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Comment by ronakjain90 | Hacker News Reader

How is accepting a PR account to having a relationship with an individual. Popular OS repository would have code contribution from 1000s of contributor, it's possible that the maintainer don't personally know a majority of them. This just don't make sense.

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It doesn't make sense.

But they're in a country where the law also might not make sense.

Technical / administrative issues aside here I can understand how an individual might fear some sort of retaliation... even if the basis for it is absurd, the consequences could be very real.

In every country there are laws that don't make sense. Yes, the same can be said for your own country. The quantity and ridiculousness can be argued, but there's no place on Earth that's "good", just "better". For any given person, they will have some disagreements regarding the body of law that applies to them.

>but there's no place on Earth that's "good", just "better".

I don't know what you mean by that. I get the rest, but not that.

I assume they're saying that, in an absolute sense, all systems of law are arbitrary and capricious. Some might be much better than others, but none are sufficiently fair or transparent to be "good".

The extent to which you agree with that is a question of political philosophy :).

I can't say I'm well versed in this idea but if people are creating the laws they've got some motivations and trigger for the law.... I think we can evaluate those on some sort of practicality / sense of justice or other scale rather than declare them all arbitrary.

Not exactly the same situation, but see what happened to Behdad Esfahbod, maker of Harfbuzz, which is used in Android, Chrome, Firefox and other things: https://medium.com/@behdadesfahbod/if-you-read-one-thing-fro...

The word "relationship" in this context refers to any kind of relationship including a business relationship. And a quick search shows that the law in question appears to basically make any interaction (no matter how minor) with people from Israel or the Israeli government a crime, so it does seem that it applies here[1]. In particular note this quote:

> Furthermore, hardware and software developed in Israel or by companies that have production branches in Israel are forbidden.

(For the avoidance of doubt, I find the whole situation quite insane -- nobody benefits from governments blocking collaboration over the internet.)

[1]: https://www.jns.org/opinion/irans-anti-israel-law-desperatio...

So no Intel processors?

Then in that case, could even interacting with the PR at all count as a “relationship”? I doubt they’d be prosecuted for simply posting this and closing it, but I’m looking from through US eyes.

I think "relationship" might be bad translation. It's more helpful to think about it from a sanctions point of view. If you own a B2C software company you wouldn't personally know most of your customers either, but that doesn't mean you can sell to Iranian/North Korean customers.

When the consequence of being wrong could be death, what risks would you take?

I think that's still reasonably within the intent of the law. Like, if you had a local eBay competitor you might have tens of thousands of sellers, and you'd certainly have a "relationship" with all of them, even if only via automated systems.

It doesn't need to make sense, but it could be an excuse good enough to get you. In some places there is no functioning rule of law and human rights. And yes, people who would get you -- they also know it doesn't make sense.

> How is accepting a PR account to having a relationship with an individual.

Perhaps the original sources from the Iranian government (e.g., legal texts, judicial rulings, etc.) provided clearer language.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Github discussion comments used simplified / less-precise language for the sake of readability.

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