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Comment by mtmail | Hacker News Reader

Recent discussion "GitHub and Trade Controls" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20526039 and "My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531039 And related "How is it like to be a dev in Iran" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699

> let us download our private repositories and also make them public (setting control).

Seems reasonable.

> change their restriction policies to not limiting users based on their Nationality.

I don't see this happening. It's US law and github (Microsoft) is bound by it. Maybe a competitor will use it to their advantage and offer

> announce their decision publicly and apologize for making this situation (like what slack did before in the same situation: https://slackhq.com/an-apology-and-an-update).

I can see how the PR team will issue a careful worded letter or blog post. It will say "we regret the situation" but I doubt be an apology.

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>It's US law and GitHub (Microsoft) is bound by it.

That seems like a terrible situation. What if tomorrow there's a US law that <insert ridiculous thing which "everybody" says won't happen until the day it happens>

Maybe they should fork into GitHub US, GitHub EU and so on.

If the law is believed to be unconstitutional, a US company can fight it in court. Otherwise, the company is required to comply with all laws applicable in the jurisdictions they operate. If there is a conflict, the US law has highest authority.

In this case, if GitHub EU is owned by Microsoft, a US company, GitHub EU still must follow US rules. On the flip side, while GitHub EU must follow GDPR, GitHub US would not be required to do so.

Are you sure? Isn't the point of Azure in Ireland that the US government won't be able to request data under the patriot act?

Nope, the point of Azure in Ireland is to increase availability and decrease latency for EU clients. Microsoft challenged a warrant in 2013 to hand over emails stored in Ireland, but the SCOTUS vacated the rulings since it was moot by the CLOUD act of 2018, which allows the government to get data from US companies, no matter where the data physically is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_St...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

Huh. Azure used to have a special region in Germany (joint operation with Deutsche Telekom) but it seems they've killed it last year.

The 'Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Perhaps those affected could spin up a local Gitlab instance and migrate their data to it?

Do the trade restrictions just mean they must refrain from engaging in monetary transactions?

Continuing to offer various free services would be nice.

Downvoters, please explain! So the rest of us would know, too :)

They restrict “providing goods and services”, not just monetary transactions.

See https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...

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