GitHub has taken away private repositories from developers in Crimea
Developers in Crimea have lost paid accounts and private repositories on GitHub. Moreover, repositories are blocked even when temporarily visiting this region.
The service has introduced the same rules for Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea. The reason is in the US sanctions policy, writes Gamesindustry.biz .
This information was confirmed on Twitter by the CEO of the GitHub service, Nat Friedman. As it turned out, GitHub did not even have the right to notify users in advance about the upcoming restrictions.
According to Friedman, the owners of open repositories will not be affected by the situation. After all, American sanctions only concern US trade and monetary relations with states from the sanctions list. Therefore, you can save a private repository if you make it public. It is absolutely impossible to create a new private one.
Even those who just visited Crimea risk their repositories. Upon returning to a region that does not appear on the sanctions list, he will have to appeal to GitHub and request the return of access. At the same time, the developer will have to prove that he is not a resident of the peninsula.
We’re not doing this because we want to; we’re doing it because we have to. GitHub will continue to advocate vigorously with governments around the world for policies that protect software developers and the global open source community.
— Nat Friedman (@natfriedman) July 28, 2019″We are doing this not because we want to, but because we have to.
GitHub will continue to actively defend the rights of software developers and protect open source software in dialogue with the authorities of countries around the world.”
As GutHub admitted, there are already cases of erroneous blocking of repositories. The service is currently working on a solution to this problem.
GitHub is one of the largest IT project hosting services (including websites) and a collaborative development tool. The company that owns the service is a “daughter” of Microsoft.
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