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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

#42
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world No, they would not. These are US sanctions, not most parts of the world sanctions. You could have problems with companies in the jurisdiction of US, but most parts of the world are not it.

If that's not an idealists view of how the world works. So you think if you're in Japan that NTT is going to risk losing ALL of their US contracts for a random home user that's violating US sanctions? Good luck with that.

Just because you aren't in US jurisdictions doesn't mean your ISP doesn't make a LOT of money off the US market. Not to mention the mass exodus of customers if they were banned from all US based content:

All Microsoft properties

All facebook properties

All Google and Amazon properties

etc. etc. etc.

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

#44
Sanctions for online services are one of the worst things about working in this industry. Being forced to implement and maintain technical solutions to block access to every day citizens of certain regions because some guys in suits decided these are second tier humans is demoralizing as hell.

How are people supposed to rise up and depose or vote for less tyranical governments if they cannot access information, or use services that'll boost their businesses in the global market? Having had to implement things like this myself in the past, I just feel like puking when I do it.

And don't think about just ignoring these, as soon as you get bigger than tiny, your bank will threaten to freeze all your accounts and stop doing business with you if for some reason you let some Crimean or Iranian get onto your service and pay you for it.

What exactly is the plan? Are we expecting that individuals who disagree with their regimes would leave their country and their families? It just feels like cold blooded retribution with no care for the regular every day population.

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

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any old git repo as your main source, and "dump" every commit into github for visibility. Any issues and pull request into the github site are replied by an automatic answer to use some other site.

... which diminishes the likelihood volunteers will join your project, because now they have to go learn another site.

Is it really a thing, to have to learn another site?

If you know the basic functionality of Github, do you really have to learn to use similar functionality of Gitlab, Gitea, etc? Is it not enough to be familiar with the concepts?

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

#46
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…

Nobody should depend on GitHub, especially after it was taken over by Microsoft. If you have any repository on GH, create similar accounts on competing sites such as bitbucket. Also consider services hosted in other countries, since it seems that local political prejudices and propaganda are starting to creep out on the science and technology arena.

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

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitLab is fantastic, but GitHub has the most eyeballs and best discoverability features. As long as that remains true, GitHub will remain a better place to launch an open source product than alternatives.

> GitHub has the most eyeballs You're being downvoted for a true statement. There is a lot of GitLab zealousness at HN. Please don't downvote simply because you disagree over product favoritism and outlook. Offer a refutation.

Comments like this break the site guidelines. Would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

One reason we ask users not to go on about downvotes is that users frequently come along and add corrective upvotes, but comments like this don't garbage-collect themselves. They start as off-topic and end by being off-topic and false.

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

#48
Let's take a moment and appreciate the copy and paste support response "If a user or organization believes that they have been flagged in error, then that user or organization owner has the opportunity to appeal the flag by providing verification information to GitHub. Please see our FAQ for the appeals request form." https://twitter.com/GitHubHelp/status/1240682163193942018

Is that an official GH account? It's old and the answers look legitimate but that one is certainly a really off-putting reaction.

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

#49
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world No, they would not. These are US sanctions, not most parts of the world sanctions. You could have problems with companies in the jurisdiction of US, but most parts of the world are not it.

If that's not an idealists view of how the world works. So you think if you're in Japan that NTT is going to risk losing ALL of their US contracts for a random home user that's violating US sanctions? Good luck with that. Just because you aren't in US jurisdictions doesn't mean your ISP doesn't make a LOT of money off the US market. Not to mention the mass exodus of customers if they were banned from all US based con…

Great job at summarizing the problem with centralization.

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

#50
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world No, they would not. These are US sanctions, not most parts of the world sanctions. You could have problems with companies in the jurisdiction of US, but most parts of the world are not it.

If that's not an idealists view of how the world works. So you think if you're in Japan that NTT is going to risk losing ALL of their US contracts for a random home user that's violating US sanctions? Good luck with that. Just because you aren't in US jurisdictions doesn't mean your ISP doesn't make a LOT of money off the US market. Not to mention the mass exodus of customers if they were banned from all US based con…

Does not work that way. How do you think Iran and North Korea are connected to Internet in the first place?

For NTT and US, such a situation would be a PR disaster. It would be very difficult for them to explain to the public, why they are applying foreign laws to Japanese citizens.

Even US knows that, and they would never push for such draconian thing.

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