GitLab commits to working with all companies, regardless of politics or values

The phenomenon of attempting to limit the use of software and tech services only to what is perceived as ethical is a relatively - emerging in the United States over the last couple of years.

In the past, during the Obama administration, the US military was using Linux for control systems in drones that it deployed to carry out extrajudicial targeted killings abroad. But this was not seen as controversial, certainly not to the degree that it would give rise to any kind of employee activism among, for example, people working for Google or Microsoft - considering that these two giants are among the Linux Foundation's platinum sponsors.

However, with a new administration, opinions have changed, and recently there have been vociferous protests that quickly attract a great deal of media attention. The protesters seek to prevent the use of technology for purposes that employees oppose on political grounds. Thus at Google, protests covered anything from a search engine developed for the Chinese market to contributing to The Pentagon's AI efforts, while Amazon's employees protested against allowing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to continue to use its cloud services.

Microsoft itself, and Microsoft-owned GitHub are also facing similar employee activism aimed at affecting the business direction that these companies are taking.

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