

Notepad++ leaves SourceForge - michaelfairley
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-notepad-plus-plus-org

======
jmillikin
SourceForge doesn't have much choice in this, unless they're willing to
violate US law.

For what it's worth, SourceForge allows projects to determine whether their
downloads are subject to export laws, and to disable the blocks[1]. Support
for this was added in early February, several months before the notepad-plus-
plus.org domain was registered. There's no technical or legal reason why N++
had to move off SourceForge; they're simply throwing a hissy fit.

[1] [http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-
remov...](http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-removes-
blanket-blocking/)

~~~
DLWormwood
> There's no technical or legal reason why N++ had to move off SourceForge;
> they're simply throwing a hissy fit.

What's wrong with moving off the server out of principle? While I'm American,
I can't fault these guys if they suddenly felt less secure about the hosting
of their work by a US company, especially if it's due to political reasons
they'd have no recourse over if at some future point they risk being targeted
(even unintentionally) by a future policy.

~~~
blantonl
Acting on "out of principle" could be a quicker way to deep-six your business
adventure.

Making political statements with your open source project releases leaves your
project, and now political views, completely open to the community.

That is what they wanted, and that is what they will get - good or bad.

~~~
icco
I'm curious, has siding with open-source ever actually hurt anyone? It's like
saying I believe everyone should be able to use my product, and I'm going to
work hard to make that possible...

------
koeselitz
Aside from everything else, I like the new site design. I hate to say it, but
the old one on SourceForge was sort of hideous. And it was kind of sad,
because I really love this project - it's vibrant, and it's creating some
really great things in Notepad++. I recommend Notepad++ to people _constantly_
, but every time I'd find myself having to say "now when you go to this
site... just ignore how ugly and confusing it is, and click the link to
download." (And I always had to tell them what to click to download - note to
devs out there, don't call the download link "binaries," no non-hacker knows
what that means, and also it helps to underline and/or highlight links the way
every other site on the internet does).

The new site looks kind of like it's a Drupal form, but it's simpler and more
intuitive than the old one already. Sections that you can understand, clear
links. Yay! It'll be nice to just give people the URL and tell them to check
it out.

~~~
DrSprout
Sourceforge itself is kind of an eyesore for all the projects hosted there,
regardless of the design of their primary website.

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pistoriusp
Cuba? I'm not a North American, but isn't all the trouble with Cuba over now?

I recall a few months back that Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist watch list
in the USA - And as such he wouldn't / couldn't enter the country.

Perhaps this is one of those "laws" that was forgotten?

~~~
akeefer
Unfortunately there's a large, politically-influential group of Cuban exiles
in Florida. In pretty much every recent presidential election cycle, Florida
has been a crucial swing state that could go to either side, so neither party
has wanted to upset that group by normalizing relations with Cuba. From a
political standpoint there's a lot to lose and nothing to gain from it,
unfortunately.

~~~
jemfinch
Why would Cuban exiles want to embargo their former home?

~~~
akeefer
My understanding is that many of them fled following the Cuban Revolution and
subsequent nationalization of property; the ones who were in Cuba at the time
are likely either very old or dead by now, but presumably their descendants
still harbor resentment over it. From the associated Wikipedia article:

"Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the auspices of the
Agrarian Reform law of May 1959. Cuban lawyer Mario Lazo writes that farms of
any size could be and were seized by the government. Land, businesses, and
companies owned by upper and middle class Cubans were also nationalized,
including the plantations owned by Fidel Castro's family. By the end of 1960,
the revolutionary government had nationalized more than 25 billion dollars
worth of private property owned by Cubans."

The angry Cuban ex-patriots are generally from that middle or upper class that
had their property nationalized.

~~~
cdr
From what I recall, later immigrants and second-generation Cuban-Americans
tend to be significantly less supportive of the hard-line stance towards Cuba.
The original generation of immigrants dying off over time is likely what will
lead to normalization with Cuba.

------
dtf
Google does the same:

<http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html>

Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

~~~
melling
The law is ridiculous or complying with it?

I think some people live in a fairy tale world. North Korea, for example,
recently sunk a South Korean ship killing 41 people. There really are bad
people in the world.

Personally, I think the Cuba issue is legacy and it's probably time to resolve
it. The fear of communism is long gone. Now I think it's just a matter of a
bunch of rich voters in Florida who want their nationalized land back, which
probably isn't going to happen.

~~~
melvin
I agree, it's a law and they're following it. Sourceforge and Google are not
responsible for that.

As far as North Korea, um... so, when the US kills 25 Afghans at a wedding
("oops! my video-game like predator drone readout made it look like they were
definitely terrorists") what does that mean? I guess France should stop
exporting Notepad++ to the US. Correct?

No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY
make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and
prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly
even send an email.

~~~
tzs
_"No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY
make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and
prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly
even send an email."_

Think about this for a few milliseconds before ranting. How would you write a
law that blocked the bad "exports" while allowing the good "exports" through?
It's much less work to write and administer to just to block them all to
countries like North Korea.

~~~
mquander
I'd wager it's _even less work_ not to block anything. Answer me this:

1) Can you point to scientific evidence, or even a carefully-reasoned
argument, that blocking U.S.-hosted free software from "rogue" states like
North Korea, Syria, or Iran either A) is a meaningful deterrent to the
governments of such states or B) has a desirable effect on the citizens of
those states?

2) Do you think it's likely that the people with power to make decisions about
this actually thought rationally about any evidence or reasoning?

My provisional answers are 1) Not likely and 2) Fat chance.

~~~
melling
1) No I can't. Can you prove the opposite? No. Pointless argument. Yes! So why
even make it?

Can you find North Korea on this map?

<http://paradoxoff.com/north-korea-night-map.html>

I bet there aren't too many hackers staying up until dawn hacking on
Notepad++. Why does a country with no electricity want to be on this list?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_wea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons)

People in power, or anyone else for that matter, really don't have the time to
debate the finer points of the export laws (which includes free software), so
it's probably better that they just made a simple law that even developers can
understand.

Someday, this will go away:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone>

Then software developers can find another problem that they can solve from the
comfort of their Aeron chair.

~~~
mquander
The reason I made point 1 is because our default decision should always err on
the side of freedom. Why would you bother restricting anything unless you can
identify some benefit to restricting it? It's more work, and maximizing
freedom often results in positive results when the freedom turns out to be
useful in a way you didn't expect.

For all I know, not a single man in North Korea knows what the hell Notepad++
is. Maybe no North Korean citizen would have any use for any U.S.-hosted
software at all. If that's true, then isn't that yet another reason not to
restrict it?

Is it really too complicated to say: "Data is not subject to export control
laws, unless it's in category X or Y (like cryptosystems are, under current
law) in which case the following rules apply: _so-and-so._ " I think it's
disingenuous to suggest that officials writing export laws "don't have the
time" to make any distinctions on such a large class of exports. Our federal
laws are rarely guilty of having insufficient detail.

Additionally, I'd reiterate what other people have already mentioned, which is
that if the (yet to be justified) goal is actually to stop these entities from
using all this software, the goal is impossible. The law burdens U.S. hosts as
much as it burdens foreigners, who can just use a proxy or a mirror in another
country.

~~~
melling
After reading through the other posts, I don't think Notepad++ was ever
restricted by export controls. Sourceforge initially didn't allow them to
specify that the software was not restricted by law so they restricted
everyone.

So, other than software that contains encryption, what software is restricted?

~~~
caf
Any software that _uses_ encryption. If you link to OpenSSL, or call out to
/usr/bin/gpg, you're toast.

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metamemetics
Good excuse for giving the site a much needed facelift.

I used to use it as a decent super-lightweight IDE with the "Explorer" plugin
locked to the right side and the all the icon toolbars hidden. I mainly use
Eclipse now that I finally configured it how I want, but I still used
Notepad++ today to teach a graphic designer HTML and CSS. Due to Notepad++, I
can't use an editor that doesn't have highlight-on-click for matching
opening<> and closing</> tags anymore out of annoyance.

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joanou
That's about the stupidest waste of time and energy I've every heard of. Also
France is not neutral... they have their priorities too.

------
sauce71
Barring coders from specific countries from using open source sounds totally
wrong to me. The people are not the government in those countries, this
ridiculous law harms the people more than the government. Still anyone able to
read code will probably have no problem accessing the projects hosted in US
based servers anyway.

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jojopotato
Gah, I wish there was a contact link on there that wasn't twitter. The typo
"fondamental" bugs me, then when looking for contact info I found "Developper"
done over and over.

~~~
mojuba
Just for the sake of explanation, "fondamental" and "développeur" are French
words.

~~~
icefox
and 'aply' and 'gorvernment'?

~~~
mojuba
Impatient Hacker English?

~~~
Locke1689
No it's just bad English and lazy. When I publish something that I write in
German and expect people to read it, I go through the trouble of running it
through a German language spellchecker. Doing otherwise is lazy and rude to
your audience.

~~~
mojuba
...and after running a spell checker on your text, put one or two
insingificant but noticeable typos to let your readers know you're so cool you
don't need a spell checker ;)

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juanufrj
Doesn't that violates the GPL? I remember reading that it can't discriminate
who can download the code...

I know Sourceforge has to comply with US laws, but they still need to follow
the GPL too.

~~~
caf
No. The GPL says you have to give the source to anyone you give the binary to.
If Sourceforge doesn't distribute a binary to anyone from those countries,
they're in the clear.

On the other hand it means that if I give a GPLed binary to an Iranian, I
can't satisfy the GPL just by saying "oh, the source is up on Sourceforge".

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drivebyacct
Good on them.

------
synnik
"You can access to all versions of Notepad++ on Download page of Sourceforge."

Way to be consistent, dudes.

~~~
zaatar
Wow, impatient, aren't we? See: [http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-
new-site-notepa...](http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-
notepad-plus-plus-org)

    
    
      "The site is built by Drupal, some new features are added in the site, such as newsletter and multilingual system, and more functionalities might be added if need. It's not yet complete, and it'll be done ASAP."

