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GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

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Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#11
post #9
post #4

This is incredibly dumb. Hopefully some GitHub exec intervenes. Edit: Happy to take the karma hit. Stupid is stupid, regardless of jurisdiction and consequences.

Intervenes? Where? In white house?

Negotiating with a non-US entity for as smooth a mirror as possible? Not sure, but resistance to stupidity isn't futile.

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#12
post #6
post #4

This is incredibly dumb. Hopefully some GitHub exec intervenes. Edit: Happy to take the karma hit. Stupid is stupid, regardless of jurisdiction and consequences.

Why would an exec intentionally violate US law for this?

Because it's the right thing to do and MS has the power to do it.

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#13
post #7
post #2

Why are these people assuming GitHub is some sort of an open source authority. Is it so difficult to understand it’s a company that hosts free and open source projects like any other service? The ignorance is just baffling.

Why would you call it either ignorant or baffling? Do you expect Iranian users to have a deep understanding of American export laws and the political intricacies that might follow from Microsoft's acquisition? This is an completely understandable reaction regarding Github's block against Iranian accounts. Github as been around for over 10 years, and this never happened before.

I don't think it has anything to do with the Microsoft acquisition... GitHub was always a US owned and operated company. The reason this hasn't happened in the last 10 years and is happening now is that the laws regarding US companies doing business with Iranians has changed during that period of time. It's not GitHub's or Microsoft's fault, it's the fault of governments, the people running them, and the people empowering then.

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#14
post #2

Why are these people assuming GitHub is some sort of an open source authority. Is it so difficult to understand it’s a company that hosts free and open source projects like any other service? The ignorance is just baffling.

I completely agree. I don't see why some developers need to solely depend on GitHub for private use when you can self-host GitLab/cgit with a cheap computer to host your projects. Open-source development has already thrived without the likes of GitHub even before it was founded.

Perhaps the time to self-host your projects just like how Mastodon allows self-hosting an instance is more important than ever, which will probably be better for open-source instead of centralizing and increasing our dependency on GitHub.

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#15
post #12
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would an exec intentionally violate US law for this?

Because it's the right thing to do and MS has the power to do it.

In what way do they have that power? Do you just mean in the way that anyone has the power to break laws and face the consequences, or something else?

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#18
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you call it either ignorant or baffling? Do you expect Iranian users to have a deep understanding of American export laws and the political intricacies that might follow from Microsoft's acquisition? This is an completely understandable reaction regarding Github's block against Iranian accounts. Github as been around for over 10 years, and this never happened before.

Github owned by Github. But this is something different. It is Github owned by Microsoft. Acquisitions, in general, do not end well for the established user-base. Suggestion: move you repositories! Host your own repositories! Use something different, like Gerrit, to spice up your development! Take matters in your own hand! Own your data, own your compute!

Is there something about this that I've missed that has something to do with the Microsoft acquisition? The same laws would have governed GitHub if they hadn't been acquired.

Re: GitHub banned all Iranian users. Our accounts are restricted. Please support us

#19
GitHub has no choice but to comply with U.S. laws and regulations, yet I'm not seeing anyone here claim that GitHub is a "direct arm" of the U.S. government?

Oh right, common sense and basic logic only apply when the involved entities are American. For everyone else it's all about hypocrisy and double standards in the purpose of nationalist chest-thumping.

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