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SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

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Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#21

Post by pmorici »

3GFalcon wrote: post #17
pmorici wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really because a software license agreement can't supersede the laws of the country in which it is executed. Also the license only stipulates that you make the source available to people you distribute the compiled binary to so if they block the whole site it's hard to argue they are breaking the letter of the agreement.

aha what about clinton's Internet freedom speech? US secretary of State Hillary Clinton few days urged Internet freedom! as she said: “We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas,” said Clinton in a major address that cited China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among countries that censored the Internet or harassed bloggers! Long live equal access dah!

Well, maybe that speech was the first step toward a proposal to change the law. That's hypocritical of Clinton to say that, I agree. That is besides the point though, here we are talking about the actions of SF as they relate to the law and the GPL, not the actions of the American government.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#22

Post by btilly »

ghjkmjn wrote: post #16
kierank wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can hardly take GPL source, modify it and refuse to distribute it to certain groups - wether this is your choice or a rule imposed by your country A particular country's law takes precedence over the GPL.

So if your country's laws says you can't full fill your obligations in the GPL then you can't use it?

What section of the GPL do these rules keep you from your obligations under?

Remember that the GPL does not require that you distribute to anyone. Instead it says that if you do distribute then you must provide source and cannot prevent the recipient's freedom to further redistribute. But regulations saying that you cannot personally distribute to person A don't prevent you from distributing to anyone else, so long as you follow the requirements of the copyright license.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#23

Post by btilly »

zppx wrote: post #12

I'm confused, can't the source be downloaded from a mirror in another country? I always use heanet.ie when downloading from SourceForge.

Why yes it can. Following laws leads to people doing silly things. A US based mirror is supposed to not distribute to certain countries. But it can distribute to a third country that can distribute anywhere it wants. So no transmission of data is actually stopped, but the US based mirror has successfully followed US law and caused some annoyance to a handful of countries the USA does not like.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#25

Post by jrockway »

This is probably just one of SourceForge's lawyer's overzealous misinterpretation of the law. (That's what lawyers are paid to do, of course.)

My question is, is SourceForge really "exporting" anything? Last time I checked how the Internet worked, SourceForge sent the packets to its ISP, and the ISP handled it from there. (Repeat until the packets are at their destination.)

(If the law says, "you must not transmit a packet addressed to a host in ", then I guess that makes sense. But I have a feeling there is no such wording.)

Anyway, people in those countries should definitely be using Tor. So this will just remind them of that.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#26

Post by i386 »

3GFalcon wrote: post #14
viraptor wrote: post #4

Isn't it ironic? They block the page to a specific group of people based on "5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups". They also potentially cut off the access for people who have their main project site at sf.net - which leaves everyone using the software without updates from a trusted/original source in case of security issues.

yes i know Open source projects form Syria hosted on SF! how bad this is.

I don't really understand how this got down modded.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#27

Post by ThinkWriteMute »

btilly wrote: post #23
zppx wrote: post #12

I'm confused, can't the source be downloaded from a mirror in another country? I always use heanet.ie when downloading from SourceForge.

Why yes it can. Following laws leads to people doing silly things. A US based mirror is supposed to not distribute to certain countries. But it can distribute to a third country that can distribute anywhere it wants. So no transmission of data is actually stopped, but the US based mirror has successfully followed US law and caused some annoyance to a handful of countries the USA does not like.

Handful of countries? More like a handful of people in a few countries.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#28

Post by knv »

ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #27
btilly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why yes it can. Following laws leads to people doing silly things. A US based mirror is supposed to not distribute to certain countries. But it can distribute to a third country that can distribute anywhere it wants. So no transmission of data is actually stopped, but the US based mirror has successfully followed US law and caused some annoyance to a handful of countries the USA does not like.

Handful of countries? More like a handful of people in a few countries.

What if those handful people had started/contributed to some open source project? Now they don't have access to their own code.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#29

Post by grandalf »

Scriptor wrote: post #15
grandalf wrote: post #9

This sounds like SourceForge trying very hard to be relevant. The policy makes no sense whatsoever.

It's to comply with US laws that state that nothing can be 'exported' to the aforementioned countries. In this case, software downloads are considered exports.

Those are bizarre laws.

Re: SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

#30

Post by ThinkWriteMute »

knv wrote: post #28
ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handful of countries? More like a handful of people in a few countries.

What if those handful people had started/contributed to some open source project? Now they don't have access to their own code.

My point was that the laws don't even hamper countries the law's implementor doesn't like. They just hamper a very few select people.
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