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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

#111

Post by shadowgovt »

vetinari wrote: post #45
shadowgovt wrote: post #19

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?

Having to set up a new account, complete with a new username and password, is by itself sufficient to drive away a staggering amount of adoption / conversions according to several UX studies.

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

#112

Post by marcinzm »

kujaomega wrote: post #102

Seems that Github has automated some repository banning actions. 3 days ago, the author of a repo got removed his account without reason and hours later got his account reactivated ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22593595 ), after posting to hackernews. As we see, the Aurelia repository were also removed, and hours later reactivated. What caught my attention is that the banned user is from Russia and that Aure…

>Is this a sign of Github country discrimination?

It's a sign that Github strictly follows US sanctions which currently impact Crimea and Iran. They literally say in the messages for these closures that it's due to sanctions.

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

#113

Post by natfriedman »

Hi HN, I'm the CEO of GitHub. Flagging this account was obviously a terrible mistake, and I apologize to anyone who was affected by it. We're investigating why it occurred and will make changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. I am glad that we restored access to the account in less than an hour after Aurelia filed their appeal.

For context on why any account flagging is ever necessary, unfortunately, every company in the world is required to comply with US sanctions if they do any business at all in the United States, e.g. serving US-based customers. This includes even interacting with US banking infrastructure. So being headquartered somewhere else doesn't help; you have to comply. And US sanctions as written do not allow us to provide commercial services or services which could be used commercially to sanctioned countries.

We are taking the broadest possible interpretation of US sanctions law to allow as much access to GitHub as possible and we are, as far as I know, the only major vendor to offer public repo access in US-sanctioned countries like Iran, Syria, and Cuba. I'm proud that we are taking this strong position to ensure developers everywhere can participate in open source.

I wish we could also offer access to private repos and still comply with government requirements. We have been advocating and will continue to advocate for broader developer access with the various government agencies involved.

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

#114

Post by mcintyre1994 »

webo wrote: post #106
cfv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merge requests have been a gitlab feature since forever though. Like issues, and webhooks

Code search, access permissions, code owners, 3rd party integrations?

Yes to all (obviously 3rd party integrations vary, in practice depends which you need), but I guess the actual point is that all these extras are implemented by each service individually and aren't guaranteed to be compatible.

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

#115

Post by hyperpape »

driverdan wrote: post #88
mullingitover wrote: post #78

Isn't this a first amendment violation? Are we not on board with the notion that code is speech, and that the constitution applies to everyone, not just US citizens? With those things in mind, I don't understand how the Iranian peoples' free speech rights can be infringed just because their speech is in the form of code.

That's not how the First Amendment works. It applies to the government, not private businesses.

I think that's not right, because the reason the company is doing the censoring is to comply with sanctions imposed by the government. If the US says you can't host content praising Iran, and GitHub takes it down to comply, that's a 1st Amendment violation.

However, code seems to be in a strange place, neither clearly speech nor clearly not-speech.

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

#117

Post by malberto »

coffeemug wrote: post #104
jobigoud wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country A has zero legitimacy doing this if they have the exact same weapons of mass destruction. Their only argument would be that they are more responsible. It reminds me of parents punishing their kid for smoking while they are smokers themselves. No credibilty.

To pick an extreme example, do you seriously believe the US has less legitimacy in this respect than North Korea?

YES! NK never bombed my country. Please grow up and realize that you can not claim anything as long as your country act as a terrorist

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

#119

Post by jaybeeayyy »

coffeemug wrote: post #104
jobigoud wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country A has zero legitimacy doing this if they have the exact same weapons of mass destruction. Their only argument would be that they are more responsible. It reminds me of parents punishing their kid for smoking while they are smokers themselves. No credibilty.

To pick an extreme example, do you seriously believe the US has less legitimacy in this respect than North Korea?

Yes, absolutely. The US is responsible for far more bloodshed than North Korea. How many coups were backed by the US government, how many nukes we have, our never ending war machine...list goes on and on. I don't think North Korea is anything more than a totalitarian dictatorship but I 100% would never believe what western media backed by US imperialist propaganda is telling me about them.

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

#120

Post by tw04 »

vetinari wrote: post #101
tw04 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does not work that way. How do you think Iran and North Korea are connected to Internet in the first place? It literally works that way. North Korea is connected through China Unicom, and China doesn't recognize the North Korean sanctions. Iran's internet access isn't part of the current sanctions. >OFAC or the State Department may also impose so-called “secondary sanctions” on non-US companies, even with no US nex…

> China doesn't recognize the North Korean sanctions. And this is the key. In order to the hypothetical NTT situation to be affected by US sanctions, Japan would have to recognize them. It would be up to the Japanese parliament to adopt them. US cannot force NTT unilaterally to kick out someone, NTT in Japan must be in line with Japanese law. Most countries in the world do not adopt US sanctions as their own. The san…

>In order to the hypothetical NTT situation to be affected by US sanctions, Japan would have to recognize them. It would be up to the Japanese parliament to adopt them. US cannot force NTT unilaterally to kick out someone, NTT in Japan must be in line with Japanese law.

You can say that until you're blue in the face but it's not accurate. Let me know when NTT has a line running into Cuba and we can talk about how they only have to abide by Japanese sanctions and Japanese law.

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