4 ms·

Put bluntly, fuck ITAR. I understand and applaud the intent of keeping extremely dangerous weapons out of the hands of just anybody. But the implementation is

Put bluntly, fuck ITAR. I understand and applaud the intent of keeping extremely dangerous weapons out of the hands of just anybody. But the implementation is insane. Until recently, this same regulation was preventing people from freely distributing SSL libraries! I also understand that Microsoft feels forced to act on this, but as a developer I consider it user-hostile and will investigate other alternatives. Losing access to your repositories on a whim with no chance to download backups is a worst-case scenario. This really vidates the concerns that people had when GitHub was acquired. The US really needs to reassess a lot of its laws which heavily impact electronics - it's not just ITAR, but also things like the CFAA. In the meantime, remember to mirror your repositories locally, because it looks like GitHub is no longer an unlikely point of failure.

Skunkleton 7y ago
> fuck ITAR. As someone who has to deal with ITAR stuff I couldn't agree more. For example, its ok for us to mirror a bunch of open source stuff on the public internet, but we cant put that mirror on a CD and ship it overseas. What a joke.
hsk823 7y ago
Good luck dealing with any US based company on this. Tech companies hands are tied here, the risk of not following through is being literally tried for treason.
microcolonel 7y ago
It's a bit much yeah. I started putting together a motion sensing unit, and realized (after leisurely reading related international law) that I had modified a component (changed its operating frequency) in a way that I may have had to declare it or talk to somebody in advance if I traveled with it outside the U.S. and Canada. After dealing with stubborn, pedantic people in government, I don't even want to touch that unless I know there's good money in it. I think it would be very cool if there were some tax credits or grant programs to offset the cost of compliance, particularly ones that don't require you to have a personal lobbyist to avail yourself of them. My impression is that a lot of creative potential in arms and arms-adjacent (I actually agree with some of the ITAR's more dubious classifications to some extent, though I think there should be less onerous tiers of control for these things) industry is being squandered by unintended effects of the ITAR.
dwheeler 7y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with ITAR. It's a sanction that includes export restrictions, but it's a completely different law. I think the law you want to focus on is: CISADA (Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010). ITAR is just one of several export control laws in the US. The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) is another. In most cases these don't interfere with international software development... but sometimes they do. I don't think Microsoft has a choice here.

Skunkleton 7y ago

> fuck ITAR. As someone who has to deal with ITAR stuff I couldn't agree more. For example, its ok for us to mirror a bunch of open source stuff on the public internet, but we cant put that mirror on a CD and ship it overseas. What a joke.

hsk823 7y ago

Good luck dealing with any US based company on this. Tech companies hands are tied here, the risk of not following through is being literally tried for treason.

microcolonel 7y ago

It's a bit much yeah. I started putting together a motion sensing unit, and realized (after leisurely reading related international law) that I had modified a component (changed its operating frequency) in a way that I may have had to declare it or talk to somebody in advance if I traveled with it outside the U.S. and Canada. After dealing with stubborn, pedantic people in government, I don't even want to touch that unless I know there's good money in it. I think it would be very cool if there were some tax credits or grant programs to offset the cost of compliance, particularly ones that don't require you to have a personal lobbyist to avail yourself of them. My impression is that a lot of creative potential in arms and arms-adjacent (I actually agree with some of the ITAR's more dubious classifications to some extent, though I think there should be less onerous tiers of control for these things) industry is being squandered by unintended effects of the ITAR.

dwheeler 7y ago

I don't think this has anything to do with ITAR. It's a sanction that includes export restrictions, but it's a completely different law. I think the law you want to focus on is: CISADA (Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010). ITAR is just one of several export control laws in the US. The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) is another. In most cases these don't interfere with international software development... but sometimes they do. I don't think Microsoft has a choice here.