1. Should engineers be expected to incorporate ethics in their work, beyond following laws? Should businessmen? (I personally feel compelled to incorporate morality in my work - but I know a fair amount of incredible engineers and businessmen who I would not trust to harmoniously engage morality/ethics short of trying to follow the law, and I do want our society to benefit from their unique skills.)
2. Might there be a better path forward than pulling the rug out from under ICE? I worry that children could die from terminated service, and that our society might miss the opportunity to inject/facilitate transparency into this morally-bankrupt operation.
(These are genuine curiosities - I don’t know and I’d love to learn.)
One thing that is certain: it is great that we put pressure on these infrastructure providers, for they are a powerful point of leverage in the system. Hence, I appreciate the letter’s second bulleted demand: “Commit yourself to a higher ethical standard with all of your business dealings, and share that standard with the open source community, the same way you do with your Terms of Service and other community standards.” It keeps them vulnerable to what I hope is a righteous public interest.