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GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

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Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#81
post #26

If Crimea was unwillingly annexed by Russia, then the sanction is punishing the victim instead of the criminal. If Crimea people genuinely supported the unification with Russia and received sanction for that, then it is a blatant attack on Crimean people's freedom.

pff, ridiculous comment. a region doesn't have the right to attach itself to another state. think about it. a bunch of russians move to somewhere near grand canion, do a referendum and then proclaim it russian territory.

Crimea is a special case: it used to be Russian but was reassigned to the Ukraine at the time when they both were part of the USSR. It wasn't a big deal until the USSR dissolved and suddenly Crimean residents turned out to be in a foreign country.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#82

I'm curious.. why is this very suddenly an issue? Haven't countries like Iran and Syria been under embargo for years? Have more restrictive laws around sanctions been passed in recent weeks?

MS with their lawyers caring about things that GitHub on its own didn't?

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#83

Crimea: Illegal occupation by Russia. Ethnic cleansing. Syria: Using chemical weapons, sponsoring terrorism Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, .... On the other hand, some people can't use an internet service. Oh! The inhumanity! Get a sense of proportion.

Sanctions punish the inhabitants rather than the regimes.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#84
There's a repository that has made many aware of such problem https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us

As an alternative for Iranian developers and any other who was affected by such problem, I've setup https://gitfoo.com/

It's a hosted version of gitea. I have enough resources and interest to maintain and keep it going.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#85
post #2

Same as Gitlab then[0]. US Sanctions should not affect internet services (so long as they are provided for free)[1], but political pressure appears to be very strong. Personally I find it quite abhorrent, and would cite this as a reason not to use US based companies in future. [0]: https://about.gitlab.com/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/ [1]: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...

> Personally I find it quite abhorrent, and would cite this as a reason not to use US based companies in future. Then I’d highly recommend that you try doing that. I consulted for a company once that tried this, and it was an absolute nightmare. Every single piece of technology they used was worse than second rate. Making comments on HN is really easy, backing them up with action, in this case, is not.

Any company that does business in the US, or with another company that does business in the US. Not just US based companies are subject to these restrictions (if they want to sell into the US)

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#86
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Behdad Esfahbod lives in Canada though, also most of his FOSS contribution (pango, fontconfig etc) are on the freedesktop.org and GNOME git repo servers, not GitHub.

I know this is just nitpicking, but US Sanctions apply to sanctioned state nationals; regardless of location.

No they don't! The sanction is against the country, not nationals. So if you are a developer from the U.S. with U.S. nationality and move to Cuba the sanctions would also apply to you.

Actually there is a very good wikipedia page "United States sanctions against Iran" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions_agains... about this, if you want more info.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#87

Crimea: Illegal occupation by Russia. Ethnic cleansing. Syria: Using chemical weapons, sponsoring terrorism Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, .... On the other hand, some people can't use an internet service. Oh! The inhumanity! Get a sense of proportion.

"Crimea: Illegal occupation by Russia. Ethnic cleansing"

You are misinformed, there is no ethnic cleansing in Crimea.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#88
post #52
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for a well-known project, they won't miss GitHub visibility benefits. They can host the git repository anywhere. Self-host an issue tracking system or find a non-US company that does that (and is not required to follow US sanctions due to trade agreements, that'll be hard). It's an annoyance, for sure.

The problem is that they'd require a payment method to rent the server somewhere else or to use a non-US company that doesn't offer a generous free plan. The most prominent payment providers (Visa, MasterCard, PayPal) are all US-based. > (and is not required to follow US sanctions due to trade agreements, that'll be hard). I really don't know much about sanctions against Syria and Crimea, but Iranian developers could…

Enter... crypto

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#89
post #2

Same as Gitlab then[0]. US Sanctions should not affect internet services (so long as they are provided for free)[1], but political pressure appears to be very strong. Personally I find it quite abhorrent, and would cite this as a reason not to use US based companies in future. [0]: https://about.gitlab.com/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/ [1]: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...

The amount of harassment that citizens of any state that the US claims to hate at any given time endure on a daily basis is disgusting. Exiled iranians living outside of Iran for 20 years have got their bank accounts closed solely for being Iranian. I can't help but think that these internet services will be going that way in the future. The fact that the "free software" community is not putting their foot down for t…

Ya know what was actually disgusting? The war in Iraq, or any other recent regime change the US executed. If economic warfare is the way it’s done now, then that’s great. Let the casualties be inconvenienced github users, rather than ya know, actual casualties...
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