YESTERDAY we explained why Microsoft had begun its latest attack on the four freedoms put forth by Richard Stallman.
GitHub’s importance to software developers can’t be overstated. In the space of a decade it has become central to millions of people’s professional lives. For it to be taken away, then, must be incredibly hard to take. Not only does it cut you off from your work, it also cuts your identity as a developer.
But that’s what appears to have happened today to Hamed Saeedi, an Iranian software developer.
Writing on Medium, Saeedi revealed that he today received an email from GitHub explaining that his account has been restricted “due to U.S. trade controls law restrictions.” As Saeedi notes, he is not a paying GitHub customer, only using their free services, which makes the fact he has been clocked by the platform surprising.
First, some background: I am a software developer based in Iran and I’m on GitHub since 2012. In January 2019 when they announced that GitHub free includes unlimited private repositories, I completely moved to GitHub.
Everything was fine and I was happy. Although I participated in Hacktoberfest and they failed to send my t-shirt due to “International embargoes” but I thought OK, at least I can use their free services, right? Wrong!
A developer in the Eastern European region of Crimea has found himself at the receiving end of limitations to his GitHub account due to trade control regulations imposed by the US.
Anatoliy Kashkin uses GitHub services to host his website and a game management tool that he maintains, called GameHub. Earlier this week he received a notification about US-imposed trade sanctions affecting his access to the account and resources.
Comments
Roger
2019-07-28 10:55:26
FOSS development projects need a repository outside the USA, or several mirrored repositories outside the USA. The software development community can't allow international cooperation to be crippled every time some government somewhere has a spat with some other government.
Providing such a facility isn't for the faint-of-heart, though. US agents will try to sabotage it, cripple it with DDoS attacks, and cut off its funding, as they tried to do with Wikileaks.