

SourceForge Blocks Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba - jcapote
http://arabcrunch.com/2010/01/following-clintons-internet-freedom-speech-us-based-sourceforge-blocked-syria-sudan-iran-korea-cuba-is-open-source-still-really-open.html

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stilist
It’s hard to say SourceForge is in the wrong, given they’re subject to US law.
On the other hand, I can’t say they’re in the right, because it does clearly
violate the principles of open source/free software. Such situations are
unfortunate, but the best solution seems to be ‘hope the law doesn’t come for
you’. Not a long-term option.

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ftghyujkjmhnbg
You could argue then that they are in breach of the GPL on stuff they do use
themselves.

You can hardly take GPL source, modify it and refuse to distribute it to
certain groups - wether this is your choice or a rule imposed by your country

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kierank
_You can hardly take GPL source, modify it and refuse to distribute it to
certain groups - wether this is your choice or a rule imposed by your country_

A particular country's law takes precedence over the GPL.

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ghjkmjn
So if your country's laws says you can't full fill your obligations in the GPL
then you can't use it?

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btilly
What section of the GPL do these rules keep you from your obligations under?

Remember that the GPL does not require that you distribute to anyone. Instead
it says that if you do distribute then you must provide source and cannot
prevent the recipient's freedom to further redistribute. But regulations
saying that you cannot personally distribute to person A don't prevent you
from distributing to anyone else, so long as you follow the requirements of
the copyright license.

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3GFalcon
Proxies can be used to get the software from SF in these countries.

The issue is about principles: freedom to innovate, free access, and to follow
open source principles that SF preaches:

The Open Source Definition Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source
code.

The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following
criteria: … 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must
not discriminate against any person or group of persons. 6. No Discrimination
Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making
use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.

For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or
from being used for genetic research.

The blockhead action is a direct Discrimination Against around 200 million
innocent people in Syria, Sudan, Iran, N Korea and Cuba.

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ruslan
Somehow I missted that point in history when Open Source, from just an idiom
and good philosophy for programmers, turned into big and dirty politics. This
is all very disappointing.

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zppx
I'm confused, can't the source be downloaded from a mirror in another country?
I always use heanet.ie when downloading from SourceForge.

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btilly
Why yes it can. Following laws leads to people doing silly things. A US based
mirror is supposed to not distribute to certain countries. But it can
distribute to a third country that can distribute anywhere it wants. So no
transmission of data is actually stopped, but the US based mirror has
successfully followed US law and caused some annoyance to a handful of
countries the USA does not like.

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ThinkWriteMute
Handful of countries? More like a handful of people in a few countries.

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knv
What if those handful people had started/contributed to some open source
project? Now they don't have access to their own code.

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ThinkWriteMute
My point was that the laws don't even hamper countries the law's implementor
doesn't like. They just hamper a very few select people.

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jayliew
Banning them actually has the opposite effect - aren't we trying to spread
democracy? Dictators _want_ their people to be isolated, so that they don't
know that there is a better world out there. I won't be surprised if China
welcomes Google's departure.

By arming the people with tools, anything to spread information, we're
actually helping take down the dictators. Have you guys heard about the people
near the border of North Korea (on the "safe" side), attaching radio receivers
to balloons and flying them into North Korea? The citizens of North Korea are
walled off from the rest of the world and don't have access to information.

By giving them information, and allowing them to share it among themselves, we
can sow seeds of dissent (so to speak), so that they can organize an uprising
(so to speak) to demand a better quality of life ... and take down the
government.

I'm not so much advocating starting a riot, I'm just saying that our sanction
on tools and information to them is having the opposite effect of what is
genuinely good for the folks in the country.

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jrockway
This is probably just one of SourceForge's lawyer's overzealous
misinterpretation of the law. (That's what lawyers are paid to do, of course.)

My question is, is SourceForge really "exporting" anything? Last time I
checked how the Internet worked, SourceForge sent the packets to its ISP, and
the ISP handled it from there. (Repeat until the packets are at their
destination.)

(If the law says, "you must not transmit a packet addressed to a host in <list
of countries>", then I guess that makes sense. But I have a feeling there is
no such wording.)

Anyway, people in those countries should definitely be using Tor. So this will
just remind them of that.

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viraptor
Isn't it ironic? They block the page to a specific group of people based on
"5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups".

They also potentially cut off the access for people who have their main
project site at sf.net - which leaves everyone using the software without
updates from a trusted/original source in case of security issues.

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pmorici
Not really because a software license agreement can't supersede the laws of
the country in which it is executed. Also the license only stipulates that you
make the source available to people you distribute the compiled binary to so
if they block the whole site it's hard to argue they are breaking the letter
of the agreement.

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3GFalcon
aha what about clinton's Internet freedom speech? US secretary of State
Hillary Clinton few days urged Internet freedom! as she said: “We stand for a
single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and
ideas,” said Clinton in a major address that cited China, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Egypt among countries that censored the Internet or harassed bloggers!

Long live equal access dah!

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pmorici
Well, maybe that speech was the first step toward a proposal to change the
law. That's hypocritical of Clinton to say that, I agree. That is besides the
point though, here we are talking about the actions of SF as they relate to
the law and the GPL, not the actions of the American government.

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level09
This is a direct violation of the freedoms of Free Software and section 5 of
opensource definition: “5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups”.

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naz
Github is US-hosted so presumably it has to follow suit?

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grandalf
This sounds like SourceForge trying very hard to be relevant. The policy makes
no sense whatsoever.

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Scriptor
It's to comply with US laws that state that nothing can be 'exported' to the
aforementioned countries. In this case, software downloads are considered
exports.

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grandalf
Those are bizarre laws.

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3GFalcon
And why it is ok for Facebook to launch a Parisian version and to Twitter to
postpone its maintenance few days when there was unrest in Iran? Iranians
revolting against their government where not terrorists? but when they use
Open Source they are terrorist!

~~~
ruslan
This is politics. Politics has no common sense, it acts in favour of small
group of people whose intenations we can hardly recognize.

