SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

firewalker · 2010-01-26 22:36:54

SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/01/25 … -and-cuba/

http://arabcrunch.com/2010/01/following … -open.html

As far as I am considered this is a disgrace.

flamelab · 2010-01-26 22:43:08

omg, omg. Why ?

combuster · 2010-01-26 22:52:15

Ok, if this is true, I hope they http://geek.net/ get hacked

Open ? Yeah, right...

jasonwryan · 2010-01-26 22:55:02

It would have been helpful to link to the Sourceforge blog post:
http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying- … th-us-law/

However, in addition to participating in the open source community, we also live in the real world, and are governed by the laws of the country in which we are located. Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible. The possible penalties for violating these restrictions include fines and imprisonment. Other hosting companies based in the US have similar legal and technical restrictions in place.

Irrespective of your views about the impact of their actions, they are (quite rightly) behaving lawfully...

Anikom15 · 2010-01-26 23:12:01

Laws? What laws? This is the internet! There are no laws!

Allan · 2010-01-26 23:16:27

I discussing this, remember not venture to far into this:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … ial_Topics

combuster · 2010-01-26 23:23:33

Ok, I can bet that SF will be somewhat avoided by coders all over the world. My first reaction was furious but SF did what they had to do. It's the law's that suckZ - not sf. This was totally unnecessary move from the US gvt, it's not like people can't get that code elsewhere. WTF?

Tyriel · 2010-01-26 23:36:27

It is the same issue that has been in existence for a very long time now. Just like back in the early 2000's when I needed to download oracle it was blocked from certain countries and I had to agree I would not give it to any person/client thereof or use it for missile guidance/research o.O! Was an issue as I was writing Warehouse Management software solution for a Hong Kong based company which would be used in mainland China at the time.

You can not blame the companies for this as they are just following the law. I like America however I think this is silly of the U.S government whatever the reasoning is. This issue will not change unless the peoples voice demands it and sadly most people Americans or otherwise do not even know this issue exists.

Pierre · 2010-01-26 23:44:24

Well, this might be the law in the US, but they should have considered moving outside the states. They already have mirrors all over the world.

This behavior is so not compatible with the idea of FOSS.

sand_man · 2010-01-26 23:46:18

SourceForge is horrible anyway. Google Code is a better alternative

Rasi · 2010-01-27 00:13:50

sand_man wrote:

SourceForge is horrible anyway. Google Code is a better alternative

well, let me enlighten you. Google code blocks those states too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison … facilities

combuster · 2010-01-27 00:16:33

GNA doesn't

https://gna.org/

Pierre · 2010-01-27 00:31:04

Or http://www.berlios.de/index.php.en

Xyne · 2010-01-27 00:40:53

I read about this yesterday. The very idea is absolutely stupid. Anyone who has any sort of malicious intent and the intelligence to actually be a threat can easily get around this.

The only people that such a block hurts are those people who are open-minded and participating in a productive global culture. They're punishing the good guys because this looks like a good idea on paper to someone who has no idea how the internet works or what Sourceforge is.

There are too many people in positions of power who lack the knowledge and insight required to be beneficial in their position.

Sourceforge can't be blamed either. In all honestly, how many of you would ruin yourself financially for the rest of your life and risk going to federal prison for aiding "the enemy" and whatever other BS they could throw at you with all the stupid anti-terror laws? Now what if you had a family to take care of?

I hope people start moving their projects to servers outside of US jurisdiction. Maybe the politicians will begin to rethink their plans when they see the data and developers start to move elsewhere. I also hope that this inspires more projects to circumvent censorship and that there is a general outcry from the open source community, maybe even with legal challenges to match.

Does anyone know if this could actually be challenged as a first amendment violation? It reminds me of how the US Government classified encryption tools as "munitions" and tried to block the dissemination of PGP. Zimmermann gave the government the finger and published the source code as a book that people could despine and scan. The never did anything because it would have violated his right to freedom of speech, and eventually they gave up trying to contain it.

Last edited by Xyne (2010-01-27 00:42:58)

Trent · 2010-01-27 02:24:55

Xyne wrote:

Does anyone know if this could actually be challenged as a first amendment violation? It reminds me of how the US Government classified encryption tools as "munitions" and tried to block the dissemination of PGP. Zimmermann gave the government the finger and published the source code as a book that people could despine and scan. The never did anything because it would have violated his right to freedom of speech, and eventually they gave up trying to contain it.

I doubt this could be challenged under the First Amendment, because it guarantees only the right to free speech, not the right to an audience

Xyne · 2010-01-27 02:47:27

Trent wrote:

I doubt this could be challenged under the First Amendment, because it guarantees only the right to free speech, not the right to an audience

Free speech means nothing if no one can hear you. Freedom of the press means nothing if you can't distribute your medium.

*edit*

I don't really see this as a violation of free speech per se. I'm just wondering if it could be challenged as such. If the code can legally be shared with the entire world minus a handful of countries, the code is obviously not a threat to national security or anything else which would justify its restriction, which is why I suspect that someone could make a good case the blocking.

Last edited by Xyne (2010-01-27 03:18:51)

ngoonee · 2010-01-27 03:07:17

At the risk of inflaming things here, has anyone considered the likelihood of a sizeable number of citizens of said countries actually having an internet connection without strict government based monitoring?

sand_man · 2010-01-27 03:22:16

ngoonee wrote:

At the risk of inflaming things here, has anyone considered the likelihood of a sizeable number of citizens of said countries actually having an internet connection without strict government based monitoring?

Very good point. I'm sure the amount of people actually effected would be minimal.

NeOnsKuLL · 2010-01-27 04:11:01

I'm an actual affected. And I think this is the minor problem (meaning me as affected). What is affected here is the philosofy behing the Open Source and Free Software. The free access to technology. That movement of the US government, it's a just a desperate one to find another way to annoy us, no more, no less, since it's actually pointless.

SF have a lot of mirrors out there, and, anyway, there is nothing in SF (AFAIK) that attempts to US National Security if a citizen of one of the "listed countries" have a copy of it.

No problem, there is always more than one web proxy, and also a lot of projects hosting.

See you

PS: Thanks to this new restriction, I found bitbucket.org and I really loved it. I use Mercurial as SCM software, so, this is a great code/project hosting to me. SF was getting a real PITA anyway.

urist · 2010-01-27 04:52:07

One of my old high school teachers had an opinion on all politics, but it can be applied to lots of other areas.

The field is full of old people who understand how the world worked when they were young, but don't understand it as it is now. This farce may have worked then, but now it's stupid.

It doesn't even affect me, but the first thing I thought of was to sign up for one of the free shell accounts hosted in the US and get your SF fix that way.

Last edited by urist (2010-01-27 04:53:08)

Trent · 2010-01-27 05:57:31

Xyne wrote:

Trent wrote:
I doubt this could be challenged under the First Amendment, because it guarantees only the right to free speech, not the right to an audience
Free speech means nothing if no one can hear you. Freedom of the press means nothing if you can't distribute your medium.

Granted. But the First Amendment doesn't protect the right to an audience, and certainly can't be applied to the distribution of "free speech" in countries not under U.S. jurisdiction. It might make a good civil rights case though.

tomk · 2010-01-27 06:53:08

Final warning: this is not a political discussion forum. It seems to me that the linux-related aspects of this topic have been exhausted, so if people want to continue discussing the political aspects, they should do so elsewhere.

Not closing just yet, but please ensure your posts are in line with our guidelines.

firewalker · 2010-02-08 22:35:29

Good news???

http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-n … -blocking/

Last edited by firewalker (2010-02-08 22:51:48)

Ranguvar · 2010-02-09 22:55:26

firewalker wrote:

Good news???
http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-n … -blocking/

Unfortunately, not enough people will do that to make it much less of a pain in the ass for people residing in the blocked countries.

I'm not going to get into politics, as per forum rules, but I think I'm fine in saying that this is utter bull****

Anyone here from those countries, who will be affected?

ngoonee · 2010-02-10 01:58:38

Ranguvar wrote:

firewalker wrote:
Good news???
http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-n … -blocking/
Unfortunately, not enough people will do that to make it much less of a pain in the ass for people residing in the blocked countries.
I'm not going to get into politics, as per forum rules, but I think I'm fine in saying that this is utter bull****
Anyone here from those countries, who will be affected?

It does make things a bit easier though for maintained projects, it should be as easy as sending an email to the maintainer and saying "hey, could you please..."

For unmaintained/legacy code...

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-26 22:36:54

SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#2 2010-01-26 22:43:08

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#3 2010-01-26 22:52:15

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#4 2010-01-26 22:55:02

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#5 2010-01-26 23:12:01

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#6 2010-01-26 23:16:27

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#7 2010-01-26 23:23:33

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#8 2010-01-26 23:36:27

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#9 2010-01-26 23:44:24

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#10 2010-01-26 23:46:18

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#11 2010-01-27 00:13:50

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#12 2010-01-27 00:16:33

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#13 2010-01-27 00:31:04

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#14 2010-01-27 00:40:53

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#15 2010-01-27 02:24:55

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#16 2010-01-27 02:47:27

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#17 2010-01-27 03:07:17

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#18 2010-01-27 03:22:16

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#19 2010-01-27 04:11:01

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#20 2010-01-27 04:52:07

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#21 2010-01-27 05:57:31

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#22 2010-01-27 06:53:08

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#23 2010-02-08 22:35:29

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#24 2010-02-09 22:55:26

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

#25 2010-02-10 01:58:38

Re: SourceForge blocks Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba

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