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Just as a sidenote: Gitlab may no longer be accessible any more from Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. From the article: NOTE to users in

Just as a sidenote: Gitlab may no longer be accessible any more from Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. From the article: NOTE to users in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria GitLab.com may not be accessible after the migration to Google. Google has informed us that there are legal restrictions that are imposed for those countries. See this U.S. Department of the Treasury link for more details. At this time, we can only recommend that you download your code or export relevant projects as a backup.

SahAssar 8y ago
Do we know if there are people using gitlab.com in North Korea?
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  Sometimes open source projects tend to link to their git repos. Hypothetically something to bypass censorship might just point you to a README on a repo for installation details.
  - SahAssar 8y ago
    Right, I get that it can be useful, I was just interested if there was any indications of gitlab being used in NK. Considering Red Star OS (the NK linux distro) it wouldn't be unimaginable if there was a gitlab fork or a few gitlab.com repos used by NK.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
wereHamster 8y ago
Kinda sad that GitLab doesn't point to VPN providers that those users could use to route around this legal issue.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Operyl 8y ago
  That opens a can of worms from a legal perspective, and they are a US business.. EDIT: It's one thing to accidentally be violating an embargo, it's another thing entirely to suggest ways to bypass it on your company site.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  GitLab doing so would be arguably a deliberate violation of sanctions. While GitLab is not responsible if users decieve them about origin by using a VPN, they absolutely are if they choose an compliance mechanism that can be tricked by a VPN and then point people from sanctioned countries to a VPN provider that will trick their compliance mechanism. The law can be stupid, but it's rarely as stupid as the people suggesting simple hacks around it think it is.
dzhiurgis 8y ago
Why Crimea though? If Russia annexed it, why not block entire Russia?
- Denvercoder9 8y ago
  Restricting US companies from doing any business with Russia hurts the US economy too much.
  - consumer451 8y ago
    Based on my napkin math using 2017 data, Russia makes up 0.45% of US exports, and 0.43% of imports. So I think there must be more to it than: > Restricting US companies from doing any business with Russia hurts the US economy too much. sources: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html https://www.statista.com/statistics/218255/total-value-of-us-trade-in-goods-worldwide-since-2004/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218255/total-value-of-us...
  - foobarbazetc 8y ago
    No it doesn’t. Non-energy related trade is basically nil.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Sanctions on specific areas of conflict are not unique or new and they are not limited to online services you can’t sell anything to Crimea doesn’t matter if it’s physical or not.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  Such a ban is pointless unless you block every business which does business with Russia and that is not possible. Eastern European countries, ex soviet satellites, etc would have to pick sides and that kind of final decision isn't in our best interests or theirs. If you only block doing business with Russia, then middlemen in other countries will just have to be go-betweens making a politically inflammatory action (blocking a world power) that wasn't actually effective beyond being offensive. Blocking Crimea is a symbolic but also mostly ineffective practice done to make a statement. Making that statement about the entire country wouldn't be prudent.
asah 8y ago
Could they refer customers to proxy service(s) on neutral soil ? If not, can/should someone post here?
dillondoyle 8y ago
I'm more curious as to why their existing Microsoft hosting doesn't abide by the sanctions.
crazygringo 8y ago
I would assume anyone who uses Gitlab in one of these countries has already been using proxies for a long time, and that this is not going to pose the slightest problem?
zxcv1975 8y ago
This is very sad. We are using GitLab.com because the terms of use says: 21. Governing law [1] This Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the Netherlands. Is there a code hosting service in Europe or any place of the world that cubans can use? 1. https://about.gitlab.com/terms/#gitlab_com https://about.gitlab.com/terms/#gitlab_com
- londons_explore 8y ago
  I believe that GCP is accessible from all of those places. They simply don't guarantee it will remain available, or have any kind of SLA.
emilfihlman 8y ago
If they could access Gitlab when on Azure, this is a very shitty regression.

SahAssar 8y ago

Do we know if there are people using gitlab.com in North Korea?

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
Sometimes open source projects tend to link to their git repos. Hypothetically something to bypass censorship might just point you to a README on a repo for installation details.
- SahAssar 8y ago
  Right, I get that it can be useful, I was just interested if there was any indications of gitlab being used in NK. Considering Red Star OS (the NK linux distro) it wouldn't be unimaginable if there was a gitlab fork or a few gitlab.com repos used by NK.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

wereHamster 8y ago

Kinda sad that GitLab doesn't point to VPN providers that those users could use to route around this legal issue.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Operyl 8y ago
That opens a can of worms from a legal perspective, and they are a US business.. EDIT: It's one thing to accidentally be violating an embargo, it's another thing entirely to suggest ways to bypass it on your company site.
dragonwriter 8y ago
GitLab doing so would be arguably a deliberate violation of sanctions. While GitLab is not responsible if users decieve them about origin by using a VPN, they absolutely are if they choose an compliance mechanism that can be tricked by a VPN and then point people from sanctioned countries to a VPN provider that will trick their compliance mechanism. The law can be stupid, but it's rarely as stupid as the people suggesting simple hacks around it think it is.

dzhiurgis 8y ago

Why Crimea though? If Russia annexed it, why not block entire Russia?

Denvercoder9 8y ago
Restricting US companies from doing any business with Russia hurts the US economy too much.
- consumer451 8y ago
  Based on my napkin math using 2017 data, Russia makes up 0.45% of US exports, and 0.43% of imports. So I think there must be more to it than: > Restricting US companies from doing any business with Russia hurts the US economy too much. sources: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html https://www.statista.com/statistics/218255/total-value-of-us-trade-in-goods-worldwide-since-2004/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218255/total-value-of-us...
- foobarbazetc 8y ago
  No it doesn’t. Non-energy related trade is basically nil.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Sanctions on specific areas of conflict are not unique or new and they are not limited to online services you can’t sell anything to Crimea doesn’t matter if it’s physical or not.
colechristensen 8y ago
Such a ban is pointless unless you block every business which does business with Russia and that is not possible. Eastern European countries, ex soviet satellites, etc would have to pick sides and that kind of final decision isn't in our best interests or theirs. If you only block doing business with Russia, then middlemen in other countries will just have to be go-betweens making a politically inflammatory action (blocking a world power) that wasn't actually effective beyond being offensive. Blocking Crimea is a symbolic but also mostly ineffective practice done to make a statement. Making that statement about the entire country wouldn't be prudent.

asah 8y ago

Could they refer customers to proxy service(s) on neutral soil ? If not, can/should someone post here?

dillondoyle 8y ago

I'm more curious as to why their existing Microsoft hosting doesn't abide by the sanctions.

crazygringo 8y ago

I would assume anyone who uses Gitlab in one of these countries has already been using proxies for a long time, and that this is not going to pose the slightest problem?

zxcv1975 8y ago

This is very sad. We are using GitLab.com because the terms of use says: 21. Governing law [1] This Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the Netherlands. Is there a code hosting service in Europe or any place of the world that cubans can use? 1. https://about.gitlab.com/terms/#gitlab_com https://about.gitlab.com/terms/#gitlab_com

londons_explore 8y ago
I believe that GCP is accessible from all of those places. They simply don't guarantee it will remain available, or have any kind of SLA.

emilfihlman 8y ago

If they could access Gitlab when on Azure, this is a very shitty regression.