GitHub and Trade Controls • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#21

Post by jstanley » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

bifrost wrote: post #16

guitarbill wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a huge waste of time for companies in the US, and to companies all over the world that use US-based services like GitHub. > GitHub.com may not be used for purposes prohibited under applicable export control laws, including purposes related to the development, production, or use of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons or long range missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles. Not only is this sentence an affron…

If you're trying to develop any technology which requires trade secrets or IP protection -> you should not be using a public SaaS.

But there's no reason quadcopter software should require trade secrets or IP protection. It could just as easily be open source, and yet it still sounds like the rules prohibit it.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#22

Post by DannyBee » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

It's funny how people used to complain that code.google.com did this but github didn't, and didn't like the answer that "the difference is that Github is not compliant with the law".

I suspect people will now complain that github does this but does not :)

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#23

Post by bifrost » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #21

bifrost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to develop any technology which requires trade secrets or IP protection -> you should not be using a public SaaS.

But there's no reason quadcopter software should require trade secrets or IP protection. It could just as easily be open source, and yet it still sounds like the rules prohibit it.

There is plenty of open source software thats regulated.

If you wanted to reach, you could say that anything that helps guide a vehicle to its destination is control technology, then apply that to something that flies and you're immediately under Aerospace.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#24

Post by phkahler » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

bifrost wrote: post #18

nness wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Slack did this too; if you've ever signed-in to Slack within a country that is currently restricted, your account was just deleted without warning.

Thats a good one! One more reason not to use Slack.

Or one more reason not travel to sanctioned countries.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#25

Post by bifrost » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #24

bifrost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a good one! One more reason not to use Slack.

Or one more reason not travel to sanctioned countries.

Fair, there's usually a good reason they're sanctioned heh.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#26

Post by stunt » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #24

bifrost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a good one! One more reason not to use Slack.

Or one more reason not travel to sanctioned countries.

I assume you go there for vacation or a business trip (for some business that isn’t sanctioned) so it doesn’t make sense to remove someone’s account just for visiting these countries.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#27

Post by stunt » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

ezoe wrote: post #11

Reminds me of a US based PC vendor(I think it was Dell or IBM) whose web site store has a check box like : I do not use this product for nuclear weapon development.

Wow! What kind of product was it? I assume it wasn’t a laptop or a general purpose server hardware.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#28

Post by noarchy » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 6:10 PM UTC

This page doesn't appear to have a date on it. Is this something new that GitHub is doing? If so, is this Microsoft's influence we're seeing?

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#29

Post by UglyToad » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 6:19 PM UTC

Seems a real shame there's no mainstream alternative not subject to the US' belligerent foreign policy. Does anyone know if Gitlab is subject to the same restrictions?

The sanctioned countries and regions fall even further behind and open source developers have to deal with the fallout of America's broken foreign policy.

Re: GitHub and Trade Controls

#30

Post by Dayshine » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #15

blackoil wrote: post #13

How feasible is for Github to create an EU organization, which is effectively mirror of github.com? So all commits, issues,... are cloned in both. But .eu usage is not governed by US law. Also, repos can be blacklisted from .com/.eu based on rules.

I would not be optimistic about that working as any kind of legal loophole to get around US export restrictions. I don't know any reason it would. (I am not a lawyer).

What if users had the option to host repositories in EU servers run by the EU subsidiary? There's no exporting then right?