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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

#51
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…

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.

Note that Gitlab hosts on Google Cloud, which blocks all traffic from sanctioned countries on a network level. No IP packages from US sanctioned countries reach any service hosted on Google Cloud, including OpenSource gitlab repos.

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

#53

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…

Justice isn't supposed to be carried out in darkness.

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

#54
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.

Better yet, self host. Post RSS feeds.

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

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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?

well, the UI is different, so you have to learn to use that... the concepts can be quite similar, but execution, isn't

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

#56
post #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.

>You could self-host and your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world.

I doubt there's any ISP that would ban you because someone who contributed to your project at some point used an IP from a sanctioned country. Hell, I doubt any ISP even would have the data to correlate together to figure that out. Github will and has.

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

#57
post #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 us…

>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.

That it will impact the country economically and hopefully result in the Government changing coarse or for the People of the country to not want to live in a shitty place with a poor economy.

I find sanctions vastly better than the alternative at that level, which would be some sort of blockade or other military intervention.

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

#58
post #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 us…

Apparently, the idea is that those "Crimean or Iranian" would get pissed off at their government and revolt. Which, as the practice shows, doesn't quite work taht way. They get pissed off at the sanctioning government as well, and are less likely to believe that that government actually worries about their interests and rights and not, say, as using them as a free battering ram against their current government/regime.

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

#59

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.

Where can I read about the guidelines that "contributions from certain people break trade sanctions". Am I reading that right?
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