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GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

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Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#22
post #2

This is pure speculation, but it seems that GitHub's ownership by Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are comfortable hosting. Expect this to continue as they expand up and down the stack; once their npm acquisition closes you'll see this there too. I think this should be a wake-up call to anyone staking their open source project on GitHub — if I let someone from…

I'm not sure why you'd lay the blame at Microsoft's feet. You could self-host and your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world. If they did this by accident, and you've got some proof the decisions was made by someone that's actually FROM Microsoft and not a legacy Github employee, by all means present it. Otherwise you're just gas-lighting.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#23
post #2

This is pure speculation, but it seems that GitHub's ownership by Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are comfortable hosting. Expect this to continue as they expand up and down the stack; once their npm acquisition closes you'll see this there too. I think this should be a wake-up call to anyone staking their open source project on GitHub — if I let someone from…

Yes, these trade sanctions will definitely cause these issues--if they operate a business or do any dealings with businesses in countries which are embargo'd they will lose their ability to sell their product internationally, since Microsoft also fulfills defense contracts it probably makes these obligations even stronger, though I am not a lawyer.

I think at this point Fossil is looking really really good.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#24

What frustrates me about these kind of things is how impersonal they are. How many orgs/users does GitHub sanction a day? Too many for it to be able to email the users and ask clarifying questions? Or even have a human dig in and double check what the algorithm says. Basic human interaction would seemingly solve 99% of false account lockouts and takedowns. Even basic heuristics like this org has a repo with 11,000 st…

In a world in which online presence is an essential attribute of... commerce, professionalism, etc., deplatforming cannot be allowed to be so trivial to effect and difficult (in many cases impossible) to challenge. At some point human rights have got to include sufficient due process to deal with accidental or unjust deplatforming.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#25
post #2

This is pure speculation, but it seems that GitHub's ownership by Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are comfortable hosting. Expect this to continue as they expand up and down the stack; once their npm acquisition closes you'll see this there too. I think this should be a wake-up call to anyone staking their open source project on GitHub — if I let someone from…

This seems peculiar since Rob Eisenberg (author of that tweet and lead of Aurelia) works for Microsoft .

Makes sense if you think of them as separate companies (which is how they are run)

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#26

What a debacle. If GitHub believes this is necessary to comply with sanctions, they should provide a "rather than shut me down, please block contributions that GitHub would consider sanctioned” switch.

Can’t speak for others, but I for one wouldn’t want this switch, and would be offended by it. I would defend people’s rights to contribute to open source regardless of their nationalities by taking my project elsewhere.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#29
post #26

What a debacle. If GitHub believes this is necessary to comply with sanctions, they should provide a "rather than shut me down, please block contributions that GitHub would consider sanctioned” switch.

Can’t speak for others, but I for one wouldn’t want this switch, and would be offended by it. I would defend people’s rights to contribute to open source regardless of their nationalities by taking my project elsewhere.

Then you'd probably still want this switch, but expect to be notified of the block. Then you could move in an orderly fashion.
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