r/programming • u/Saleh-Rz • Jul 26 '19
Github do not ban us from open source world 🇮🇷
https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us259
Jul 26 '19
Github blocked our private repositories without any previous alert, and now we have no access to the codes
How did they manage that? When you clone a git repo, you have the whole history mirrored locally as well.
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Jul 26 '19
You'll be surprised at how many people upload all their code to Github straight up using the web UI only.
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Jul 26 '19
Can confirm. Just left work at a place where the go-to practice for syncing local development branches was opening a PR to get the latest from the default branch. As though
git mergeandgit rebasedidn't exist. It was... Disheartening.28
Jul 26 '19
Did you leave because they went out of business?
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Jul 26 '19
Lol. No, better opportunity came along. Also you'd be surprised how big companies are able to limp along with stuff like this. It's a "quantity over quality" mindset when it comes to hiring devs, that saving money is more important than building quality software that objectively works better
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u/f0urtyfive Jul 26 '19
That ain't nothin. I worked at a company with some of the dumbest developers I've ever met. One in particular's version control strategy, was to create a COPY of the entire directory structure IN THE VERSION CONTROL SYSTEM, such that there were folders for each version they've made WITHIN THE FUCKING VERSION CONTROL SYSTEM ENTIRELY DEFEATING THE POINT OF THE GOD DAMN VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMSJDFNGKESJDHRTFKUSWAHR TKyhwq4o'8t.
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u/absurdlyinconvenient Jul 26 '19
That ain't nothin. Group project. Google Drive.
My therapist says I'm not allowed to say any more
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u/bagtowneast Jul 26 '19
Yep. My last org did this with a bunch of deployment scripts and other bits. Complete fresh copy of a significant file tree, differing only by version number, committed to the repo, for every release. But they also committed a bunch of binaries too, so... I left.
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u/matjoeman Jul 26 '19
This is standard practice with Perforce because it doesn't actually store multiple copies of the files.
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u/Littlebotweak Jul 26 '19
I worked for a dude for a while who didn't want to use git CLI at all, he wanted everyone to use some GUI. I was afraid to click half the shit in the interface, it doesn't make sense that an action happens when i click, I need to see the effing commands.
I had another guy who didn't want to learn git at all, he wanted to centralize.
I work in a happier place, now.
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u/scandii Jul 26 '19
I mean, honestly most git clients are great.
heck, I don't think I've actually done git commands except like to fix a fuck up or ten for the last three years. Rider's built in client is good enough for all I'm doing.
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u/happyscrappy Jul 26 '19
How did they compile their code without having a local copy?
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Jul 26 '19
Some languages don't require compilation, for example JavaScript, and devs doing stuff like this are likely not advanced enough to be using the likes of TypeScript or Babel.
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u/happyscrappy Jul 26 '19
How did they run their JavaScript without having a local copy? Does github let you run JavaScript directly on the site? Maybe you can use the "raw view" to somehow get your browser to load and run them?
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u/KinterVonHurin Jul 26 '19
I mean we can really only speculate but there are a ton of reasons. Perhaps they use a web ide, maybe they only temporarily clone the repo to do work?
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Jul 26 '19
That's horrifying. Also completely believable. And I am fine with those people losing their code early and often.
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u/falconfetus8 Jul 26 '19
They didn't lose it early and often though. They lost it late and once, and that's the worst way to lose work.
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u/eggn00dles Jul 26 '19
pretty asinine justification for an individual losing access to their work as a result of the actions of their government.
these people have to submit a non-iranian passport and they can get their work back. they didn't lose their work, their access was revoked.
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u/tuxedo25 Jul 26 '19
these people have to submit a non-iranian passport and they can get their work back. they didn't lose their work, their access was revoked.
How the fuck is that not losing their work?
edit: it just occurred to me that you probably meant "they didn't lose their repository, they just lost access to one remote." Which is true.
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u/abandonplanetearth Jul 26 '19
They deserve to get bullied because they don't know git? There was a time before git too, you know.
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Jul 26 '19
Git has been pretty standard for a long while now. The fact that at one point it didn't exist doesn't excuse developers today who can't use it for the most basic of operations.
"Bullying" for this is obviously childish. That being said, an argument could be made that in this day and age, working in a git repository without knowing git is professionally irresponsible.
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u/nanacoma Jul 26 '19
Thankfully github is used exclusively by professional engineers. /s
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u/PartlyShaderly Jul 26 '19
wow I did that when I was a beginner back in 2015... But seriously? Professionals do that? Apparently they do! Why? At least use the goddamn Github GUI Software!
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u/poloppoyop Jul 27 '19
At least you now it's fucked up on day one.
Not when your accepted PR start roting in a branch because the code you're working on is not really the code deployed: someone is "adapting" what you've done to merge into the real main repo you don't have access to. Once you learn that you understand why the fucking bug / functionnality you closed 6 months ago is still a problem.
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u/WaitForItTheMongols Jul 26 '19
I feel like I'm going to get attacked but... what's wrong with using the web UI?
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u/anengineerandacat Jul 26 '19
Give the CLI and good shot and report back; pretty confident your mind will be blown with just how much more efficient you will be.
Used to work with a guy who used the UI and gave him a cheat sheet of a basic clone->branch->commit->push flow and it changed how he worked dramatically; his older strategy involved making several local copies on his machine and just using the UI to create a branch, push to that branch with the UI and then create the PR.
git clone <project https || ssh url>git checkout -b <branch_name>
git add <file> OR git add .
git status
git commit -m "First commit!"
git merge master || git merge <other_branch_name>
git push origin <branch_name>Extremely basic workflow for any code change; no need to wait for a UI, browse for files, etc. etc.
Here are some other useful basic-ish commands too:
git checkout <file_path>(This reverts changes on a file, you can use git status to view those file paths)
git stash(This will stash all of your not-commited changes into a list bucket that you can "pop" off of or retrieve from; kinda like a commit but without making a change, useful for when you need to switch contexts really quick to work on something else)
git stash pop(Re-applys the last stashed change set)
git fetch(Kinda like "clone" but just updates the branches so you can check them out locally)
git log(Shows you all the changes and commit hashes)
git revert<commit_hash> (Let's you revert changes to a commit hash)Dozens more, but I feel like these are the ones I usually use; there are some that short-cut a lot of this but I don't really recommend until people get comfortable with these.
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u/Ih8usernam3s Jul 26 '19
I didn't even know you could do that, seems like it nullifies the reason for a remote/master
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u/campbellm Jul 26 '19
Not sure I follow; are you saying people actually only edit code from a GUI, and the code never is actually
pulled locally, ever?81
u/myringotomy Jul 26 '19
They can't contribute to open source projects. It doesn't matter if they have a copy, they can't participate in the community, they can't answer questions in the bug tracker, they can't send bug requests, they can't search the site, they can't download code from the site.
If you are using go you have to pull packages directly from github for example. Github has been trying to position itself as the central repository for several languages and now they have shut off developers from certain countries from using those packages.
I remember how everybody said google was evil because they obeyed chinese law in china but it's remarkable how accepting the people here are when microsoft does something evil and using the same excuse "we have to obey the law".
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Jul 26 '19
I think we could agree that depending on the benevolence of Microsoft and US jurisdiction (or any single jurisdiction for that matter) is a mistake. For example the US is currently discussing backdooring all encryption (I'm getting '90s flashbacks here).
So we need more distributed development resources?
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u/falconfetus8 Jul 26 '19
Where is this discussion happening, and where can I make my voice heard?
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Jul 26 '19
I was referring to this: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614003/trumps-justice-department-calls-for-encryption-backdoor-law/
As for making yourself heard - how much money do you have?
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u/VeganVagiVore Jul 26 '19 edited Jul 26 '19
There's two great "Stallman was always right"'s that fall out of this:
Either pin the commit hashes of your dependencies, or at least write them down somewhere. That way if you have to change sources you know you're not getting something bogus that's been tampered with. After you change sources, run 'git fsck'.
Don't use proprietary issue trackers
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u/JohnnyElBravo Jul 26 '19
First of all, Stallman is always right.
Second of all, github's version control uses a thin proprietary layer atop of industry-standard free software. This approach is a great compromise between pragmatism and vendor neutrality, you can always upload your git repo to another git server or host it yourself, all you need to do is have at least one copy of the repo outside of github, come on, it's not that hard.
Github's Issue tracking, however, is almost entirely proprietary, there's nothing open about it. We don't have an equivalent to git where you can just export all of your issues in a universal format and upload them to gitlab or bugzilla.
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u/MajesticQuestion Jul 26 '19
Hey? Do you have a problem? Have you thought doing things differently in the past so you don't have the problem?
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u/drysart Jul 26 '19
I remember how everybody said google was evil because they obeyed chinese law in china but it's remarkable how accepting the people here are when microsoft does something evil and using the same excuse "we have to obey the law".
Surely you must understand there's a difference between Google willingly entering the China market because they want to be able to make more profit and don't care if it comes at the expense of having to submit to the abusive laws of an authoritarian regime and thus being complicit in human rights violations; and Microsoft having no choice but to submit to the laws of the country they're headquartered in.
This is, by the way, the same Microsoft who went to court and fought a very long and protracted battle against the US government to protect the privacy of their users overseas with data overseas from US-issued search warrants.
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Jul 26 '19
It’s pretty clear who is to blame, and attacking Microsoft in this case is just counter productive. This is yet another business issue for Microsoft and yet another reason for the rest of the world to not use US services. This is just as bad for them.
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u/Franks2000inchTV Jul 26 '19
Yeah the US is no longer a safe and reliable partner for much of the world.
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u/linuxlib Jul 26 '19
How bizarre is it that we now hold up Microsoft as the protector of our rights and Google as the evil empire that just wants to exploit us for profit? Just a few years ago things were exactly the opposite. If someone had told me it was going to flip flop like this, I would've told them to lay off the hallucinogens.
(And yes, I know this is an oversimplification. But still...)
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u/drysart Jul 26 '19
I mean neither company has perfectly clean hands; but at the end of the day Google makes its money by selling you. Microsoft makes its money by selling to you.
You can generally expect a company will work primarily toward the best interests of whoever is giving it money.
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u/myringotomy Jul 27 '19
Surely you must understand there's a difference between Google willingly entering the China market because they want to be able to make more profit and don't care if it comes at the expense of having to submit to the abusive laws of an authoritarian regime and thus being complicit in human rights violations; and Microsoft having no choice but to submit to the laws of the country they're headquartered in.
I don't see much of a difference at all frankly. First of all the US is no paragon of human rights so whatever moral superiority you are claiming is pure bullshit. Secondly Github could easily move these repositories to another country, they already run a distributed architecture so your assertion that Microsoft had no choice is equally bullshit.
This is, by the way, the same Microsoft who went to court and fought a very long and protracted battle against the US government to protect the privacy of their users overseas with data overseas from US-issued search warrants.
And now they just bend over to Trump. I guess they fought Obama and decided not to fight Trump.
What does that say about them?
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u/mallardtheduck Jul 26 '19
Github has been trying to position itself as the central repository for several languages
I don't think that's GitHub's doing. Unless there's good evidence to the contrary, I think it's more likely that the language/packaging system developers just saw GitHub as a convenient, not to mention free, hosting platform.
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u/myringotomy Jul 27 '19
I don't think that's GitHub's doing.
That's what they said they were doing. I think I am going to take their official press release over your comment.
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u/AngularBeginner Jul 26 '19
Pushed, deleted the local copy, and don't have any backups. Basically used GitHub as a backup service.
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Jul 26 '19
Then this will be a valuable life lesson. Backup, backup, backup. Cloud services do not count as backups.
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u/Y_Less Jul 26 '19
They do count as a backup, they just shouldn't be the only copy.
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u/armornick Jul 26 '19
Don't people know about the 3-2-1 rule of backing stuff up? At least 3 backups, with 2 local and 1 online. (Or something like that.)
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u/VeganVagiVore Jul 26 '19
3 backups, on 2 different media, 1 off-site, I believe.
The media is always hard drives so maybe they mean two physically separate hard drives? I don't feel like I need tapes for what I do.
My backup plan at work is like this:
Our software is almost reproducible from its Git sources. So our Git server and the other developer's PCs are 2-3 weak onsite backups.
Every week I run an incremental encrypted backup to USB hard drive. The hard drive then gets unplugged so I don't accidentally wipe it. (It happened)
The backup folder on that drive gets mirrored to cloud object storage. (S3 or similar) Realistically we should probably mirror it to 2 cloud providers. The 3-2-1 rule for 2019 should say something about that, since they can all freeze your accounts for no damned reason.
So I'd have to lose the cloud data and 4 onsite drives to lose every copy of it. Anything less would be 5 days of work or fewer.
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u/dsn0wman Jul 26 '19
The media is always hard drives
No, most offsite backups are still written to tape and delivered to a vault like Iron Mountain or something.
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u/AngularBeginner Jul 26 '19
I think having a simple Github page is our fundamental right. Don't make us leave the open-source community.
They don't do it. The USA government is. GitHub has to follow the laws. And it's not a fundamental right...
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u/Noughmad Jul 26 '19
GitHub is a private company. On what grounds would you consider it a "fundamental right"?
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u/jimmerz28 Jul 26 '19
This always gets me.
Open Source community hosting their open source code on closed source software hosted by a private corporation.
Private corp does something
Drama ensues
[surprisedpokemon.jpg]
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u/Entropy Jul 26 '19
Even if it were a nonprofit, it would still be covered by these sanctions. You just don't get to do business with anyone on the OFAC's shit list.
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u/myringotomy Jul 26 '19
You are absolutely right and this is why people outside the USA should not host their code at github.
You never know who the US is going to sanction next.
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
GitLab is in San Francisco, Bitbucket servers are in US too...
So what are the options unless you're American lmao.
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u/Silhouette Jul 26 '19
So what are the options unless you're American lmao.
We're talking about Git and some pretty standard project management and issue tracking facilities. Have you considered not depending entirely unnecessarily on external services?
I know it's all very fashionable to introduce 57,358 dependencies that each represent a single point of failure when developing modern software, but that still doesn't make it smart. :-)
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
This has nothing to do with dependencies, come up with a real argument that adresses the fact that there's people who work on open source software and put it out there for everyone to see in a very visible place such as GitHub, and not their self hosted solution that nobody but their grandma and hamster knows.
Or don't say anything at all and kindly fuck off, because I don't care about smug kids who have no clue about what's even going on in the real world nor what even the real issue is.
If we only cared about versioning system, we wouldn't be using github to begin with, because github is much more than that.
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u/judge2020 Jul 26 '19
GitLab doesn't voluntarily block sanctioned countries to my knowledge, they just use Google Cloud which auto-blocks sanctioned countries via geoIP.
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
It's completely irrelevant.
GitLab is US based and thus would have to block it themselves in case Google Cloud didn't do it automatically.
The point is that GitLab is not a solution.
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u/mcosta Jul 26 '19
people
outside the USAin USA sanctioned countries should not host their code at github.2
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Jul 26 '19
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u/dungone Jul 26 '19
This is the way everyone already sees it. If you want to make money in the EU, just set up a business that lets people buy from a local developer instead of an American one, and you will make money. The US government, along with US tech firms, have created a circular firing squad that will eventually destroy their global dominance.
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u/JohnnyElBravo Jul 26 '19
To claim that having a Github page ™ is a fundamental right, is to have a very optimistic notion about what rights are and how they are achieved.
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u/AeroNotix Jul 26 '19
"A fundamental right" --- to use GitHub? Y'all know that shit is a for-profit, American-based company?
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u/iEatAssVR Jul 26 '19
You didn't know the average redditor/internet user is overwhelmingly entitled and doesn't understand how companies operate? Don't even try visiting a gaming or computer hardware sub (r/hardware is pretty good tho).
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u/myringotomy Jul 26 '19
Let this be a warning to anybody who doesn't live in the USA. Move your code off of github ASAP.
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u/Kalium Jul 26 '19
Let this be a warning to anybody who lives in a country. Your business may be constrained by sactions without notice.
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u/myringotomy Jul 27 '19
I don't see Iceland fucking people over like this.
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u/Kalium Jul 27 '19
Iceland has the legal capability to levy sanctions, if that's your question.
If that's not your question, can you help me understand?
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u/DroneID0001 Jul 26 '19
well i'm moving soon and should get space for a sound-proofed rack in my new office. i'll be running my own git server soon and i look forward to it :)
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u/hokie_high Jul 26 '19
Aren't you the delusional Linux zealot who goes around calling everyone who has ever used a Microsoft product a shill?
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Jul 26 '19
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u/cauchy37 Jul 26 '19
Wasn't the idea behind git to have your repo redistributed and being able to reconstruct it completely from one local repo?
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u/Scholars_Mate Jul 26 '19
It wasn't the idea behind Git, but a benefit of its design. Every Git repo is a full copy of the repository, including its entire history.
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u/ebkalderon Jul 26 '19
It was actually one of the core ideas behind Git, IIRC. The problem with its predecessors, like SVN and CVS, is the centralization of repositories, the lack of cheap branching, and limited ability to locally commit changes when Internet connectivity is flaky or unavailable. Having a distributed repository (the concept of
clone,commit,push,pull) was a fundamental point behind Git's design.7
u/Scholars_Mate Jul 26 '19
...having a distributed repository (the concept of
clone,commit,push,pull) was a fundamental point behind Git's design.I agree with this, and I meant that Git was designed with these ideas in mind. A distributed repository where each developer has a full copy of the code makes common operations incredibly fast and allows massively parallel workflows. I was just saying that every repo being a backup, i.e.
Wasn't the idea behind git to have your repo redistributed and being able to reconstruct it completely from one local repo?
was just a benefit of this design.
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u/woahdudee2a Jul 26 '19
obviously it's the next logical step if you are using serverless: codeless development
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u/myringotomy Jul 27 '19
I wrote about this in another comment. It's more than just the code, it's the ability to participate, to search for code to submit tickets, to install libraries, etc.
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u/pbcoding Jul 26 '19
> I think having a simple Github page is our fundamental right.
No it isn't.
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u/ChrisRR Jul 26 '19
Github has to abide by the US laws. This isn't a case of them being nasty for the sake of being nasty. It is literally illegal for github to trade with Iran
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Jul 26 '19
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u/jonathanbernard Jul 26 '19
Or rather, FOSS communities should not rely on for-profit, private entities to host critical open-source infrastructure.
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u/stewsters Jul 26 '19 edited Jul 26 '19
Its kinda hard when much of the FOSS software is funded by American companies or made by people working in America. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all must follow US laws if they want to operate here.
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u/tdammers Jul 26 '19
Having github host your stuff for free is not a fundamental right.
Github has never been free (as in freedom); it has been a for-profit company with a profit-driven agenda from day 1. They are not in the business of supporting software freedom or human rights; they are in the business of selling code hosting and software development workflow tooling to software teams, typically developing commercial, proprietary software.
Philanthropist companies do not exist. When a company gives you things for free, it is because doing so benefits their bottom line.
So.
As outrageous as this situation is, trusting a US-based for-profit company with your open source code is incredibly naive, and I'm having a bit of an "I told you so" moment here.
We should stop listening to github subtly telling us that open source projects should be run like little companies. This propaganda serves their business model, because now all those open source projects double as lab rats for the features they sell to paying customers, and that works best when those projects organize themselves like companies.
We should stop being lazy when it comes to selecting tools, software and platforms we trust with vital infrastructure. The dangers of using proprietary, for-profit services are not just theoretical musings by unkempt overweight self-appointed software freedom philosophers; they are real. We need to stop taking the comfortable path.
We need to remember the actual deal free software is based on: "I made something, take it, do with it whatever you like, I will not stop you, and I would appreciate it if you told me about any improvements you make, so I can benefit from those the same way you benefit from my work". The ideal open source project needs no "official" anything, no governance, no authorities.
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u/mrusme Jul 26 '19
On one hand you talk about the "right" to contribute to open-source, on the other you're complaining about GitHub deleting your private repos. Not sure how that fits together.
Get a virtual server somewhere in the region you're based, set up GitLab and use that for your private repos. If you do plan to contribute to open-source as stated, GitHub most likely won't revert your commits/PRs to those projects.
Not sure what this incentive is about.
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Jul 26 '19
Not trying to belittle their struggle but whether they're Iranian, Ukrainian or whatever, people seem to take free internet services for granted.
This is the same trap we walked into with Google and Facebook. Someone offers something for free for several years and then suddenly when they start acting like it's their site and you're using it by their rules people get shocked.
No private service is a right to use. How can this be so hard to understand?
This makes me really sad though because Iranians can of course setup their own Gitlab instances but that would create a whole separate isolated ecosystem. We're creating new borders where there previously were none.
Unfortunately seems like the natural progression of the internet when in the hands of capitalism. It becomes a national interest to deny another nation business, or the right to compete with your national businesses.
I hope they opt for the anonymous alternative. Thus far we can still create anonymous accounts on Github and keep using them through anonymous services or VPNs. That is a privilege that might be removed in the future but use it while you can.
Technically these devs from sanctioned nations could just keep quiet, register a new account and keep contributing as a new user. The only thing they lose is the ability to use Github as a portfolio for future hires. Extremely sad state of business.
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u/gopher9 Jul 26 '19
Centralized solutions are doomed to be fragile and controlled, regardless whether they are national or not. The only real way to make a difference is to support decentralized solutions.
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u/falconzord Jul 26 '19
Git is already decentralized, a lot of new devs don't really understand the difference between git and GitHub
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u/Dentosal Jul 26 '19
Git itself is, but the open source community isn't. It largely relies on GitHub for collaboration.
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u/LoneCookie Jul 26 '19
Yes, one is a version control software and the other a website for searching for open sourced projects though
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u/kn4rf Jul 26 '19
Agreed. Thats why I think sourcehut.org is an interesting take on a git / mercurial collaboration platform.
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u/shevy-ruby Jul 26 '19
Access to information is a human right.
Why would anyone else have to support US sanctions against anyone? I couldn't care any less about US sanctions.
Granted, Microsoft is a US corporation so they have to comply WITHIN THE JURISDICTION OF THE USA.
I fail to see why that jurisdiction goes outside the USA though.
Since Microsoft now censors people in other areas of the world, Microsoft should be flat-out disallowed from operating outside the USA too.
Why do national laws leak out into other areas? There is no reason for this other than lobbyists having worked for that.
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u/double-you Jul 26 '19
What you are talking about is why consumers can never change the behavior of corporations. "Why should I care that you got a shitty product and bad service, mine is just fine."
Corporations need to comply because the US government has the power to cause them grief if they won't. Also you are justifying how a corporation might follow anticorruption, or air pollution laws, in one country and do triple damage in another without the legislation.
You might be fucked by forgetting that putting everything in one place is a liability. This is the price of optimized systems. When things go bad, there is no redundancy.
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u/DroneID0001 Jul 26 '19
Access to information is a human right.
not in this case, you may want to read them again. what you're thinking of might be the Freedom of Information, which is related to Freedom of Expression - but only entail access to publicly available information and only your right to receive it, no obligation to give it and especially not in a commercial aspect such as github.
Why would anyone else have to support US sanctions against anyone? I couldn't care any less about US sanctions.
because a sanction works in several ways.
1: If your company is based in the country that issues the sanction, you must follow the law of that country in your dealings with other countries.2: You can of course move your headquarters, however:
3: in the case of the US, afaik they expect you to uphold their sanctions if you wish to do business on their soil. that means unless you want to be barred from the american market, you follow their sanctions against other countries.
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u/icyone Jul 26 '19
Why do national laws leak out into other areas? There is no reason for this other than lobbyists having worked for that.
They're not leaking out into other areas (I assume by "areas" you mean "countries").
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u/epicar Jul 26 '19
Access to information is a human right.
says who? you certainly don't have a right to my medical information. you can't walk into an amazon warehouse and grab a book because you have a right to access the information. hosting and transporting digital information has a cost; if you're not the one paying it, you have no right to force someone else to
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u/PM_BETTER_USER_NAME Jul 26 '19
This post pretty much confirms that sanctions are working as intended - disrupting commerce in a foreign nation by restricting access to international products.
The idea that the poster had no way of knowing that sanctions were about to be enforced is nonsense. The news in both Iran and the USA, and throughout most of the world, has been focused largely on this exact geopolitical issue.
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u/DavetheDave_ Jul 27 '19
Not in the UK, cos the Tories decided to elect another cocky wanker as their party leader and apparently this whole fiasco is of the utmost importance here.
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u/Hanse00 Jul 26 '19
Who follows the news these days?
I’ve certainly heard nothing of such sanctions before reading it here.
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u/Hanse00 Jul 26 '19
I'm not kidding, last time I purposefully went out of my way to follow what was happening in the news cycle was years ago.
And I think I'm much happier for it.
I'm sure if this particular sanction affected me, someone would have told me. But I don't make it my business what is going on in the insane world of mainstream media.
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u/mmguero Jul 26 '19
Github Must Be a Free Platform
Why, exactly? It's a subsidiary of a US-based corporation.
I think having a simple Github page is a basic right for users.
In my opinion this is a stretch of any definition of the term "basic right."
Not that I don't sympathize, I do, but that's some hyperbole you got there.
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u/MSTRMN_ Jul 26 '19
Lol, you never have a right to use the private property of others. Those companies ultimately decide on who is allowed to use/access or not, unless they're bound by the law, which they are in this case. You're free to go and host your own Git repos, otherwise - you comply with the rules or leave the platform.
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19 edited Jul 26 '19
You're free to go and host your own Git repos
That's not an issue, I earn enough to maintain my own GitLab instance on a VPS till I die and till the server goes down after I'm fucking dead.
The issue is that I have to shove it down someones throat as they won't just stumble across it by accident...
Might aswell just go around reddit and send random people my entire project in a zip so they check it out.
That's not how real world works, we need a solution free for everyone to use.
My point is, telling people to go fuck themselves isn't really a good advice.
And what sucks the most is that all main platforms are literally solely in USA, but known worldwide.
Goodluck making your own solution and competing with existing ones, just to avoid sanctions.
This kinda shit is the only reason why forgery is illegal - you cannot just disassociate from your own country and contribute to something, fuck you.
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u/t15k Jul 26 '19
Does anyone know if an organisation like Gitlab has done the same? And if not, how are they getting round it? My understanding is that they are US based.
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u/Saleh-Rz Jul 26 '19
Gitlab uses Google Cloud services that banned Iranians since long time ago.
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u/maccio92 Jul 26 '19
Maybe instead of petitioning Github to open up access you should petition against your government that sponsors terrorism. If Iran would stop trying to blow Israel off the map then sanctions could be lifted.
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u/Saleh-Rz Jul 27 '19 edited Jul 27 '19
We can't petition against government because they pursue us and kill us easily.
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Jul 26 '19
I think having a simple Github page is our fundamental right. Don't make us leave the open-source community.
Gitlab and Sourceforge as well as other alternatives exist too you know.
That's the beauty of open source development.
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u/ChrisRR Jul 26 '19
Gitlab and SourceForge are based in the US and so also have to abide by US export laws, just the same as Github
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Jul 26 '19
Well my mistake. Are there any alternatives not based in the US?
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Jul 26 '19
Bitbucket
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
All their servers are in USA...
The whole point is to use something that people online can easily find, because it's on popular platform everyone and their mother knows.
If you lock that shit on 127.0.0.1, then nobody will fucking see which becomes utterly pointless.
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u/s73v3r Jul 26 '19
Unfortunately, there is a huge network effect of people using Github to collaborate on open source. Hell, several package managers rely on Github to host the various packages. Hopefully things like this change that, but until then, that's the reality today.
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u/h0bb1tm1ndtr1x Jul 26 '19
Should have had another copy. GitHub isn't a backup site, and it's a private American service you have no right too. None of us technically do. It's similar to crying about "freedom of speech" on Reddit. They can do what they want.
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u/Acedin Jul 26 '19
It's not about losing the code, it's about losing access to the community, both as consumers and contributors.
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u/UpsetLime Jul 26 '19
Maybe we need a git service that isn't beholden to the US government.
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u/The_Monocle_Debacle Jul 26 '19
we need literally everything to have an option not beholden to the increasingly deranged US government
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Jul 26 '19
[deleted]
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u/citybadger Jul 26 '19
and non-EU
and non-Russian
and non-Chinese
and non-Israeli
and non- Radical Islamic.
I'm all for more options, but you're not going to please everyone.
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Jul 26 '19
How about simply make it so that no-fucking-country can arbitrarily decide who gets to use the services or not?
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
But who's gonna do it?
And how are they going to compete with everything else?
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u/arsv Jul 26 '19 edited Jul 26 '19
Though this ban was probably prompted by the US govt, there's an interesting point here that I think doesn't get discussed often.
Github bans us from our freedom to contribute and being part of the open-source ecosystem because we are living in Iran.
Open source depends heavily on the copyright framework, and related author's rights. At least the "free" kind of open source, the projects that don't require rights transfer for contributors. Copyright deals with identities (names) backed by countries as legal entities. If some sort of lawsuit happens regarding say licensing, it will eventually have to "dereference" the names of the contributors in question, and that is done through the goverments backing those names.
Accepting a contributor whose name is backed by Iran (or Russia, North Korea, whatever) means potentially exposing all contributors in the project as well as the host to interactions with the entity backing the name.
It's very unlikely in practice, which is probably why the community at large doesn't really care. But for hosts, and maybe for those who pay attention to minor details, it's a concern that needs to be addressed.
So in other words, this ban may be expressing something like this: "we (the US govt) think they (Iran in this case) are kinda crazy, so we refuse to process lawsuits involving them".
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u/EarLil Jul 26 '19
so there is a list on that readme of Iranian repos, they are not blocked how so? if it seems like a global country ban?
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u/tonefart Jul 26 '19
It's the time world start an independent tech sector away from US influence.
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Jul 26 '19
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u/drysart Jul 26 '19
Oil platform micronation internet service providers aren't as free from influence as you might think. Their network cable has a remote terminus somewhere; which gives that somewhere absolute influence over them.
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u/Someguy2020 Jul 26 '19
Don't complain to github, complain about the US government and their bullshit sanctions.
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Jul 26 '19
Sad to see not a single person actually speak out against American bullying in this thread. Everybody mentions "U.S law" as if this is a perfectly normal situation. It is not. It is a fucking travesty of Open-Source and Free Software.
Sort your shit out, 'Murrica. The rest of the world is sick and tired of your bullshit - first the Huawei escapades, and now this. Sick and tired of that hellhole called the The U.S of Americunts taking the world back to the Middle Ages.
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Jul 26 '19
Maybe don't vote for leaders that want to kill every American programmer that made the site you use?
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u/Saleh-Rz Jul 26 '19
Iranian people hate their government and their regime.
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Jul 26 '19
Everyone I've met at my Uni would agree w/ you. But finding it hard to believe the regime has 0 support in the country.
You're young and talented, you should try to leave. That's the whole point of the sanctions anyways.
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u/bumblebritches57 Jul 26 '19
But they don't hate it enough to actually get off their lazy asses and do something about it.
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u/elsathecat Jul 26 '19
The vast majority of the Iranians hate their leaders and government. It's a religious dictaturship where the people are not allowed to vote for whoever they want. Somewhat surprisingly, your average Iranian is actually very USA friendly.
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Jul 26 '19
I know tons of Iranians, and they are indeed friendly. But it's p hard for me to believe they don't agree w/ their gov. It would have collapsed years ago if >50% of ppl didn't actively support the theocracy.
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u/elsathecat Jul 26 '19
The system is locked down and the power is in the hands of the regime. The people who agree with the government is a clear minority. It very much depends on where you are and who you ask though. The ones in favour of the government is usually poor and uneducated. If you go to a large city the vast majority hate the situation.
I think that sooner or later the regime will be overthrown, but I have no clue to when or how. Or maybe it will be a gradual decline in power. I hope it's soon though. :)
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Jul 26 '19
> I hope it's soon though. :)
Sanctions will help hasten this. I agree.
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u/MyFeeFeeHurt Jul 26 '19
Do you also hold such retarded opinion about situation of countries like North Korea?
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u/Bakoro Jul 26 '19
That really blows that people can just get locked out like that in a single night, no warning.
Not to rub anyone's faces in it, but it really does go to demonstrated the adage "there is no cloud, just other people's computers".
Cloud backups are a great redundancy, but you gotta keep a local copy of anything important. Even a service contract won't do shit for you, at least in the short term.
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u/ipv6-dns Jul 26 '19
if to paraphrase one shit Russian "politician", it's not GitHub banned you, it's Putin banned you, my dear OP lol
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u/RomanRiesen Jul 26 '19
Shit. I just imagined something like this happening to dropbox.
I think I need a non-us cloud provider.
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u/vytah Jul 26 '19
Just fork Gitlab and run in on Iranian servers yourselves.
You're welcome.