We'll never delete data, we will make the repositories private. You will have to move your public project elsewhere. For significant projects we're open to making it public when you've replaced the repo with one announcing the new location.
That XKCD is one of the worst strawman arguments I've ever seen.
Freedom of Speech is not a law, and it's certainly not just a law found in one single document that applies to the United States. Here's what the United Nation's Universal Deceleration of Human Rights says:
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Not one word there refers to governments.
The true purpose of freedom of speech is to protect people from the consequences of their speech, because those consequences serve to silence unpopular ideas. Remember that historically unpopular ideas have included freedom of religion, African American civil rights, alternative sexualities, and even heliocentricism.
It depends on how you interpret the XKCD comic. It often gets used to argue "institutions have the moral right to block people if they have unpopular opinions", which goes against the spirit of free speech (even if it's not illegal). I don't know if that's it's original intent - it might just mean "You can't claim you have a constitutional right to swear at people on my forum".
A public forum (which GitLab isn't - it's a place for code more than politics) that doesn't allow civil discussion of on-topic ideas is arguably a bad thing.
From On Liberty, by JS Mill:
> If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
Of course, Mill assumed that most people are capable of rational thought, and would generally move towards a more correct view of the world when exposed to a marketplace of ideas. The internet doesn't always work like that. However, the alternative to "free speech" is echo chambers, which is probably worse.
But I don't see why GitLab has any real responsibility to allow stuff that's not code (or is just joke code) - it's not a really a marketplace of ideas, it's a place to share code. And given GitLab has a FOSS version, yes, people can get their own server.
Unless either of us can find Randall explaining his intent somewhere (and even then; death of the author probably applies - how sytse used the comic is equally important) all we can do is go by it's working. The comic doesn't say "The First Amendment", it says "Freedom of Speech".
I won't say that the average netizen shouting freedom of speech is educated on the philosophy of liberty or has read JS Mill (I haven't, I need too). But when they say freedom of speech about forums. Freedom of Speech is still a human right, not a clause in the USA constitution. I still think it's a strawman to respond by pointing the limits of the First Amendment.
> Of course, Mill assumed that most people are capable of rational thought, and would generally move towards a more correct view of the world when exposed to a marketplace of ideas. The internet doesn't always work like that. However, the alternative to "free speech" is echo chambers, which is probably worse.
On Liberty was written in 1859. It's an indisputable fact that in all forms of social justice - sexual equality, racial equality, LGBT rights, and far far more - things have been improved enormously during the last 66 years. If Mills ideas have either influenced or reflected the political philosophies of the those 66 years then clearly he's onto something.
Even the internet doesn't change much, human nature is still human nature. Besides, to pick a date, the internet has only been influential since September 1993. Social justice has mostly gotten better since 1993 even if online discourse has gotten worse. It's premature to say we the world is too different to go by On Liberty.
After 66 years of liberty bringing progress we should only attempt to replace liberal ideas with the utmost care, thought and deliberation. And when I see people arguing to limit freedom of speech, I do not see that care and deliberation; if I did a comic saying that Freedom of Speech was merely a clause in one country's legal code would never have gotten popular.
> But I don't see why GitLab has any real responsibility to allow stuff that's not code (or is just joke code) - it's not a really a marketplace of ideas, it's a place to share code.
If they had a clearly written rule saying only code is aloud, or only code and documentation relating to code is aloud then that would be fine.
However once GitLab starts judging repositories based on the ideas they contain and deleting legal repositories they dislike then they have crossed the line.
Why would I ever consider trust gitlab with data vital to the future of my company without that certainty?