.