SourceForge Removes Blanket Blocking 147
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the power-to-the-people dept.
from the power-to-the-people dept.
Recently there was much gnashing of teeth as SourceForge (which shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) started programmatically blocking users in certain countries to comply with US export restrictions. Thankfully they didn't let it end there and have found a way to put the power back in the hands of the users. "Beginning now, every project admin can click on Develop -> Project Admin -> Project Settings to find a new section called Export Control. By default, we've ticked the more restrictive setting. If you conclude that your project is *not* subject to export regulations, or any other related prohibitions, you may now tick the other check mark and click Update. After that, all users will be able to download your project files as they did before last month's change."
Liability? (Score:5, Interesting)
So they are letting people "opt in" to remove export controls. Who is liable if the code is subject to export restrictions, SF or the developer?
Re:Liability? (Score:5, Interesting)
So they are letting people "opt in" to remove export controls. Who is liable if the code is subject to export restrictions, SF or the developer?
Is Google liable if I Gmail you restricted encryption algorithms?
Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Canadian locked out of Hulu and Comedy Central's web clips, I wish geolocation based on IP would burn in hell already.
That being said:
There was a Syrian developer commenting on the story about the original announcement, he was justifiably pissed off that Sourceforge had decided to deny him access to his own work. Does this change allow him to work on his project in peace?
Has Slashdot decided to stop mentioning that Sourceforge is owned by the same parent company? They're sure trying to do some damage control by going straight to Slashdot's front page with their weird opt-in workaround..
Re:This is completely stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can code. I am not american. I am not a lawyer. People are downloading from local mirrors, not from USA. How can i say if the project should be restricted or not?
Why does the USA government not build a firewall to prevent exporting any American byte to the restricted list?
Debian has never found this sort of blocking... (Score:5, Interesting)
...necessary. Why has Source Forge suddenly decided that it is?
Re:Duh (Score:3, Interesting)
To which country? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And these restrictions makes so much sense (Score:1, Interesting)
Because we all know that North Korea has no way to get access to any servers outside North Korea.
I wouldn't worry about that since North Korea basically has no Internet [wikipedia.org].
Re:This is completely stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, when you need to choose between a stupid candidate and an abominable one, sometimes stupid is the better choice. Usually, though, they aren't *actually* stupid. They're just cleverly disguising their goals. But they *aren't* experts in any field except getting elected, and, possibly, law. So they make decisions that look stupid to anyone expert in ANY other field. And that's almost everybody. (They just disagree about which decisions were stupid.)
Re:Liability? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but once you're actually in the project can change from exportable to non-exportable very quickly.
For instance, let's say you start with an open source compressor sort of program like Winrar. No biggie there. But then in version 0.42 you add in encryption. At the start everything was peachy keen, but the second you put on that encryption you should, by law, restrict its export.
Re:Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
There already is. It's called launchpad.net and it's free from:
- US software patent law
- stupid DMCA take downs ala battle net emulator
- this silly export law
- sourceforge's adverts which take up 40% of the page
I don't know why anyone bothers using sourceforge anymore. It was great when it was the only solution but now there are MUCH better options. Especially now they're blocking non-US connections.