My personal morals find a difference between “we sell physical goods and anyone can buy them without restriction” and “we will build you a whole set of dedicated custom data centers with racist hiring policies”.
Also, Apple doesn’t sell OSes. One could buy secondhand Macs.
Linux is used by the military, too. The issue is not “not matching”, it is a question of providing financial support to those who deliberately assist in the undertaking of violence.
Selling (or giving away) your goods to all comers isn’t that. Custom services and consulting absolutely is.
There’s also that whole Apple tapping-iCloud-in-China-for-the-CCP thing. I don’t think I’ll be on iOS much longer, especially now that Signal is fully cross-platform and runs on iPad. I’ve already deprecated iMessage amongst everyone I talk to in anticipation of the switch. Hell, I’ve even been on broadcast radio talking about how iCloud will leak your private data.
I think it’s a mistake to view the attitude of Apple toward military contracting (not just sales) as the same as that of Microsoft or Amazon. If when Apple employs hundreds of people who are full-time embedded in the military to help them use their products, maybe that situation will change.
To your point, I have moved off of GitHub, and have encouraged others to do the same:
We can all take small steps to improve our choices each day. Over time and across people, these things add up.
The worst thing we could do is assume that every choice is the same and carries the same negative consequences and act uncritically. In that vein, I appreciate your pushback: critical thinking about our choices should be the one constant. There is always a place we can improve.
> MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter awarded $75 million on Friday to help a consortium of high-tech firms and researchers develop electronic systems packed with sensors flexible enough to be worn by soldiers or molded onto the skin of a plane.
> Carter said funding for the Obama administration’s newest manufacturing institute would go to the FlexTech Alliance, a consortium of 162 companies, universities and other groups, from Boeing (BA.N), Apple (AAPL.O) and Harvard, to Advantest Akron Polymer Systems and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
> The group will work to advance the development and manufacture of so-called flexible hybrid electronics, which can be embedded with sensors and stretched, twisted and bent to fit aircraft or other platform where they will be used.
A $75 million research grant into a consortium of 162 companies (of which Apple is a member) to develop flexible wearable tech is not remotely what I am talking about in this thread.
