Let's say you were a web developer hired to design some part of Apple's website, and by some miracle Apple let you open source your code. You, as a web developer, have no special way to contact or pass information on to Tim Cook, or any other top Apple executive. Would you appreciate sassy comments about Foxconn in your repository's pull requests?

Well, being that I would probably agree wholeheartedly with the sassy comment, I wouldn't mind someone using the release as a platform for their political expression. But that's me.

In this case the POINT of the software was supposed to be political expression, so it doesn't seem that out of place to me.

Seeing that I would be a web developer designing real products for the real world, yes, I would appreciate being exposed to the grander political and social context of my work, because nothing is created in a vacuum, and anything involving a group of people in public becomes political sooner than later anyway.

Considering how insulting it is that the README parades this project as evidence of how radically transparent the administration is, I think it ought to be highly appreciated.

Opening issue #2 was not a wise or helpful act. This initiative should be encouraged; presumably the government will be more enthusiastic about continuing the experiment if they do not receive the impression that the community of open source developers are childish and counter-productive.