Developers join call for GitHub to cancel its ICE contract - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-12-04/github-open-source-developers-ice-contract <comment><USER2> Whether you agree with it or not, it is /absolutely appropriate/ to pressure corporations to not do business with other companies or organizations or governments you find morally reprehensible.

If it was Boeing providing bombers to the PRC to use against civilian populations, many people inside and outside of Boeing would be pressuring that contract to be cancelled.

What exactly is the problem with applying pressure to get a corporation to stop taking money from an organization/corporation/government/person that you find immoral?

The company doesn't have to /care/. The company can go after their almighty dollars for their shareholder if they want. And people can then choose to target that company in different ways, or target other companies that do business with that company, etc.

Boycotts, strikes, sabotage, sit-ins, work slowdowns, etc has all been used to pressure companies to take actions because of political reasons.

<comment><USER3> Github isn't a bomber and ICE isn't the PRC.

This is more like CAT refusing to sell road construction equipment to the highway department in the PRC.

The only thing the cancelation of this contract will do is make those within GitHub who are dissatisfied feel better that they have "done something". It actually accomplishes very little, and I would argue nothing at all.

<comment><USER4> > It actually accomplishes very little, and I would argue nothing at all.

Yes, I am not from US so I have very little understanding of ICE other than a few policy problems on the surface.

Since it would achieve very little, but wouldn't it be better to actually have the contract and has all its profits funded to an organisation against ICE?

After all it is not that ICE in itself that is wrong, it is the policy maker or the government. ( Forgive me if this is not correct )

Funding a political side that abolish ICE, wouldn't that be better?

<comment><USER3> The people who are going to use this software likely had their jobs before this administration and will likely have them after.

ICE was less of an issue under the previous administration.

All this energy and effort would be better spent on getting the current admin out. It is how things work in our top down democracy. The problem is that the votes of most Bay Area companies are going toward people who already align with these goals.

TO that end the effort could be better spent on contributing TO organizations that will help advocate for the changes they want. That might be money or time or technical talent...

<comment><USER5> _All this energy and effort would be better spent on getting the current admin out._

For what it's worth, getting the Republicans out is almost certainly what this stunt is about. Maybe not consciously, but the groundwork of propaganda that led to villainization of ICE is certainly oriented around combating Trump and his policies, not actually disbanding ICE. Something like this is a way to help supporters feel engaged, passionate, and committed to the left's immigration policies (or at least attacking the right's), so that they will be more likely to vote and vote favorably in the next election.

Breaking up a contract like this won't directly accomplish any other realistic political goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure they'll also be disheartened to know that their OS and other softwares like SQL Server are being used by various militaries around the world to kill people. And terrorists. How many terrorists are in MS databases? How can they sleep at night by creating these nefarious tools?

How many other open source projects are used in ways the authors didn't intend? Lots of military hardware running mysql and the like. "MySQL Cluster is used by the US Navy to power the flight deck and operations management system on US Navy aircraft carriers.[1] I wonder how many men, women and children were killed by aircraft launched from those carriers powered by mysql.

"The Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) alone hosts 665 SQL Server databases and, of course, NCMI is just part of the DOD ecosystem. As a public affairs spokesperson for the Defense Information Systems Agency said, "[SQL Server] supports hundreds of applications, including email, content management, document management, enterprise search, business intelligence and workflow management.""[2]

[1] [https://www.mysql.com/industry/government/](https://www.mysql.com/industry/government/)

[2] [https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2016/03/army-and-navy- us...](https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2016/03/army-and-navy-use-sql- server-and-battlefield)

Grow up, kids. You can't control what others do with your tech. In fact, you helped to create this world. Your works are being used for evil. And "this" is the battle you choose to fight? You're SJW hypocrites.

<comment><USER7> You have a good point but you've ruined it at the end with "Grow up kids" and "SJW hypocrites". Would you please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules when posting here? They explicitly ask you not to do things like that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I find super interesting is that software development activism is not a new phenomenon (Eg. FOSS, letsencrypt, dragonfly) but that the activism has spread as the scope of technology has spread. Who you work for and where you work is itself a political act, which reminds me of being a "scab" (aiding anti-union efforts by accepting employment from a company who is trying to continue functioning during an ongoing labor strike, thereby weakening the union effort) which must've also been highly controversial at the time!

I don't really know what will come from this but I'm super interested in seeing what will happen.

<comment><USER5> It's not that the activism has spread, it's that the activism has become externally imposed on developers based on the politics of agitators, as opposed to internal industry politics and competition, and the tactics used have become much more hostile and aggressive.

Richard Stallman, for example, is extremely political. But any implied call for boycots and other sorts of direct action has always been with clear and specific reason that usually has to do with active moral violations by the company itself and not guilt by association. He clearly articulates what he considers to be moral violations on the part of companies such as Netflix and LinkedIn, and none of those violations involve merely doing business with an unpopular (among some) government agency. They almost entirely involve abuses of the provider/consumer relationship.

Meanwhile, he loudly advocates engaging in positive support of causes he cares about and rarely (if ever) advocates canceling an organization for mere association.

The change is not scope. The change is in how easy it has become to quickly organize a mob of people to lash out at a perceived enemy with the most convenient economic sanctions available.

<comment><USER8> _" It 's not that the activism has spread, it's that the activism has become externally imposed on developers based on the politics of agitators,"_

Are these developers external?

<comment><USER5> The politics are external. The US-Mexico border situation is a controversial, hot-button political issue that has nothing to do with software except insofar as software is a generic essential element of operations at any businesses and government agency

<comment><USER8> Are the politics external when it's coming from developers discussing things the industry is doing?

<comment><USER9> Lets say that the developers were calling for Github to stop any associations with hospitals providing abortions, would you still say that it is fine for companies to join in on politics? This is an extremely slippery slope, if you want your democracy to function then you don't want this kind of activism to exist.

It is warranted when the democracy is failing, but as far as I know USA is still holding fair elections at regular intervals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To anyone dissatisfied with the ethical lapses of GitHub and GitLab, check out sourcehut [1]. It's an independent Git/Mercurial host (plus builds, issue tracking and a bunch of other features) made by Drew DeVault (creator of sway). Their business model is "customers first, investors never" [2]

(I have no affiliation — I was just impressed by it when I moved a couple repos over after getting frustrated with GitHub and GitLab.)

[1] [https://sourcehut.org](https://sourcehut.org)

[2] [https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users- first/](https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users-first/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, some open source developers trying to flex on GH for not appealing to their woke politics that get amplified by their own media bubbles. This kind of behavior really is becoming incredibly tiresome. I look forward to GH not caring, and seeing these devs continue to use their platform despite the hollow threats of possibly pulling their repos, which they clearly won't go through the trouble of doing. Even if they follow through with it nothing of value is lost.

</comment><comment><USER12> The LA Times has a (pay)-wall that keeps me from illegally reading their content, so I don't know what this article says.

But I personally think that uncontrolled migration flows lead to horrific human trafficking problems. The rapes and murders that get committed along this flow because we don't control our border as well as we did 20 years ago are unconscionable.

Yes, the next generation will vote Democrat, due to America's birthright citizen situation. But is that really worth the cost?

Github should help ICE do the best job that it can.

<comment><USER13> If ICE simply did their job in a humane but effective fashion, I think conversation around the agency would be far different.

However, the agency has - in the course of their duties - committed horrible acts that fly in the face of what Americans claim to value. They continue to do so, and the "Dear Github" letter linked in the article outlines them: [https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0/](https://github.com/drop- ice/dear-github-2.0/)

The problem isn't simply that they're enforcing immigration law. It's _how_ they're doing it.

<comment><USER14> Re "horrible acts", this doesn't sound likely, considering the general lack of documentation or bipartisan outrage.

Do you have a preferred link with a stolid, well-documented account of the worst abuses?

<comment><USER15> This biggest one for me is this: [https://www.aclu.org/cases/damus-v- mcaleenan](https://www.aclu.org/cases/damus-v-mcaleenan) . ICE's position is that they should be able to detain all people who are legally petitioning for asylum without any bail hearings.

<comment><USER16> So if you don't detain them you do what then? Let them roam free? Considering the amount of fraud related to asylum claims, with entire legal entities dedicated to coaching aliens to provide fake testimony, letting them roam free is a definite risk for citizens. Especially as they are coming from one of the most violent warlord-controlled warzones in the hemisphere.

<comment><USER17> This whole problem could be precluded by doing a few simple steps:

1\. Build a wall to control flow.

2\. Allow _anyone_ to come to the border and seek asylum.

3\. Have enough humane beds/housing to store them _at the border_ while their application is processed.

4\. Hire enough officials and judges to process all claims timeously.

5\. Fingerprint, photograph and document anyone that applies.

6\. Turn away all individuals that re-apply _without new evidence_ and attempt to clog the system by creating too much load.

Oh and 7: If they come as a family, let them stay together under monitoring.

And corollary to 7 would be 8: Do DNA tests on all family groups to affirm family status to prevent trafficking

At this point, if no hiccups arise, the wall is only necessary for those that wish to bypass a well-functioning system designed to treat people humanely and allow them to get refuge if they are being persecuted.

Edit: fixed formatting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >> signed by 44 developers at the time of publication

This detail is in the article, but the headline feels like embellishment by omission.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have trouble understanding from this article what the problem is with ICE (I'm from outside the US). The developpers disagree with the whole purpose of ICE, because they trakc refugees, so they don't want github to have anything to do with them, is that correct?

<comment><USER10> "Track refugees" is an extremely charitable summary. I'd recommend reading the open letter [1] on GitHub and following some of the links. A short excerpt (with lots of links in the letter):

 _> ICE conducts random violent raids throughout the United States, invades communities and workplaces with military equipment, detains busses and trains, and arrests people solely on the basis of their perceived nationality, skin color, or native language. Their agents lurk outside of schools in order to abduct the children of immigrants and force their families to surrender themselves into custody. ICE imprisons people in deplorable and unsanitary conditions and denies them medical care._

[1] [https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0](https://github.com/drop- ice/dear-github-2.0)

<comment><USER20> I think you forgot to include the actual link to the GitHub repo: [https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0](https://github.com/drop- ice/dear-github-2.0)

<comment><USER10> Whoops, yes I did. Updated! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If the report is to be believed, why do these developers think so high and mighty about themselves?

If they are so concerned, team up, pool money and buy enough MS stocks (like an activist investor) and direct Microsoft's actions.

Until then, Microsoft and Satya Nadella must do what is best for their stock holders not to activists of any kind.

If any of the devs / employees are not happy with the direction MS is heading, leave the employer. If enough devs leave, MS may tweak it's approach.

<comment><USER22> Ah, the ancient and exhausted "if you don't like it then leave" argument has finally made its appearance. How could none of us have realized that the obvious solution to disagreeing with a policy in our organization / community / government is to just silently give up and leave? Obviously a peaceful letter of dissent would be completely outside the bounds of rational behavior!

And besides, if a concerned group REALLY wanted to change things and not just whine they would simply raise billions of dollars to accrue a significant block of voting shares in one of the world's largest corporations to change policy via board action!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > [GitHub] plays an increasingly indispensable role in projects that require > collaborating around code.

This is just not true and I warn everyone from believing this is the case. GitHub is based on git which can be hosted anywhere and by anyone. The features which GitHub provide above and beyond git can be replicated with some work (either by switching to Gitlab, which you can host yourself, or using one of the other alternatives like Gitea) if you want to.

Is GitHub useful? Yeah! Is it indispensable? No!

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't help but find this kind of thing horribly undemocratic, The tyranny of a loud few, Take your arguments to the people and contact your representative. This is just using the media to short circuit the democratic process and i think it hurts business and the economy.

We live in a system of laws and it has created a lot of certainty for actors within the system.

<comment><USER15> Calling for a boycott is undemocratic? It's a pretty standard form of protest, dating back centuries.

<comment><USER25> Interpreting the GP comment charitably: let's say every single GitHub employee opposed ICE (which isn't true, but just pretend) and decided to drop the contract. I have no idea how much this would impact ICE but in our hypothetical scenario let's say a lot. This means an incredibly small percentage of the total population gets to decide whether a legal govt agency functions correctly for the next few months or so, even if the entire rest of the country relies on and supported the agency.

I personally believe that GitHub can do whatever they feel is right because they're a private company, but if this were the case, isn't that pretty undemocratic?

<comment><USER13> Your hypothetical situation implies that software produced by GitHub is vital to the operating of this agency, and that there is no other way to do it. If you accept that, your argument looks somewhat compelling.

But I don't think that's a claim we should accept - frankly, there are _plenty_ of alternatives to GitHub. Moreover, there are plenty of alternatives to _git_ itself. They are viable and in-use today - git has not always existed and will not always be the tool of choice. And continuing further down the stack... people wrote software even before version control existed as we know it today. You do not need version control to write software (although, I'm sure we both agree it's a good idea).

Even if we accept that ICE _needs_ software to do its job - which I don't personally think is true, but neither of us can really claim to know - it's categorically untrue that they need _GitHub_ specifically. They have a myriad of ways they could accomplish their goals without GitHub.

But there's another element of your argument we should discuss, and it's one I've heard from CEOs recently - that it's somehow "undemocratic" for a company to deny software to the government, because it privileges the voices of a minority of people.

That argument makes very little sense to me. It first conflates "democracy" with a company declining to do business with the government. Democracy is a form of government - the actions of businesses are not and cannot be "undemocratic" \- they aren't the government.

Setting aside rhetorical annoyances, though - the claim you're making is that a company's actions are depriving the majority electorate of what they voted for, and that they voted for ICE in its current form. I don't think the majority of the country voted on it, and even if we assume they did indirectly via the presidential election ... it's not a contested fact that the current president _lost_ the popular vote. We can't even say a "majority" of people support this without contorting ourselves, or without redefining "majority" to mean "the majority of electoral college votes"... and we get into seriously absurd territory there.

Yet we can even dig deeper: if we accept that it's somehow "undemocratic" for a company to deny services to the government - we must also accept the counter-claim that all companies must provide services to the government upon request. They're two sides of the same coin - if you cannot refuse, then you must. That's a scary thing, in my mind - and I do not want to live in a country where a company cannot legally refuse to do business with the government. Current legal theory in the US doesn't support that, and I hope it doesn't change.

And finally - even if we accept all of the claims you make (the few explicit ones made, and the many implicit ones that must be made to support the explicit claims): why on earth couldn't the government write the software itself? The federal government employs hundreds of software developers. More than GitHub! If GitHub's software is required, and the agency cannot function without it, and there is no alternative available to the government in the market - what stops them from writing the software themselves?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 44 Developers. This does not represent the majority.

<comment><USER27> They certainly don't represent me. Governments need to function, and they need software to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I call for them to not do that. So Developer calls for GitHub to ignore the SJWs.

<comment><USER29> I join with you

<comment><USER30> Another 43 developers and that's more than the article says are calling to cancel

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Note that pretty much everything terrible (e.g. family separations, warrantless searches) is done by DHS and its other constituents like CBP, not ICE specifically.

</comment><comment><USER32> A nuance here to tease out is that there are alternatives to github with low barriers of entry, unlike data analytic capabilities like google or FB.

At worst, ICE can mail around zip archives as source control like the old days. It doesn't give them new capabilities like some signal processing service.

Basically, the devs here don't have a compelling case - quit and start their own scm hub and pick their own customers. If they can achieve a business as such, then props.

<comment><USER33> I feel like it may be the other way around?

If GitHub was the exclusive provider of some important service - like a utility - I would feel strongly that they should continue to offer the service despite political differences (even if not strictly classified as a utility).

On the other hand, since there are plenty of alternatives, there's no huge & lasting damage that could result from Github choosing not to have a particular customer - and as such they should have more freedom to deny any particular customer. As such, I think it's should be fine, ethically speaking, to discontinue a professional relationship with ICE should Github management decide that continuing a relationship with ICE is counter to their values or something, in which case the devs do have a case they can try to make (that ICE is counter to their values).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How can I join the call for GitHub to _not_ cancel its ICE contract? I'm happy that GitHub works with our government

</comment><comment><USER35> What a silly hill to die on. What's wrong with Github doing work for ICE?

</comment><comment><USER36> Is bullshit if Microsoft accepts this, but there`s always alternatives to github. So, in the end nothing of value is gonna be lost.

<comment><USER37> ICE deserves to use the shittiest possible software, not the best.

<comment><USER27> Even if I agreed with you, wouldn't that mean that the immigrants would be treated even worse than you claim they're being treated now?

<comment><USER37> They separated thousands of families with zero plan for tracking them.

Tell me how it could be worse because of _software_.

<comment><USER38>
       if rejectApplication = true { …

in C — and yes, the single equals is deliberate.

<comment><USER39> You're missing a set of parentheses.

<comment><USER38> Ooops. Too much swift.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Github provides software lifecycle management services. It is apolitical. I do not believe we should be trying to police the providers of apolitical software.

<comment><USER8> GitHub gave discounted rates to ICE. That's not an apolitical move.

<comment><USER41> What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates? Do companies over X emplopyees get a discount? Do Government agencies get a discount by default?

I don't think it is fair to make a judgement that this is a politically charged action rather than just business as usual.

<comment><USER8> _" What criteria does GitHub use to decide who gets discounted rates?"_

The decision to continue to service specific entities is a political move, same as selling weapons to Saudi Arabia or Iran, or the stance the NBA has taken with China regarding its pro-HK player. It's why finance institutions have some amount of checking that they're not being used to help wire funds to terrorist groups.

<comment><USER41> In my opinion, an American company selling to an American government agency is wildly different than an American company selling to a foreign government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Because being anti-ICE is the current "woke" Silicon Valley hive mind stance to have.

<comment><USER43> Seeing that you use "woke" as a slur, I take it you are pro-ICE?

<comment><USER42> Yes. Immigration enforcement is a legitimate government function.

<comment><USER44> But imprisoning people for extended periods of time in unsanitary conditions, without a fair trial[1] and entrapping legally-resident students into violating their visa conditions by setting up a fake university[2] is not a legitimate nor ethical method of immigration enforcement. Being against ICE and their actions is not the same as being against the concept of immigration enforcement.

[1]: The tribunal hearings are effectively a kangaroo court -- there are cases of pre-teen children being asked to make a legal defense without an attorney or their parents.

[2]: [https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/ic...](https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/27/ice- arrested-250-foreign-students-fake-university-metro-detroit/4277686002/)

<comment><USER45> Entrapment is usually a horrible thing to do, but it is unfortunately standard practice with local police as well as the FBI. Would you agree that those agencies should not have technical services provided to them?

<comment><USER46> If they are operating illegally (as entrapment is illegal), then the answer is obviously yes!

<comment><USER45> Entrapment as defined by the law is illegal. However, what a lot of these agencies do is not strictly entrapment as defined by the law, and as such is very legal (unfortunately). I'm betting the majority of terrorism cases in the US since 9/11 involved what looks like entrapment, and I believe pretty much all of them have held up in court.

So my question remains. When all of these agencies are practising _legal_ entrapment, would you agree never to provide services to them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Notable signers:

David Heinemeier Hansson, @dhh (Ruby on Rails)

Tatiana Mac, @TatianaMac (Self-Defined Dictionary)

</comment><comment><USER42> RMS has the answer: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0)."

</comment><comment><USER48> If ICE goes off and deploys their own on-prem GitLab, or goes to sourcehut or something, what moral difference does it make?

<comment><USER49> It makes some small difference in ICE's reputation, maybe a dent in public opinion.

If ICE are treated as a pariah by mainstream commercial institutions it may counteract the "normalization" of what they do.

Github is large and pretty well known. Their choice, either way, will set an example.

<comment> _-david-_ It would put more of a dent in Github's reputation.

Why would you go with a company that may pull your contract when you haven't changed what you do in 20 years? Github signed the contact knowing what ICE does and didn't care years ago. Now its suddenly an issue.

<comment><USER49> ICE has changed what it does in the last 20 years as others have pointed out.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21706133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21706133)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21704192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21704192)

I doubt anyone really thinks ICE in 2003 is actually the same as ICE in 2019. Not anyone who's paying any attention.

<comment> _-david-_ I was not talking about specific cases / abuses. I was talking about policy.

ICE patrolled the border. ICE stopped people illegally crossing the border. ICE jailed people suspected of crossing the border. ICE separated children. Nothing has changed in that regards.

The other issue is that the posts don't say if things are actually getting better. For example the first claim is "The Intercept published a report by the DHS Office of Inspector General revealing that 1,224 sexual abuse complaints while in immigration custody were filed between January 2010 and June 2017." We need to see the rates before 2010 or we need to see the rate for each year. Based on what that person posted we cannot draw any conclusions if things are actually improving or not. If things are improving then people shouldn't really be boycotting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> What is the actual complaint they have about ICE?

Is it the immigration policy, the immigration court system? individual agents/employees?

Doesn't every country have a counterpart to ICE that handles immigration rules?

Are there any countries that allow people to come and go without identifying themselves and having permission?

How is requiring identification and a visa (authorization) human rights abuse? If that's the standard for human rights abuse, then how can we own/lease/operate a car, have a bank account, rent an apartment, have an email account, access the internet, and so on?

Isn't identification and permission justified merely for the sake of bureaucracy? How else would you be able to keep an email inbox and go back to it without someone saying its you, and/or the mail being lost?

Maybe immigration policies could be improved, what specifically is it that could be done better?

<comment><USER51> The letter is here if you'd like to read it: [https://github.com/drop- ice/dear-github-2.0](https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0)</comment></comment>


Dante's Exile - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/dantes-exile <comment><USER2> Another story of exile worth reading is that of Rousseau's, as detailed by Sebald in "A Place in the Country." It's interesting to think about what modern western democracy would be like if Exile were still a valid political action. In some sense, not being able to post your views on Twitter/Facebook/MainstreamSite is the closest equivalent, and yet of course it's not the same thing. Are Snowden and Assange the only modern exiles from Western countries? Rousseau was thrown out for challenging the legitimacy of the church; Dante was thrown out for opposing the Pope; those who can exile, and those who can be exiled, reveal a lot about who is in Power and that by which they cannot abide.

</comment><comment><USER3> > You don't have permission to access /roundtable/dantes-exile on this server.

Google cache at [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TQr2mf...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TQr2mf8kjLsJ:https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/dantes- exile+&cd=3)</comment>


Does Advertising Ruin Everything? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/tim-wu/504623/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> It does in a sense because anyone operating a website with advertisers will now have to cater to the opinions of the advertiser, or they will lose their ability to operate.

On the other hand, I don't think that very many people would want to pay to visit every one of their favorite websites.</comment>


A denied grant proposal - how can I get the grant this year? - <AUTHOR> http://doublepaw.org/proposal/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was a sort of naive grant proposal I put together last year for a local grant program. I'd like to take what I've learned since then and rewrite/resubmit it this Spring, but hey - what do you all think?

Love to hear criticism, here or (anonymous) commentform on the site (until the spammers come, it's pretty homebrew).

Help me help my home in Michigan!</comment>


Ask HN: Can't find a designer. What am I doing wrong? - <AUTHOR>

Hey Guys,
I am stumped and need your help.
So I've been trying to find a good designer to 1) help me design a personal homepage & blog theme and 2) help us with various design projects at our startup.
Whenever I see a site/blog/app I really like I scroll to the bottom and the person/company who did the design is often listed there. I then follow the link, checkout the person's portfolio and send them a personal email. I've emailed about 60 designers so far and 100% of them are either a) busy or b) don't reply to the email.
I've also tried crowdsourcing (e.g., 99Design) and freelance (e.g., oDesk) sites but it seems to me like I am most likely to find average, cookie-cutter folks. Just my impression, let me know if you've had a different experience with these sites.
What am I doing wrong? What do I suggest I do to find a good designer? I am really not looking for anything too complicated, especially for my personal homepage & blog.
Thanks a lot! <comment><USER2> Cheap, talented, or available -- pick any two!

That said, do you really need a personalized design done for your homepage or blog? Those are probably fairly low commercial priorities -- just grab an off- the-rack Wordpress theme, OSS template, or what have you, and call it a day. (Pro-tip: a clean template with neutral colors plus a custom logo -- or even one of the off-the-rack logos -- can make any website look like it cost $10k for less than the price of your favorite gadget... often, substantially less.)

I have also had amazing work done by folks who I learned about on HN. I guarantee you, if you put a dollar value on your desires, you'll wake up with a full inbox tomorrow.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll pick talented and available.

For the personal homepage, I really like what Rafa did at <http://rafaelcorrales.com/>

You are right, I don't need much. Just someone to help me clean up a Tumblr/Posterous theme and integrate my different online presences plus Disqus.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think is a fair dollar value I should put to these things above?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> First off - good for you for realizing that a decent design goes a long way in promoting your brand/product..

Check out <http://sortfolio.com> by 37Signals. Good designers are hard to find and even harder to contract. Good designers that are somewhat affordable are probably the hardest to get work from. It's just the nature of the industry. There's a lot more demand than supply.

Keep trying and don't give up. You will eventually find a good designer willing to work with you.

EDIT: Please make sure to have a concept ready for them - a quick mockup in Fireworks or Photoshop. Otherwise you will have a hard time finding anyone. Most designers take your mockups and make them look good. They do not start from scratch with a blank canvas unless you expect to pay _a lot_

<comment><AUTHOR> I've contacted about 10 people off Sortflio. Of course the ones I like are probably the same ones that most other people like and therefore they are super busy.

Good idea on the mockup though, I should do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're being too specific about the task you need the designer for. Designers and those who seek them, must have this thing called a "vision" that allows you to see the value of your potential designers and they will get to understand you better.

But no one really does that sort of thinking when they think of "design". So, the concrete solution: Go on twitter and ask designers to read a description of who you are, what you do, what you like etc. And offer some cash for those that design a cool site that's coherent with the description you put for yourself.

Of course there's no magic trick that works for everyone so TIAS!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a pretty cool idea. However, I don't have any designers following me on Twitter so how would the right people hear about this?

<comment><USER4> Send them replies after getting in touch with them. But when you do, however that may be, make sure that your language isn't too specific (Design is very friendly with the absence of boundaries).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good designers probably have more interesting projects than working on your personal homepage and blog. They may be interested in your new startup, but bundling these together probably turns them off. Pick one or the other to focus on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'll probably get better responses just mentioning the startup work.

Still, where do I find someone for my homepage and blog?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 60 designers sounds like a lot to me. What are you saying in your emails? What's your budget? Are you asking us to work for free or 2% of some unquantifiable number?

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't worry, I am not being rude :)

Of course I don't expect anyone to work for free. I am willing to pay the fair price.

<comment><USER6> It didn't sound like it from your post, but that's a lot of rejection. Feel free to check me out at joshuarichey.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shoot me an email, email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I did! Let me know what you think.</comment></comment>


'Stop-and-Frisk' Is All but Gone from New York - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-is-all-but-gone-from-new-york.html

<comment><USER2> Of course, right next to this on the NYT homepage is another article entitled "'Stop-and-Frisk Ebbs, but Still Hangs Over Brooklyn Lives": [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/nyregion/friskings-ebb- but...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/nyregion/friskings-ebb-but-still- hang-over-brooklyn-lives.html)

        As part of a new strategy called Omnipresence,
        the officers now stand on street corners like
        sentries, only rarely confronting young men
        and patting them down for weapons.

<comment><USER3> > As part of a new strategy called Omnipresence

This reads like a cheesy dystopian sci-fi novel.

<comment><USER4> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)

"a mill for grinding rogues honest"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Advocates say misdemeanor marijuana charges, which require that the drug is > in plain sight, are a bellwether, because the police ordered thousands to > empty pockets, and arrested them.

Stop-and-frisk in NYC is very closely linked to marijuana laws. To give some context on the ridiculousness of marijuana laws in New York:

Marijuana has been decriminalized in New York since the 1970s. It was originally included as part of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, guaranteeing lengthy mandatory minimum sentences, but after a bunch of kids were getting caught with dime bags, the _PTAs_ [0] lobbied to issue an exception for possession of less than 25 grams[1].

Unfortunately, they included a loophole: if the marijuana is either burning or "in plain sight", it receives the same penalty as if it were over 25 grams, regardless of the amount. So, police can simply tell people to empty their pockets, and - presto! - the marijuana is 'open to public view'.

This loophole is so widely exploited that, despite the fact that marijuana is decriminalized in New York, New York City arrests more people for non-violent, low-level marijuana possession and more people _per capita_ for non-violent, low-level marijuana possession than any other city _in the entire world_ [2].

[0] I kid you not!

[1] Not a full ounce, just 25 grams: [http://norml.org/laws/item/new-york- penalties-2](http://norml.org/laws/item/new-york-penalties-2)

[2] [https://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/02/2010-nyc- marijuana-a...](https://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/02/2010-nyc-marijuana- arrest-numbers-released-50383-new-yorkers-arrested-possessing-small-)

</comment><comment><USER6> It will be interesting to see the effects on crime rates, if any. The policy has been controversial, so it will be important to see if it was getting actual results, or whether it was raising controversy for no reason.

<comment><USER7> Reducing crime is no excuse for violating people's rights. Eviciserating the Constitution will always make the police's job easier. If they could take a DNA sample from every resident, it would simplify crime-solving. If they could search every house in a neighborhood without a warrant, hold every suspect in a crime . . . Police states are certainly efficient that way.

Humans have to balance safety of different kinds to create a livable society. Safety from fellow citizens versus safety from those we empower to provide that safety.

<comment><USER8> But be careful, because these techniques are also useful to incriminate innocent people, dissidents and to find a scapegoat when you can't find the real criminal.

I'll tempted to go full hyperbolic and claim that these techniques are more useful to increase the incarceration of innocent people than to find the real criminals, but I'd like to know if someone has measure it and has actual evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's nice, but why is such a blatantly unconstitutional program merely "all but" gone? Why aren't people in jail for creating or implementing this policy?

I mean, I know the reason: there's a heinous double standard in this country for law enforcement. If I break the law, I go to jail for a long time. If they break the law, often nothing happens, even if it results in _me_ going to jail for a long time unjustifiably.

<comment><USER10> Presumably these numbers are _all_ police stops, at least some of which would be legal and valid. It's the fact that fully 90% of their stops previously were harassing people for being too dark-skinned in public that blows me away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are these stop and frisks allowed during a citizens arrest?

</comment><comment><USER12> Still 33,699 too many

</comment><comment><USER13> I had flagged this (I'm thrilled that S&F is on the way out in NYC, but can't imagine how bad the thread would have gotten).

But then I got a nagging feeling after skimming the article and realized that this is another Mike Bostock piece --- Bostock being the genius behind D3 --- and flagging Bostock's dataviz journalism can't be a good call. So: unflagged!

<comment><USER14> Hey, thanks for letting us know you've got some sort of god complex on HN.

<comment><USER13> What an uncharitable interpretation of my comment!

Stories like this get flagged off the front page all the time. I'm happy to see this one hasn't, because it is formally interesting (even if the subject isn't germane to HN).

<comment><USER15> It is uncharitable and I generally find your 'I flagged this' comments useful, despite being at odds with the holy guidelines.

But ignore the meaniepants bit - the commenter has a point - "I flagged, then I unflagged it [etc]" is unintentional drama-generating fluff. You could have just said "The title makes it sound like a purely political story but it's really a Mike Bostock thing and worth a read"

<comment><USER13> Sure. It reads funny because it was (very briefly) a standard "I flagged this" comment that I went back and edited.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zuckerberg to Donate $100 Million to Newark Schools - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703860104575508472745513134.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories

<comment><USER2> I think this is terrific news and I'm really pleased to see Mark Z. setting up a foundation and investing a significant amount of money in such a worthy cause as education. Having said that... am I being too cynical... or is it just a coincidence that this announcement should come just before the release of The Social Effect movie which, from everything I've read, paints Mark in such a bad light? Is the $100 donation announcement an example of Facebook PR in damage control? It doesn't detract from the good the $100 million will (hopefully) do, of course, but the timing is interesting...

<comment><USER3> tl;dr _Just In time for the movie!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Newark spends about $22,000 a year on each of its 40,000 pupils, but only about half of its students graduate._

That's over $260,000 per student over 12 years!

It's great that Zuckerberg is donating about $100 million to the worthy cause of education, but in this instance I find it hard to believe that lack of money is the problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be very cool if even a tenth of this was put towards online education systems. $10M could go a long way towards improving online education, esp. with Facebook as a partner!

</comment><comment><USER6> That's $100 million in Facebook damage control, I'd say.

</comment><comment><USER7> For maximum effectiveness, he should probably have donated it to the Gates Foundation and earmarked it for education.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why does he remind me of Beeker in that photo?</comment>


OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/os-x-is-now-macos-and-gets-support-for-siri-auto-unlock-and-more/ <comment><USER2> It seems like more and more of the work on MacOS is dedicated to propping up iOS instead of simply making a great desktop OS. As someone who does not use or want Apple's mobile devices, it's been hard to get excited about these last few releases.

<comment><USER3> I like Apple's mobile devices but ever since the iPad turned out to be a giant iPhone instead of a true desktop/mobile hybrid, I'm scared as hell that they will lock down their desktop/laptop ecosystem the way they do with mobile. It's clear now that iOS is absorbing everything Mac.

Now I'm trapped between MacOS, Windows 10 and maybe Google's Chrome environment. Linux, please take off. I wished the open source community had good interface/usability designers.

<comment><USER4> Designer here. I and a lot of my colleagues love open source and what it stands for, but, the truth is, it is going to be very difficult to convert designers into hardcore open source advocates like coders/engineers can be when the tools we rely on every day are all closed source. Adobe creative suite, Rhino, proprietary render engines, and a bunch of other platforms designers use simply don't have open source alternatives competitive with market leaders, making conversion to open source very difficult for working professionals.

The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working for FOSS projects as result

<comment><USER5> > The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have > the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working > for FOSS projects as result

Then put a call out for what tools you need replaced. Maybe even back GNU to hire people to do it. As a free software developer, I have no clue what you need in order to do good design work. From my perspective, inkscape works "good enough for me". But I'm not a designer.

Free software communities require some give as well as take. The fact that there isn't a free software version of $tool is because nobody has given enough of an incentive to replace it (we're too busy replacing other proprietary tools or making our own tools better).

<comment><USER6> This sounds like a good encapsulation of the reason why Desktop Linux has died - it is good enough for engineering types who get satisfaction and value out of using it, but who have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside of the programming community.

<comment><USER5> That's not really a fair statement. Desktop GNU/Linux works for people who don't have incredibly specific requirements (like "Inkscape isn't enough, I have this $5000 software suite that nobody has replaced with free software yet").

LibreOffice + {Gnome,KDE} + {Chrome,Firefox} is enough for quite a few users "outside of the programming community". My girlfriend uses GNU/Linux (she has to use Windows now because my university requires some proprietary CAD software that I don't want to set up with WINE), several of my non-technical friends now use GNU/Linux.

It's dishonest to claim that just because some professional designers aren't happy with the tools we have available right now on GNU/Linux that "Desktop Linux has died because programmers have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside that community".

I would downvote you if I could.

<comment><USER7> Yeah i think the problem for Linux on the desktop is not software but hardware.

More specifically the issue of getting preinstalled Linux out on store shelves right next to Windows and OSX.

In large part because there is no marketing machine to match Apple available, nor the deep pockets to get into a war of attrition with Microsoft.

The closest we came was when Asus shipped their original EEEPC. And Microsoft wasted no time offering a specialized license for Windows XP so that OEMs could offer it instead. Keep in mind that MS had stopped offering XP, and was trying to sell Vista at the time.

On top of that most stores have gotten damn used to the Apple MS duopoly. Thus anything thats not an Apple is a MS, with all the customer support problems that entails...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm disappointed. After them announcing the subscription pricing changes, paid search results, etc. in a press conference because "we can't fit all into the keynote" I expected more. Instead we got 20 minutes of adults playing with emojis.

Not what I would expect from a developer conference keynote.

/edit: Thanks for the hint to watch the State of the Union video.

<comment><USER9> Wait for the Platforms State of the Union video, it will be probably available in few hours on Apple's developers website [1]. It's basically another keynote, but more developer oriented.

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/)

Edit: mayoff beat me to it :)

<comment><USER10> [https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/102/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/102/)

Not available yet, but when it is, it will be at this link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Copy/paste across iPhone and Mac is very useful. All the other features are Meh. I really don't want to be that guy talking to my Mac at work. I can't be sure that all my questions to Siri are not awkward to speak out. Would have been great to have a textual interface though. You know that Keyboard thingy that is always with a Mac?!

<comment><USER12> > _Copy /paste across iPhone and Mac is very useful._

I don't use a Mac or an iPhone, but I applaud this sort of device harmony.

That said, I am worried that it would unnecessarily leverage the cloud. My guess is that instead of the two devices directly communicating with one another—that is, instead of leveraging the fact that they are probably on the same local network and should just work in concert—the clipboard data will be sent via a cloud intermediary. That is, it will be exfiltrated from the local network, sent through Apple, and then back into the local network.

If I am wrong about that, I am happy to hear it.

<comment><USER13> This enables an interesting new kind of attack.

1\. Attach an attack device to someone's account.

2\. 'Poll' the clipboard by pasting every ~5 seconds.

3\. If the contents of the clipboard appear to be 'secure' (looks like shellcode, bitcoin address, url, etc), quickly replace the contents with an attack string with same datatype.

If you have an untrusted device attached to your Apple account, your local clipboard can no longer be trusted.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, WHATWG is currently considering [1] a related scenario where rogue websites with access to the clipboard will inject formats with dodgy payload to exploit flaws in some app if the user pastes.

[1] [https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1244](https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1244)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought I had at least 20 years before being scared of new technology. Still sitting on OS X 10.10 scared to update, and completely disinterested in most cloud stuff except for my OneDrive folder.

Time to look into Linux, I suppose, since I'm about to become one of _those_ people.

<comment><USER16> Out of curiosity, what scared you away from 10.11?

<comment><USER17> That Apple doesn't do quality anymore? For Mac OS, system bugs are increasing release after release, kernel panics were introduced in Mavericks and didn't go away with El Capitan even though it was supposed to be a bugfix-centric release. I also have deactivated upgrades.

<comment><USER18> If you are scared of updates breaking stuff, Linux is not the best choice either.

Updates to OS regularly breaks graphics and Wi-Fi drivers for me; after every second update I have to solve "why is everything black" and "why are all videos green".

Of all the things I disliked on OS X when I moved to Linux, instability with updates is even worse here.

<comment><USER19> This depends a _lot_ on which distribution you go with.

Gentoo is notorious for regularly breaking things. Debian has a reputation for constantly being two years out of date because because of their QA process.

Ubuntu is somewhere in between, though lately it has been leaning towards the "Let's change everything every six months!" end of the spectrum. You can mitigate this a bit by sticking to their LTS releases, though. (This is what I'm doing currently.)

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I am at ubuntu, since that seemed like the easiest distro to get started, but now I am afraid of switching and setting up all the graphic drivers again. (and working around bugs in Network Manager again. Come on guys, it's software with which people connect to Internet, why is so important thing so buggy.)

<comment><USER20> Just stick with Ubuntu LTS releases.

I barely see the difference with newer releases anyway, most of the innovation I care is on the web or in high-level applications that run on LTS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will they update the unix layer? A lot of the CLI tools there are positively prehistoric.

Maybe while they're at it they can add a real package manager too.

<comment><USER22> [https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew- dupes](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-dupes) is your friend.

<comment><USER23> Is there a way to replace all of them in one move?

<comment><USER24> Yes you can do. use "brew install coreutils"

<comment><USER25> This is not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Am I the only one who was really disappointed when the were talking about 'getting back disk space' and by the meant 'move stuff to the cloud' and not 'LZ4 in HFS+'? (I've given up on ZFS on OS X by default.)

Edit: Oh, wow! Apple File System! (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896785) for discussion)

<comment><USER27> HFS+ already supports file compression, and all system files already are. You can use it yourself depending on how much you trust it.

[https://github.com/diimdeep/afsctool](https://github.com/diimdeep/afsctool)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > if you use multiple macOS machines, Apple will now sync your desktops > between them, too

Oh No. Please no.

If I had to come up with a list of 5 things Apple is really bad at, sync would be one of them.

I've basically stopped syncing my phone and desktop because of all the duplicated calendar entries syncing creates.

It's something I have absolutely zero trust in them to do properly.

<comment><USER29> It was under the impression that it's not one desktop being synced across all your computers, but rather your desktop on other machines are accessible anywhere. Akin to iCloud tabs, or Chrome tab syncing.

Basically you open Finder on your MacBook and there's a new sidebar entry: "Desktop on imron's iMac"

<comment><USER28> Remote Desktop with the ability to copy/paste text and files would be useful. Sync would be dreadful.

<comment><USER30> You can already sort of do this. But it is done with drag-n-drop. Pick a file on your Desktop and drop it into a Screen Sharing window! Drag a file from a Screen Sharing session onto your desktop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This will finally alleviate the awkward pronunciation ambiguity. To this day, I'm not sure whether to say "OS ex" or "OS ten".

<comment><USER32> If you use the say command in the Terminal you get the definitive answer.

<comment><USER33> Spoiler alert for anybody without access to a mac right now: $ say "OS X" pronounces it as "OS Ten".

<comment><USER34> Mine says "os ex". (10.11.5)

<comment><USER35> There has to be a space between the OS and X for it to work for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The good news is that I might not have to listen to people call it "Mac OS Ex" anymore.

I'm hoping there's a bunch of new APIs hiding in there allowing ISVs to do cool stuff. Because the new version, meh, don't care about Siri much and the rest of the stuff is window dressing, IMO. Maybe some improvements for Xcode, testing tools?

<comment><USER37> I have never in RL heard anyone call it "OS ten"

<comment><USER38> Just curious what age range you are in. From what I've personally noticed, younger folks tend to almost all pronounce it "O-S-ecks" and most in my generation (~40) tend to pronounce it "O-S-ten".

<comment><USER39> 24 year old here. I exclusively call it "O-S-ten" and cringe every time someone says "O-S-ecks". Only particular reason I can think of is that we had OS 9 machines in grade school that slowly got replaced by OS X machines. Seemed natural I guess.

Plus, "O-S-ecks" gets too close to "O-S-sex". I was a kid...

<comment><USER38> Yeah, 9->10 seemed natural, and I remember articles when it was first released along the lines of "OS X (pronounced O-S-Ten)". I used to cringe when I heard "ecks", but it's become so common it doesn't have an effect anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> > Also new is what Apple calls the universal clipboard. This gives users > access to a single clipboard that works across iOS and macOS

I hope this only works when the 2 devices are on the same wifi network or have bluetooth enabled, rather than by sending every single thing I copy to an Apple server...

<comment><USER41> Complete and utter speculation, but if this is implemented well I imagine it is done the same as iMessages, with end to end encryption to all your devices. (Which, last I read about it, has its flaws and isn't a perfect system against state level actors, but it's not the worst.)

<comment><USER42> Handoff is direct between devices, and this is apparently an extension of Handoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Will this make the OS suck less? Seriously, at least for my use case, and in my opinion, OS X has been on a downward trend for a while (since 10.6). They need to fix the bugs, and get back to a nice stable OS that "just works." That's all I'm interested in.

<comment><USER44> Apple really needs to improve OpenGL support at least. Bump version to 4.4. They should also fix any OpenGL bugs in a timely manner.

Windows file sharing (at least with Windows 10 Pro) is pretty broken as well. Transferring multiple large files (especially 2 GB+) from OS X to a win10 file share seems to fail every time.

<comment> Ono-Sendai out of interest, what are the OpenGL bugs?

<comment><USER45> Just one example => [https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf- committers/2015-May/0...](https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf- committers/2015-May/045367.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I was really hoping for a Macbook pro with a more up-to-date CPU. Or an upgrade of the non-pro iPad. Really disappointed.

<comment><USER47> WWDC is about software. Hardware updates mostly happen later in the year.

<comment><USER38> Actually, a number of hardware announcements and unveilings have happened at WWDC over the years. A couple of iPhones unveiled, a few Macbook Pros (including last year, I believe, as well as 2012 with the first retina MBP), and a few others.

<comment><USER48> Maybe WWDC will have less hardware given Apple have so much software now, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I foresee a lot of trouble as a MBP user with no other Apple products (MBP=work machine). Interoperability with Android phones is already sucky and they seem to bundle their product line even more.

Siri for MBP will be annoying, hope it can be disabled completely...which of course won't stop my co-workers from using it all day :(

It also sounds like there will be a few new attack vectors. The log in when close by sounds like a pretty horrible idea and I have a feeling the copy/paste feature will turn out to cause some issues as well.

<comment><USER50> What is sucky with Android phones and OS X? You want Universal Clipboard use something like Pushbullet or alternatives [http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/26495/univer...](http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/26495/universal- copy-paste-like-in-pushbullet) you want cloud sync use the existing cloudservices or use Syncthing which lets you sync even without a cloud. You can get nearly all features today also with Android ( even unlocking the Mac with Android Wear [https://www.gadgetish.com/index.html](https://www.gadgetish.com/index.html) ). Of course you will not get them from Apple ;)

<comment><USER51> There are many of of OSX-iOS only apps that I would buy have it been available in Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> As an owner of still-functioning early-2008 hardware, it stings a little to see the machine suddenly unable to "support" such a minor-looking OS update. It was easier to handle back when you saw something like a complete transformation of the OS from one version to another. There are many reasons to want a more layered software architecture, and this is one of them: I would like to be able to continue improving the core of old machines without necessarily having to support whatever else they feel like building on top.

On the other hand, Apple has always done this: it blasts forward, and it always finds ways to make you just a little dissatisfied with what you have. They're sort of brilliant at it, actually.

<comment><USER42> Your complaint is that an eight year old computer should run a just announced os.

Most people would be fucking ecstatic that their 8 year old computer still works and runs a current OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I hope all the cloud storage can be turned off. Depending on your job (e.g. confidential data) or how much you pay for bandwidth, these are some really bad features.

<comment><USER54> It's not like iOS where everything is locked down. You are root and can do anything you want on your machine. It should be pretty trivial to prevent the cloud storage stuff from running.

<comment><USER55> > You are root and can do anything you want on your machine.

That was never my experience on an Apple device. Now my Linux boxes yes, but Apple and Windows no way. Especially with the Mac App Store and the user Interface being so locked down by Apple. Many things are hidden by Apple.

<comment><USER54> The only thing I have found that couldn't be done on an OS X device was run a custom kernel without breaking power management. Do you have any other examples of things that you can't do?

<comment><USER56> Can you modify system files and resign them so you can keep SIP working?

<comment><USER54> Probably, if you boot the kernel with boot flags that tell it to accept any signature. I haven't tested this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The "Optimized storage" made me laugh.

How about making physical storage devices exchangeable again?

<comment><USER58> But that conflicts with the "Optimize revenue" directive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Still no mention of Vulkan support on macOS or iOS. The dream of one 3D API to rule them all remains a dream :(

<comment><USER60> Sony and Nintendo also don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Auto unlock would be a lot more interesting to me if I hadn't already been using Windows Hello on the Surface Book.

I'm honestly more comfortable with that than proximity locking; I can foresee situations like stepping into a coworkers' office next to mine or to the restroom across the hall where I don't want the device to autounlock without me sitting directly in front of it.

<comment><USER62> MacID is a much safer (and seemingly more powerful, from what I could tell from the keynote) implementation of this idea. I've been using it for a long time and it's really solid.

[https://macid.co/](https://macid.co/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've been using Apple operating systems for most of my computing, since the Apple IIe. I started using OS X in 2001. Every since the release of 10.7, I have just been disappointed with their releases. Now that they are releasing major updates on a yearly press-release driven schedule, their quality has suffered. And their drive towards making the desktop more like iOS seems to cater more to non-technical consumers than developers. I have been happily exploring Linux the past year, mostly in VMs trying out different distros. I kinda doubt I will upgrade to macOS.

<comment><USER64> What version of Mac OS was ever meant for more technical consumers though? Apple's DNA has always been consumer product focused in everything they build.

<comment><USER65> Obviously they were never exclusively marketed towards technical users, but Apple was definitely targeting the UNIX workstation and multimedia workstation markets in the early 2000s.

See [http://www.brainmapping.org/MarkCohen/UNIXad.pdf](http://www.brainmapping.org/MarkCohen/UNIXad.pdf)

<comment><USER64> That's an ad for the PowerBook G4 marketed to power users of the platform.

See [http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/performance/](http://www.apple.com/mac- pro/performance/) for comparison of the difference in marketing.

Also see [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/black_...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/black_macbook.jpg) when the black macbook was launched.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Will they likely be moving to major version increments for each named release? Since it's no longer "OS 10," will Sierra be macOS 11, and the named release after it macOS12, and so on?

<comment><USER67> MY prediction is that Sierra will be aka macOS 10.12.

Starting next year we will have iOS 11 and macOS 11. That way the numbers are unified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I hope there will be option to disable Siri. Don't want turned on mic 24/7.

<comment><USER69> On the iPhone, the always-on "Hey Siri" activation is actually local on the device. You can test this out by activating Airplane Mode and saying "Hey Siri". The interface comes up, then says that you can't use Siri because you're offline.

This means that Apple isn't listening to you 24/7, only when Siri is activated. Sure, sometimes it's activated accidentally and might overhear something you didn't want it to, but those times are pretty rare.

If Apple introduces a "Hey Siri" feature on the Mac (which it's unclear about given the fact that in the demo Craig activated Siri by clicking on the icon, then later by pressing a key on the keyboard), I expect it would operate in the same way.

Finally, I'm sure there's a software setting you can use to disable Siri if you really don't want it to be activated.

<comment><USER70> | _This means that Apple isn 't listening to you 24/7, only when Siri is activated. _

what?! your proof that Apple isn't listening 24/7 is not a proof at all. A device that is listening to you 24/7 to hear when you say "hey Siri" can tell you "you can't use it because you are not online" whenever it wants to, and I don't think anybody was suggesting that Apple servers were capable of listening in when you have no network.

Apple has been shown in the past to log information on the device itself, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> In the past year since El Capitan I have had essentially zero major issues with the software. I feel that most of the time programmers tend to overstate the bugginess of Apple software - most users I know have a consistently smooth experience.

<comment><USER72> How can they overstate bugginess? If you didn't hit a bug yet, you luckily don't know about it. If there's a bug, there's a bug.

<comment><USER71> Absolutely if there's a bug, there's a bug. By "overstate bugginess" I meant that some people speak as though the software is so buggy that it is difficult to use the computer (example: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11895916](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11895916)). I personally have had a very smooth and pain-free experience with OS X/macOS 99% of the time, and many people I know have a similarly smooth experience.

<comment><USER72> Oh, I see, thanks. Yes, also still use OS X, although I hit bugs from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Wow, we're back to MacOS but now it's spelled macOS. It's like moving back into your parent's house, and noticing that some of the furniture in your room looks smaller than you remember.

</comment><comment><USER74> Would be useful to be able to type to Siri in a public setting...

</comment><comment><USER75> So, will it be macOS 10.12 or just macOS 12? I don't think they mentioned this during the presentation.

<comment><USER76> I only heard them refer to it as "macOS Sierra".

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> This is all shockingly "meh."

<comment><USER78> Half the people here are complaining about too many new features and not enough stability, and the other half are complaining that there aren't enough new features. This is why Apple doesn't listen to consumers and instead just puts out whatever they want to.

<comment><USER79> No, I think they are complaining about too many features that just aren't good. A little different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Canonical was surely onto something, they just failed to deliver. Apple probably will however.

</comment><comment><USER81> Does the fact that they didn't talk about UXKit mean that it's not happening?

<comment><USER36> Could be in the dev sessions. Seems to be that the keynote hasn't been direct at devs in quite a few years. So the stuff _you_ , as a developer, care about won't be shown in the big show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Thankfully, I've been doing much of this mobile integration (like sharing clipboard) for a while via KDE and KDE-connect on GNU/Linux with Android/Linux!

Otherwise, the entire reason I use GNU/Linux at all was when Apple added the Mac App Store and made it clear that they would eventually turn the Mac into iOS effectively, complete with the walled-garden stuff, censorship, sabotaging of GPL software (which can't go in the App Stores) etc. So, thanks Apple for introducing me to software freedom! :P

<comment><USER83> Yeah, they made it so clear that four years after the App Store was introduced, I'm still perfectly able to install Non-App Store software. And brew <anything> is more up-to-date and bug-free than apt-get. The App Store doesn't support the GPL3, but then again, neither does the Linux kernel.

MIT license, by the way, is compatible with the store.

<comment><USER82> Yeah, of course permissive licenses are compatible with anything, they just fail to preserve freedoms, see, e.g., the Apple App Store.

And you're right. I mistyped. I didn't mean that Apple made the iOS direction of everything clear, I meant that they made it apparent at all with enough hints of its potential to be really worrying.

I already think that the non-App-store warning message requiring changing security settings (which looks really scary to generic end-users) serves to somewhat sabotage the non-App-store market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Funny thing, "macOS" (actually "мак ос" / "мак ось") was a slang name for OS X in Russian and Ukrainian languages all this time.

<comment><USER76> Weren't all pre OS-X versions also called Mac OS?

<comment><USER85> Between versions 7 and 10 it was officially MacOS [VERSION], before that it was referred to as system [VERSION], as in System 6 and so on. That was not an official name, it was the version number of the file `system` and was simply the system that ran on a Mac, because there was only one.

It got the official name MacOS when they allowed the selling of clones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Can I swipe someone's phone, walk over to their Mac, and have it unlock? Or is there something else going on that doesn't make this a really bad idea?

<comment><USER87> You mean like, the cops, FBI, or TSA take your iphone, put it close to your laptop, and then have access to everything, probably including your encrypted hard drive?

Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty bad idea.

<comment><USER86> That too.

I was referring to just your average person---be it a friend, spouse, coworker, or someone who just happens to be near you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> That last video was inspiring. We the Developers.

</comment><comment><USER89> What bums me out is the seemingly arbitrary dropping of support for older hardware.

I have an older MBP that I've upgraded with SSD and mem. It works great other than being bulky for my use case (email, surfing) It relies on a iGPU so there's really no reason for support to be dropped other than Apple wanting me to upgrade.

<comment><USER90> I believe the older models (and by older models, those that are 8(!) years and older) were deprecated as they didn't included a couple of the execution flags for processor assisted encryption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I waited for PiP or as Windows calls it make a Window always stay on top (like Win and Linux can do for decades) for so long and now I have to use Safari as it seems to get it working. I also doubt it will work with Flash or any live web sport streams :( What was/is so complicated to get an always on top window on OS X aka macOS?

</comment><comment><USER91> What's the state of running linux (e.g. Ubuntu or Debian) on recent (< 3 years old) Mac hardware?

Given what El Capitan has done to my otherwise fantastic macbook, I'm not so sure I want to keep up with their latest developments.

<comment><USER83> It's the state of Linux on the Desktop anywhere. Expect three hours of fiddling kernel parameters to get sleep to work as expected, followed by the same for Wifi, Sound, Graphics. To be repeated at least with every dist update.

Expect different applications to use different languages, some to have menu bars within the window, some on top. Sometimes strg+c copies something, sometimes highlighting text does it. Not all applications use the same clipboard. Font rendering is inconsistent. Some applications bring their own color-, font-, kb-layout-management.

Linux is excellent on the server. On the desktop it's ... not something for people complaining about OS X.

<comment><USER91> >It's the state of Linux on the Desktop anywhere.

I'm a bit surprised at your comment as my experience with linux on the desktop (or laptop) has been consistently good on such things as Dells and custom- built boxes. Granted, there are a few minor bugs here and there, but overall Ubuntu and Debian seem to "just work" on commodity hardware. Maybe I've been lucky?

Are you suggesting that all these problems are comorbid or that these are all possible problems one might experience (in an uncorrelated way) on Mac hardware?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Seriously, did Apple fire their OSX / macOS team? Pretty much all new features are spinoffs of their iOS infrastructure (Siri, handover, etc.) and the main OS development and innovation seems to have stalled. Not even a feature like telling software that you're on a metered connection and it shouldn't run backups!

Is there anyone at Apple still working on innovating / improving OS X? Like people that tried to bring in ZFS, improve the Unix layer, work on Vulkan/3D/VR or something like that? O.o

<comment><USER92> I would settle for fixing the bug where I have to restart Finder to rebuild the connection every time my NAS drive spins down.

Also the combination of screensharing to a headless MacMini and then AirPlaying to an Apple TV produces some fairly loathsome results.

<comment><USER28> How about the bug where you need to force quit coreaudiod to restore sound to the speakers after resuming from sleep?

<comment><USER93> How about the computer randomly going back to sleep 2 min after opening. Happens on 3x MacBooks. Force restart.

<comment><USER94> Me too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> If anything you'd think Apple would or should change iOS to a new name (macMobile? or mOS?) considering Cisco had IOS first.

</comment><comment><USER96> I wonder why macOS, and not Mac OS? Do you have a mac or a Mac? Majority of posters here capitalize. Why glue an abbreviation to a product name?

<comment><USER41> To match iOS, tvOS and watchOS.

<comment><USER97> Also, I usually read "Mac OS" as Mac OS 9 and earlier. Ancient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> My guess is they want to jump to v11 so they need a new name, since OS X doesn't fit anymore.

</comment><comment><USER99> Where the hell is _my_ new Macbook Pro?

edit: :)

<comment><USER100> Compiling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Instead of pointless name changes, they should start supporting latest OpenGL and Vulkan.

</comment><comment><USER102> Every time I see a new version of OS X released, I'm tired just thinking about all the dev incoming to support the new issues / crashes / incompatibilities / XCode things to download again and other so called "features" support...

</comment><comment> more-entropy And... where is new MBP?!

</comment><comment><USER103> Siri integration... getting closer. Another 30 years and we'll have the intelligent assistant.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0)

</comment><comment><USER45> Was hoping for a newer filesystem in this release.

<comment><USER104> Appears there is one: [https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/701](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/701)

<comment><USER45> Excellent news! at a developer conference I would expect this to be the headline announcement.

<comment><USER105> Yeah but emojis apparently are more important

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> \- You can unlock your mac using you apple watch. \- You can confirm payments using your apple watch.

A thief having your mac and watch can do/buy everything? Is it just me thinging about it?

<comment><USER107> I think this is fair but I also struggle to think of a situation where my Mac and my Apple Watch get stolen and I'm not aware of it in time to lock my accounts.

<comment><USER106> maybe you're aware, but not able to do something. Backpack with Macbook, Watch and Phone stolen. What would you do?

<comment><USER108> Macbook sure, phone maybe, but why would your watch be in your backpack?

Also, the watch automatically enters a locked state when its off your wrist.

<comment><USER109> Because the robber said "your Apple gadgets or your life!", and carried them away in the bag.

Or, perhaps because you put in in the bag to go through airport security, and the bag was handed to someone else.

<comment><USER110> Your watch would be locked, being off your wrist.

Your phone is locked because its got TouchID enabled and a passcode.

Your laptop is locked as well. Getting in here requires you unlock something first, even if you have everything. The stronger security devices provide authentication to the weaker ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Scary they didn't talk about Xcode at all

<comment><USER111> That will happen in the Dev SOTU later in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> Safari-tab? What do they mean?

<comment><USER113> The article doesn't contain the term 'Safari-tab'. It does have 'Safari-like tabs' in it, by which I would imagine they mean tabs, like you get in the Safari user interface.

<comment><USER114> what happens if the app already have tabs inside? Like sublime for example

<comment><USER115> They meant all apps made by Apple, not random apps, as far as I could tell.

<comment><USER114> I could be wrong but I think he said all apps without any developer changes..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> It was always MacOSX for me.

</comment><comment><USER117> So the new version isn't called 10.12 at all? Is there no version number at all?

</comment><comment><USER118> wow. what a great innovation. rename the damn thing and auto unlock. i hoped for new stuff. even a /bin/bash upgrade would be nice. I mean:

        GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin15)
        Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

but, no. all we get every year are either 3d icons, or flat icons, round corners, new name...

<comment><USER119> homebrew is your friend. They are not going to upgrade anything that has gone to GPL3.

<comment><USER120> Any reason why they can't fork it and port all the new stuff? I'd imagine for legal reasons they will have to hire devs who haven't looked at the GNU source code.

<comment><USER121> Why fork? In 2016 __Microsoft __will be shipping a __Windows __extension that will allow running GPLv3 bash. Heck, if Microsoft is not afraid of the legal consequences, surely Apple shouldn 't be, either?

<comment><USER122> > In 2016 Microsoft will be shipping a Windows extension that will allow > running GPLv3 bash. Heck, if Microsoft is not afraid of the legal > consequences, surely Apple shouldn't be, either?

Microsoft will not be shipping GPLv3 code. Microsoft will be shipping WSL, you get the actual code from Canonical under Ubuntu's license when you enable the WSL and try to use one of the command-line tools.

And guess what? You can do the exact same thing on your OSX machine _right now_ , by installing Homebrew or Macports or Nix or even _downloading and compiling the fucking tarballs_. Apple has been "shipping an OSX extension that allows running GPLv3 bash" for a bit more than 15 years now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> Looks like the best way to be downvoted on HN is to be critical of either Facebook or Apple - and to a lesser extent MS. That's the only way I ever managed to get downvoted.

<comment><USER124> You were downvoted for being _wrong._ And now you're being downvoted again because you're whining about it, instead of just admitting that you were wrong.

I see about as many people complaining that HN irrationally loves Apple as that it irrationally hates Apple. Neither one is true. Mostly HN downvotes people who don't check their facts.

<comment><USER123> I never said that you have to attend physically. See my comment below.

"Whining about it". Please avoid personal attacks.

<comment><USER125> Little bit over sensitive, aren't we?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER126> So the Mac is listening all the time. How can I physically disable the microphone?

<comment><USER127> Looks like you have to press a button for it to start listening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> I want to know one thing:

DID APPLE FINALLY MAKE WEB PUSH AVAILABLE IN iOS THE WAY THEY HAVE IN MacOS?

</comment><comment><USER129> In OS X, the X is the tenth version of Mac OS. So this new version is now "Mac OS 10: macOS."

Unless they bump the version number, that is. Then it would be "Mac OS 11: macOS."

<comment><USER54> 'X' could potentially also stand for Xnu or uniX.</comment></comment>


Should Google and Facebook employees pay taxes on all that free food? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/09/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch-in-taxland.html

<comment><USER2> This sounds downright silly. No, they should not pay taxes on something free they are being provided by a private company. Should restaurant owners pay for the free food they have? No.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I was at Microsoft I had to pay taxes on the free gym membership they gave us. It was normally a very expensive gym, so the taxes were quite high.</comment>


Ask YC: Places for Freelancers to rent - <AUTHOR>

I'm a freelancer, and I don't think that this has been done, but it would be great if there were a place to rent a cushy chair and a desk and a 30" moniotor and a T1 by the hour at a reasonable rate.  Maybe a nice lounge and coffee shop.  Hipster place. Bonus points if it's in Central ohio, or Denver CO. Riiight. <comment><USER2> <http://coworking.pbwiki.com/></comment>