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Google does the same: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

by dtf 16y ago

infynyxx 16y ago
At least not Github http://help.github.com/terms/ http://help.github.com/terms/ and Bitbucket http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/ http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/
melling 16y ago
The law is ridiculous or complying with it? I think some people live in a fairy tale world. North Korea, for example, recently sunk a South Korean ship killing 41 people. There really are bad people in the world. Personally, I think the Cuba issue is legacy and it's probably time to resolve it. The fear of communism is long gone. Now I think it's just a matter of a bunch of rich voters in Florida who want their nationalized land back, which probably isn't going to happen.
- jrockway 16y ago
  The US has killed far more than 41 people with lethal injections alone. But that is irrelevant. Why shouldn't North Korea's residents be allowed to work on Free Software?
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Open source developers working at the one, heavily monitored, most likely site-restricted cybercafé in Pyongyang? Syria, Iran and Cuba are different matters entirely, but people in North Korea are limited by having no Internet connectivity in the first place, than by being blocked by sites in the US. You may as well ask why the civilizations of Andromeda are stopping us from selling our wares there.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      So if they're already blocked off, why is it a legal requirement for US companies to block them?
      - petercooper 16y ago
        I can't speak as to the policies of the US government, but aren't blocks like these related to the more typical physical sanctions of delivering products to a country? With the Internet, you can just VPN around these blocks anyway, so anyone in NK who wanted to access this stuff and had a connection could do so. That said, since the only people in North Korea who are likely to access the Internet are the people in charge (who we "don't like"), it doesn't seem unreasonable to block their access to software they might use even if it's easy to circumvent anyway.
- melvin 16y ago
  I agree, it's a law and they're following it. Sourceforge and Google are not responsible for that. As far as North Korea, um... so, when the US kills 25 Afghans at a wedding ("oops! my video-game like predator drone readout made it look like they were definitely terrorists") what does that mean? I guess France should stop exporting Notepad++ to the US. Correct? No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly even send an email.
  - tzs 16y ago
    "No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly even send an email." Think about this for a few milliseconds before ranting. How would you write a law that blocked the bad "exports" while allowing the good "exports" through? It's much less work to write and administer to just to block them all to countries like North Korea.
    - mquander 16y ago
      I'd wager it's even less work not to block anything. Answer me this: 1) Can you point to scientific evidence, or even a carefully-reasoned argument, that blocking U.S.-hosted free software from "rogue" states like North Korea, Syria, or Iran either A) is a meaningful deterrent to the governments of such states or B) has a desirable effect on the citizens of those states? 2) Do you think it's likely that the people with power to make decisions about this actually thought rationally about any evidence or reasoning? My provisional answers are 1) Not likely and 2) Fat chance.
      - melling 16y ago
        1) No I can't. Can you prove the opposite? No. Pointless argument. Yes! So why even make it? Can you find North Korea on this map? http://paradoxoff.com/north-korea-night-map.html http://paradoxoff.com/north-korea-night-map.html I bet there aren't too many hackers staying up until dawn hacking on Notepad++. Why does a country with no electricity want to be on this list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_wea... People in power, or anyone else for that matter, really don't have the time to debate the finer points of the export laws (which includes free software), so it's probably better that they just made a simple law that even developers can understand. Someday, this will go away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone Then software developers can find another problem that they can solve from the comfort of their Aeron chair.
- dotBen 16y ago
  "I think some people live in a fairy tale world." You're also in a fairy tale world if you think that 'axis of evil' countries are not going to get their hands on whatever opensource software they like. Most of this stuff is mirrored all over the place and so there is little one can do to stop this (assuming it is worth stopping them in the first place).
  - noarchy 16y ago
    This stuff is mirrored all over the place precisely so that it remains available. And that is how it should be, imo.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Ooooh kay, lets look at the practicality of this: If North Korea (as a government) wants something from Sourceforge's site, will blocking access to the site really prevent them from doing so for more than a second? Meanwhile, if a North Korean wants something from Sourceforge's site, why are you blocking it? Similar to above, they can still get it, but all you're doing is punishing the civilians, most of whom have little to nothing to do with the government. How is this helpful? Now, which of those two is the US Government at war with? They were implying the law is ridiculous. Complying is the cost of existence in a nation.
  - jbarham 16y ago
    Even if are any "civilian" internet users in North Korea (unlikely since using the internet requires government approval), I think it's safe to say that being stymied by US export restrictions on Sourceforge is the least of their problems...
jluxenberg 16y ago
From section 5 of http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html: "regulations require that all postings of open source encryption code be simultaneously reported by email to the U.S. government" Makes me want to organize a protest where everyone posts an implementation of ROT13 on GitHub and sends email to the govt. Of course, it would probably fall on deaf ears...

Google does the same: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

by dtf 16y ago

Google does the same: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

infynyxx 16y ago

At least not Github http://help.github.com/terms/ http://help.github.com/terms/ and Bitbucket http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/ http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/

melling 16y ago

The law is ridiculous or complying with it? I think some people live in a fairy tale world. North Korea, for example, recently sunk a South Korean ship killing 41 people. There really are bad people in the world. Personally, I think the Cuba issue is legacy and it's probably time to resolve it. The fear of communism is long gone. Now I think it's just a matter of a bunch of rich voters in Florida who want their nationalized land back, which probably isn't going to happen.

jrockway 16y ago
The US has killed far more than 41 people with lethal injections alone. But that is irrelevant. Why shouldn't North Korea's residents be allowed to work on Free Software?
- petercooper 16y ago
  Open source developers working at the one, heavily monitored, most likely site-restricted cybercafé in Pyongyang? Syria, Iran and Cuba are different matters entirely, but people in North Korea are limited by having no Internet connectivity in the first place, than by being blocked by sites in the US. You may as well ask why the civilizations of Andromeda are stopping us from selling our wares there.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    So if they're already blocked off, why is it a legal requirement for US companies to block them?
    - petercooper 16y ago
      I can't speak as to the policies of the US government, but aren't blocks like these related to the more typical physical sanctions of delivering products to a country? With the Internet, you can just VPN around these blocks anyway, so anyone in NK who wanted to access this stuff and had a connection could do so. That said, since the only people in North Korea who are likely to access the Internet are the people in charge (who we "don't like"), it doesn't seem unreasonable to block their access to software they might use even if it's easy to circumvent anyway.
melvin 16y ago
I agree, it's a law and they're following it. Sourceforge and Google are not responsible for that. As far as North Korea, um... so, when the US kills 25 Afghans at a wedding ("oops! my video-game like predator drone readout made it look like they were definitely terrorists") what does that mean? I guess France should stop exporting Notepad++ to the US. Correct? No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly even send an email.
- tzs 16y ago
  "No, the issue is whether 'exporting' a text editor to N. Korea would REALLY make any difference. Perhaps the clueless, bribed, caviar-stuffed and prostitute-sucked morons in Congress think so, but most of them can hardly even send an email." Think about this for a few milliseconds before ranting. How would you write a law that blocked the bad "exports" while allowing the good "exports" through? It's much less work to write and administer to just to block them all to countries like North Korea.
  - mquander 16y ago
    I'd wager it's even less work not to block anything. Answer me this: 1) Can you point to scientific evidence, or even a carefully-reasoned argument, that blocking U.S.-hosted free software from "rogue" states like North Korea, Syria, or Iran either A) is a meaningful deterrent to the governments of such states or B) has a desirable effect on the citizens of those states? 2) Do you think it's likely that the people with power to make decisions about this actually thought rationally about any evidence or reasoning? My provisional answers are 1) Not likely and 2) Fat chance.
    - melling 16y ago
      1) No I can't. Can you prove the opposite? No. Pointless argument. Yes! So why even make it? Can you find North Korea on this map? http://paradoxoff.com/north-korea-night-map.html http://paradoxoff.com/north-korea-night-map.html I bet there aren't too many hackers staying up until dawn hacking on Notepad++. Why does a country with no electricity want to be on this list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_wea... People in power, or anyone else for that matter, really don't have the time to debate the finer points of the export laws (which includes free software), so it's probably better that they just made a simple law that even developers can understand. Someday, this will go away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone Then software developers can find another problem that they can solve from the comfort of their Aeron chair.
dotBen 16y ago
"I think some people live in a fairy tale world." You're also in a fairy tale world if you think that 'axis of evil' countries are not going to get their hands on whatever opensource software they like. Most of this stuff is mirrored all over the place and so there is little one can do to stop this (assuming it is worth stopping them in the first place).
- noarchy 16y ago
  This stuff is mirrored all over the place precisely so that it remains available. And that is how it should be, imo.
Groxx 16y ago
Ooooh kay, lets look at the practicality of this: If North Korea (as a government) wants something from Sourceforge's site, will blocking access to the site really prevent them from doing so for more than a second? Meanwhile, if a North Korean wants something from Sourceforge's site, why are you blocking it? Similar to above, they can still get it, but all you're doing is punishing the civilians, most of whom have little to nothing to do with the government. How is this helpful? Now, which of those two is the US Government at war with? They were implying the law is ridiculous. Complying is the cost of existence in a nation.
- jbarham 16y ago
  Even if are any "civilian" internet users in North Korea (unlikely since using the internet requires government approval), I think it's safe to say that being stymied by US export restrictions on Sourceforge is the least of their problems...

jluxenberg 16y ago

From section 5 of http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html: "regulations require that all postings of open source encryption code be simultaneously reported by email to the U.S. government" Makes me want to organize a protest where everyone posts an implementation of ROT13 on GitHub and sends email to the govt. Of course, it would probably fall on deaf ears...