6 ms·
Pure coincidence. We were working for two years to get this license.
by natfriedman 6y ago
Pure coincidence. We were working for two years to get this license.
- TavsiE9s 6y agoWell then: lucky coincidence.
- jonas21 6y agoSpeaking of fast responses, your response time on these comments is incredible!
- boogies 6y agoTook nearly a week to respond to the original tweet (https://nitter.net/sebslomski/status/1344219609923276801 https://nitter.net/sebslomski/status/1344219609923276801), but not much more than an hour to respond to the quoting tweet from an account with an order of magnitude more followers (Edit: it looks like it depends on how you count “response”: https://nitter.net/GitHubHelp/status/1346250095700946956#m https://nitter.net/GitHubHelp/status/1346250095700946956#m was 18 hours ago, https://nitter.net/sebslomski/status/1346467442428530691#m https://nitter.net/sebslomski/status/1346467442428530691#m was 3).
- zinekeller 6y agoFirst, American holidays does screw up customer service that in some instances it knocks out the very service (a la Slack). Second, despite posting a FAQ from the US treasury department that apparently excludes this case, the posters have missed the point that it only applies to financial services. Software is much more regulated (the silver lining is that cryptography is no longer munitions-class export fortunately) than most commenters think and that behind-the-scenes negotiations tends to happen especially with regards to cryptography.
- ddevault 6y agoHey Nat, since you're on the line here, can I ask for more details about how this process might apply to other software forges? Were you able to secure a general exception for your line of business, or is it specific to GitHub? If the latter, how difficult/expensive was the process? Great work, by the way. Kudos as well for committing to a DMCA abuse fund.
- natfriedman 6y agoThe license is specific to GitHub. However, we don't want this to be a competitive advantage for GitHub; developers should choose GitHub because it is better, not because it has a license from OFAC. So we have taken it upon ourselves to advocate for OFAC to allow developers in Iran and other sanctioned countries greater access to all platforms, and we will continue to do so. This kind of change would likely require an update to OFAC’s regulations, the issuance of an updated general license, or the issuance of formal guidance from the agency. We hope that OFAC’s issuance of a license to GitHub will help pave the way for broader access to similar platforms.
- ddevault 6y agoThanks for clarifying, and for working to open things up for all platforms, I really appreciate it.
- lambda_obrien 6y agoLuckily, your code is open source so those in Iran can run their own instance locally.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 6y agoAre you concerned that the first time someone from Iran posts something controversial (eg. "Opensource Nuclear enrichment centrifuge control algorithm") that the license will be knee-jerk revoked with no notice?
- not2b 6y agoGithub might need to take down something like that from any developer regardless of country, because of other export laws, concerning nuclear technology. But I don't think that would result in punishment of the developer's country. But IANAL and the rules are complex.
- JoshTriplett 6y agoI'm curious: what was the rationale for not talking about this at all until it was ready? It seems like "we're working on a possible solution" would have been a good response to the many complaints about this. Was there some reason to believe that mentioning you were working towards this license would have a detrimental effect on the review process for that license?
- natfriedman 6y agoI mentioned it many times, actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s=20 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s...
- JoshTriplett 6y agoThanks for clarifying; the mention of "advocating" hadn't seemed connected to the idea of obtaining a "license". Congratulations on prevailing here.
- londons_explore 6y agoSaying "we are applying for an OFAC license" will lead to a deluge of other tech companies applying for the same license, and the likely outcome is the OFAC says "we don't have the manpower to review all these, reject them all".
- dijit 6y agoIf they had been denied the licence then it’s potentially misleading. Generally you don’t comment on things if there is a very realistic chance they’re unachievable.
- aflag 6y agoWhy would it be misleading to say they are applying for a license?
- 6y ago
- user-the-name 6y agoNow that you've done that, are you going to work on not supporting the child rapists at ICE next?
- goshx 6y agoYou have my respect regardless.
- Triv888 6y agoThey were taking their sweet time processing the application until today.
- ShakataGaNai 6y agoThank you for everyone's hard work in bringing open source to everyone.
- aaomidi 6y agoI probably started too many stinks on the Microsoft yammer page related to this. Thanks for finally getting it done.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoThank you.
- knocte 6y agoI still can't access my company's org private repos (a company incorporated in Hong Kong, with only European employees) because I opened my laptop in a hotel in Iran 3 months ago.
- natfriedman 6y agoIt's taking us a day or so to remove all the restrictions. Email me if this isn't fixed today: nat@github.com.
- 1Student 6y agoThank you Nat. It is better that Github be fully available on other countries sanctioned by US like Syria, Venezuela, ... I am from Iran. unfortunately, we are prisoners of mullahs like peoples of other countries sanctioned by US that are prisoners of their dictatorship governments.
- gabythenerd 6y agoGithub is fully available in Venezuela though. The US sanctions are mostly against the government in our case (I'm Venezuelan).