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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand some of these responses:

1) GitHub doesn't owe us the details of the investigation - what difference does it make to anyone apart from creating more fodder for gossip? This is an internal company matter.

2) Regarding Tom's "threat" - This is pretty much the largest "resolution" that could've come out of this, right? Some of Horvath's allegations were true and a high-profile founder has resigned. The way I read it was: What more is there to do? I think that's what he means. "I've resigned, isn't that enough? If you want to keep pursuing it, what's left to seek? At that point it's personal and my wife and I will respond appropriately."

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Regarding #1:

While I agree that the majority of the investigation isn't relevant to those outside of the company, there is a major topic that hasn't been addressed: the assertion that a non-employee was continuously present in the office and had access to private info.

That's extremely relevant to customers, and makes one question GitHub's security/privacy practices.

> a non-employee was continuously present in the office and had access to private info.

It should be noted "private info" was simply github employee chat rooms (and history), not unfettered access to any customer info.

Specifically #2- not entirely. Apparently the engineer who sexually harassed her was recently promoted to Engineering lead.

Edit: I'm not stating an opinion in any direction here, just relaying information for discussion. In all honesty, this entire thing looks like one big cartoon dustcloud of a fight and taking any sides here would be bad judgment on my part.

I don't think that anyone is claiming that GitHub "owes" the community the details.

While this may have been an "internal company matter" initially, it did eventually become very public. There has already been a huge amount of speculation out in the open regarding whatever might have happened in this case, much of it quite negative.

So given all of this speculation and gossip, it's not at all surprising that there are people, including users and customers of GitHub, who just want some facts. And there's nothing unreasonable about them requesting such information, especially when it's paying customers doing the asking.

> ... especially when it's paying customers doing the asking. Bullshit. I'm a paying GitHub customer ($7/mo) and I'm not interested in the details. I think I'm more interested in the company recovering as quickly as possible to deliver more awesomeness. How does asking for unnecessary detail help that?

It's fine that you don't care about this information. But that in no way means that others hold the same view as you.

There are people and organizations paying significantly more each month than you are, and they're very likely using GitHub in a way that's far more critical to their operations than it may be for you.

For some customers or potential customers, the factual details regarding this case are more important than I think you realize. They need the facts to help decide if they want to keep using GitHub going forward, or if they even want to adopt it in the first place.

Without the facts, they have to sift through rampant speculation, trying to make educated guesses at what's plausible and how it may affect them, their source code, their obligations, and their continued operation as a business.

Part of the "recovery" involves getting factual information out there so that existing and new customers aren't faced with uncertainty. Somebody paying $7 per month might not care, but people and organizations paying $200 or more very well may.

> They need the facts to help decide if they want to keep using GitHub going forward, or if they even want to adopt it in the first place.

Bullshit again. How? This is not an OkCupid/Mozilla (against browser but not against programming language). It's needlessly poking your nose until it bleeds. For a customer paying $200/mo, how would knowing the fine print help their decision making? Assuming the details are appalling and sick,

Would you stop using jQuery because they wouldn't move from GitHub? Other open source projects on GitHub too? Would you switch services because the organization decided to stick with GitHub after all? If you would use services and projects on Github no matter what, what's the point in asking for these details?

Because jQuery, as a public project, is not supporting github financially.

For a company paying thousands of dollars to github, trusting them with potential trade secrets, they would care about the stability of github's employees, the way github treats different kinds of people [1], the ability of github's HR department to keep their employees happy, etc.

Them failing those criteria would mean that they are exposing me to risks with regard to HR, the security of my code, and now PR risks. At which point, why would I pay them?

[1] If my company, paying github, is half women, do I have to worry about the fact that half of my employees might be discriminated against if they talk to github? If a female executive of my company talks to them, will she be harassed?

Name the largest business you work with that has not had any internal legal disputes that were settled privately.

Since their establishment they've dealt with the situations similar to/exactly the same as what you're concerned about. That history is there for our benefits.

Granted, what happened with Horvath was admittedly a mistake.

Here's what we could do: We could hang on to that and question their integrity and everything that they've done right during their existence but that would be us being overzealous and giving more attention to the wrong thing.

They're dedicated to fixing this shit themselves, let's not make it harder by asking for more detail than what we already know. I can assure you that it's worthless data for making any decision about whether or not to use GitHub.

It isn't unreasonable that people are curious for more information, but whether or not they are paying customers is irrelevant. Just because you (in general) pay and I do not, does not grant you some right to have your questions answered or receive information. There's no obligation on the part of GitHub to provide any information at all, and like many other similar scenarios if the lack of supposed transparency bothers you, then you have the option to move to BitBucket.

1. Wouldn't additional details from GitHub help in reducing the gossip from a company that plenty of people depend on and pay for?

2. Fair assumption, although it seems like litigation is really the next step so it's not necessarily surprising that he's made that statement/threat. It makes sense, his rep has taken quite a hit and yet we still have no solid facts in the public - if people want to continue the he-said/she-said then let's at least do it in court.

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