The Schism at the Heart of the Open-Source Movement (The Atlantic)

It is not all that often that the mainstream press looks at issues in the open-source world, but this article from The Atlantic does just that; it looks at the controversy surrounding GitHub renewing its contract with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the concerns some have had with their code being used by ICE. "So when news of GitHub's contract with ICE emerged, its employees weren't the only ones outraged. Because of the transitive nature of open source, volunteer developers-who host code on the site to share with others-may have unwittingly contributed to the code GitHub furnished for ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration policy. Some were troubled by the idea that their code might in some way be used to help agents detain and deport undocumented migrants. But their outrage-and the backlash to it-reveals existential questions about the very nature of open source."