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Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

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Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#161

Post by free_rms »

LegitShady wrote: post #137
navidr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is US. Last time I checked it was not possible for an outsider (third party candidate) to participate in US election. Forgot about outsider, look what they did to Bernie Sanders. Both 2016 and 2020. Should I explain more? Let alone third party candidates like Jill Stein. You have really bought the brand of bs the media is selling you don’t you?

Which religious council did Bernie have to be approved by? Or was it a political party? Your analogy is off base.

It's awfully suspicious how all of the other candidates except Warren dropped out and endorsed Biden overnight, right? Meanwhile, Warren, who was presumed to draw votes from Bernie, was all of a sudden awash in SuperPAC money despite her campaign having no chance.

Almost like someone made a few phone calls.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#162

Post by panpanna »

duxup wrote: post #18
rgbrenner wrote: post #10

All the people arguing semantics when the author lives in a repressive dictatorship that would literally torture you for a confession and then execute you for it.. if anyone EVER comes by this PR even a decade from now. Meanwhile, no one here would even think of violating US export controls against North Korea... when the consequences are likely just prison time. Armchair tough guys.

I don't see a lot of shade being thrown at the author, just a lot of confusion. Not armchair tough, just not fully understanding... yet, I think there's a difference.

Are you sure?

His comment has right now 109 thumbs down, zero thumbs up.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#163

Post by akira2501 »

wheels wrote: post #76
rgbrenner wrote: post #10

All the people arguing semantics when the author lives in a repressive dictatorship that would literally torture you for a confession and then execute you for it.. if anyone EVER comes by this PR even a decade from now. Meanwhile, no one here would even think of violating US export controls against North Korea... when the consequences are likely just prison time. Armchair tough guys.

Iran is repressive, and fraught with problems, but it's not a dictatorship. There's a reasonably intricate bureaucracy, much of which is semi-democratic: for example, the supreme leader's preferred presidential candidate doesn't always win. The current president, Rouhani, is a moderate, and is not especially liked by the hard-liners. It's pretty crazy that your comment comparing it to North Korea and insinuating that…

> It's pretty crazy that your comment comparing it to North Korea and insinuating that someone would be tortured and executed for merging a Github PR is top rated.

Crimes of treason are handled by the revolutionary court. That court is allowed to hand out death sentences. People are strangled publicly in Iran. It's hardly a stretch to compare them to North Korea.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#164

Post by qppo »

oferzelig wrote: post #124
yongjik wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, one more comment in the page reads very naive: > Let the problem be until it escalates to GitHub's (Microsoft) management to find a proper way to deal with this. If MS management gets wind of this, I fear the most likely outcome would be "Thanks for bringing this to our attention! By being an Iranian citizen, this account violated our TOS. This account is now permanently closed."

Yeah that was me (I had also created an earlier HN thread about it -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360801 ). I know it's written with a smile, but being serious for a second, it won't happen since sanctions on Iran only apply to the public sector, or perhaps companies, but certainly not individuals.

It's been awhile since I did work that required (super fun) export controls training sessions but I really don't think this is accurate. For certain the sanctions apply to all government and non-government entities in Iran with exemptions for a few categories. Technological goods and services are generally not exempted.

As for individuals, it's way too risky.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#166

Post by pydry »

jackpirate wrote: post #130
pydry wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought he's comparing the law in Iran with a similar law in the US (CAATSA I think?) directed at North Korea. I'd feel only marginally more safe violating the US's equivalent law. Breaking sanctions means prison and, at least according to Amnesty, US prisons engage in torture pretty routinely. So, I probably wouldn't merge a North Korean PR. Would you?

I happen to know that two popular machine learning libraries (MLPack and Vowpal Wabbit) have merged pull requests from North Korea. I know this because I was teaching a class on open source software development to North Korean students in 2015 (at PUST, a university in North Korea), and this was the final project for two student groups. The pull requests got merged fine, and the country of origin was never an issue.…

https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/north-korea-sancti...

I was going by this which states that "importing technology" is covered by sanctions.

If encryption can get classified as munitions export (which, pre 1992 it was) I could imagine a PR from NK can fairly easily be classified as "importing technology".

IANAL but if I was taking a risk averse approach like this Iranian dude then I'd err on the side of caution and not merge.

I certainly wouldn't want to try and establish case law that a PR is not importing technology, either, even if, say, the lack of a financial transaction meant it technically didn't count. It's playing with fire.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#167

Post by proto-n »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #142
proto-n wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In these cases often optics matter more than facts. Using something common that has some israelian authors? Probably fine. Personally accepting a contribution from someone with a very israelian sounding name? Possibly treason, I would want to take chances.

> In these cases often optics matter more than facts. Using something common that has some israelian authors? Probably fine. Personally accepting a contribution from someone with a very israelian sounding name? Possibly treason, I would want to take chances. What do you think is going to happen to that story relayed on hackernews and reddit? This developer by doing so has made himself a target of the Iranian governem…

I don't think he has anticipated this and I think he is probably panicking right now. I would be. Even though this got attention because he tried to comply, getting any government attention for any reason is not a good idea in such situatios.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#168

Post by reificator »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #156
reificator wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is using a language that was mainly developed by Israeli and has Israeli on its core team, this is a flimsy excuse not to merge a PR. Laravele itself probably already has Israeli contributors too. This argument makes no sense. If he is using PHP and Laravele he is allegedly already in danger by your logic, since using code and libraries authored by Israeli. This isn't a github or a git issue, at all. You've done…

> You've done it! You've found a logical hole in the policies of a government! Everyone is happy, the maintainer is no longer at risk of death if they approve this PR, and the world is saved once again. That developer made himself a target for retaliation the moment he started using github and commit code there. Spare me your sarcasms.

> That developer made himself a target for retaliation the moment he started using github and commit code there. Spare me your sarcasms.

And if you are toeing the line with what's acceptable, increasing your exposure by even a little could cross that line.

Spare me your lack of empathy.

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#169

Post by [deleted] »

rgbrenner wrote: post #127
wheels wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran is repressive, and fraught with problems, but it's not a dictatorship. There's a reasonably intricate bureaucracy, much of which is semi-democratic: for example, the supreme leader's preferred presidential candidate doesn't always win. The current president, Rouhani, is a moderate, and is not especially liked by the hard-liners. It's pretty crazy that your comment comparing it to North Korea and insinuating that…

The whole thing is a facade.. Like picking presidential candidates that have all been vetted to have acceptable viewpoints. "You can pick anyone that believes what I believe." Laws, but if someone in the government suspects you of a crime or just doesn't like you, they through you into an interrogation cell and torture you until they get what they want. There's no rule of law. And there's no democracy in Iran.

[deleted]

Re: Iranian law prohibits merge of PR from Israeli?

#170

Post by throw_m239339 »

yiddishe-kop wrote: post #157
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #4

I would have said "Jerusalem" as a location could lend some ambiguity as to whether the committing user is Israeli or Palestinian, but ah...his username and profile picture certainly leaves nothing to the imagination.

Hi Author of the PR here. Would you submit a complaint to GitHub? What should I do?

I would submit a complain, it would in fact protect that developer FROM the Iranian government since he wouldn't be able to interact with Israeli on github if it's apparently a problem. He can't have it both way at first place, he can't be on github and obviously violate github TOS with anti-Israeli PR merging policies, no matter what the reason is.
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