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Government Software United States

GitHub Secures License To Operate In Iran (mspoweruser.com) 26

Last July, GitHub prevented users in Iran and several other nations from accessing portions of the service due to U.S. sanction laws. Today, the world's largest host of source code announced that it has secured a license from the U.S. government to operate in Iran. It's also working to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well. MSPoweruser reports: "Over the course of two years, we were able to demonstrate how developer use of GitHub advances human progress, international communication, and the enduring U.S. foreign policy of promoting free speech and the free flow of information. We are grateful to OFAC for the engagement which has led to this great result for developers. We are in the process of rolling back all restrictions on developers in Iran, and reinstating full access to affected accounts," wrote Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub. GitHub is also working with the U.S. government to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well.
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GitHub Secures License To Operate In Iran

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  • To actually fixing the platform. really sick and tired of getting angry pink unicorns on every single PR. (for those that don't this is the icon on their error page
  • Why Necessary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IdanceNmyCar ( 7335658 ) on Tuesday January 05, 2021 @08:55PM (#60901474)

    The fact these regions get isolated from a source sharing website is just another example of the freedom of the internet being completely broken and it's being done by a country that proclaims democracy, liberty, and freedom.

    This never should be done and some of these regions are so arbitrary. Crimera but not Russia or Ukraine? It's like screwing people from contested regions just because governments cannot play nice. It's effectively one of the greatest attacks on the "world wide web" ever outside of China's GFW which is a different issue all together. Literally China pushed harder for a GitHub clone after this and then I bet the US realized the information privilege it had to potentially spy on private repositories... oops.

    • The fact these regions get isolated from a source sharing website is just another example of the freedom of the internet being completely broken and it's being done by a country that proclaims democracy, liberty, and freedom.

      The US government does not want companies exporting goods to areas that are deemed to be in conflict with US interests. The purpose of this is to avoid having US companies directly or indirectly helping a foreign government we're in conflict with because well... treason is generally frowned upon.

      This never should be done and some of these regions are so arbitrary. Crimera but not Russia or Ukraine?

      Crimea is an area in conflict so all companies are prevented from sending stuff there. That may not fit the bill very well for Github which is why they were granted a license. If you don't think corporations woul

      • Crimea is an area in conflict so all companies are prevented from sending stuff there. That may not fit the bill very well for Github which is why they were granted a license.

        They weren't they were granted a license for Iran while Crimera's license is still in the works.

        I get that sending weapons is problem but forking the BLAST algorithm on github isn't going to lead to developing the next biological weapon -- not without a lot more infrastructure -- all of which can be effectively cut off with the sanctions you mention.

        This is effectively like banning the export of books to a country because books can lead someone to become educated enough to make a weapon. Let's not sell chem

        • I understand "the mistake" of allowing the policy to not omit the work of Github but when the issue was raised more than a year ago, the issue should of been fixed quickly with an exemption.

          Feel free to blame the outgoing administration. They have been a thorn in everyone's side the entire time.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        If you don't think corporations wouldn't gladly sell weapons to our enemies if it made them a nickle then you don't know history or corporate behavior.

        In war, the winner is the one selling the weapons. So it's completely believable that companies in the US will sell to both the US military and her enemies.

        It's just like in any lawsuit, the winner is always the lawyers.

  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday January 05, 2021 @10:00PM (#60901656) Journal

    We should work together with Iran and become friends with them. America doesn't have an innate disagreement with them, we aren't competitors and we could easily collaborate in many areas. It's just a historical situation where we each call each other names (on both sides).

    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      There is no way the US can ever be friends with a country who's leaders want Israel to be wiped off the map.

      • That's nothing, Iran has a celebration every year for "Death to America." Yeah, we get it, they want America wiped off the map.

        These are meaningless words though, much like Trump's "Lock her up!" Certainly people felt that way, but innately Trump had no interest in locking up Hillary. It wouldn't benefit him. Similarly, the US has no interest in wiping Iran off the map.

    • US polices and public prejudice thanks to superstition ensure our political alignment with Israeli ulta-nationalists and support for perpetuating their ethnostate.
      The American public are mostly delighted with this (the opposition are so small as to be politically irrelevant) so don't expect change.
      Our ties to the Gulf states which are superstitionist opponents of Iran and recent pragmatic clients of Israel likewise ensure US opposition to Iran.
      Then there's Operation Ajax which if any other country perpetrat

      • US policy conflicts with all Iranian interests.

        No LOL. For one thing, Iranians were working with America to get rid of the Taliban.

    • We should work together with Iran and become friends with them. America doesn't have an innate disagreement with them, we aren't competitors

      They aren't competitors because America and other nations have successfully shit upon the middle east for decades. America's greatest accomplishment in the region was the creation of the nation-state of Israel, which has been a successfully persistent irritant (which we have supported with dollars ever since.) The UK pondered it and then decided against (see also: Lawrence of Arabia) and we picked up the torch and ran with it.

      Our coup against Iran was another... uh... coup. We kept them down quite successfu

  • That's the risk of people everywhere else carelessly relying on US controlled infrastructure now faces.

    Sane people/business would do well to avoid relying on anything that the US can pull out under you on a whim.

  • Some Yellow Cake please!

    How much will the delivery fee be? I have DashPass.

  • GitHub: I don't see why this is any sort of news. GitHub is just a random commercial service, one of many that host some form of Git. Anyone wanting to do software development has all sorts of choices - I doubt anyone in Iran particularly missed having GitHub as an option.

    Iran: Why, exactly, does the US have this deep craving to mess around in the Middle East? They have already screwed up lots of countries there, most recently Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Thanks for that. Now they're screwing around

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