DaemonForums  

Go Back   DaemonForums > DaemonForums.org > News

News News regarding BSD and related.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
J65nko J65nko is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Budel - the Netherlands
Posts: 4,128
Default SourceForge bars 5 nations from open source downloads

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01...ess_filtering/

Quote:
Open-source code repository SourceForge.net has begun automatically blocking the internet addresses of users from countries such as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria in an attempt to enforce a policy forbidding them from downloading free software.
__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump
Reply With Quote
  #2   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
TerryP's Avatar
TerryP TerryP is offline
Arp Constable
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USofA
Posts: 1,547
Default

It's kind of the price of being located in the USA, big brother is always eyeing trade. The fact that most interesting software should be available from free download sides or piracy-sectors of the net, from beyond the reach of US legalities, not withstanding >_>.


They will just download it somewhere else, or sneak under the fence lol. In the USA, it's not uncommon for software EULAs (especially militainment) to make it a violation to break the EULA, and share it with anyone on certain lists of places/people the US has denied your right to trade with.
__________________
My Journal

Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
Reply With Quote
  #3   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
Beastie Beastie is offline
Daemonology student
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: /dev/earth0
Posts: 335
Default

I don't know what to say. They're hypocrites and a disgrace to the OSS community. What do they hope to achieve? That's just not right.
__________________
May the source be with you!
Reply With Quote
  #4   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
jggimi's Avatar
jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,977
Default

Call them hypocrites if you want, Beastie, but the fact is, what they hope to achieve is the avoidance of being brought up on charges by the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Quoting from the OFAC's website FAQ:
Quote:
The fines for violations can be substantial. Depending on the program, criminal penalties can include fines ranging from $50,000 to $10,000,000 and imprisonment ranging from 10 to 30 years for willful violations. Depending on the program, civil penalties range from $250,000 or twice the amount of each underlying transaction to $1,075,000 for each violation.
You can call them hypocrites, but this will keep the officers of Geeknet, Inc. out of trouble with US Treasury, and, out of trouble therefore, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as they are a publicly traded company. And, in their last quarterly report, while they do not mention any pending litigation related to any regulatory action by OFAC or others, they do reference possible future regulatory action that could effect their e-commerce as a risk factor to their business. Regulation by US Treasury, such as that imposed by OFAC, or, the more common munitions restrictions such as US State's ITAR or EAR, were not mentioned.
Reply With Quote
  #5   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
J65nko J65nko is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Budel - the Netherlands
Posts: 4,128
Default

As mentioned in the blog, sourceforge, regrets that they had to take this step, but urge you to write to your congressman/senator about this.

This is affecting some of our members. For example Gag the graphical bootloader is hosted on http://gag.sourceforge.net/
We have two forum members from Iran, Vigol and mfaridi. So these will not be able to download GAG anymore, while Gag's developer is Spanish IIRC.
__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump
Reply With Quote
  #6   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
DutchDaemon's Avatar
DutchDaemon DutchDaemon is offline
Real Name: Ben
Spam Refugee
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Posts: 336
Default

Mfaridi's base are belong to Afghanistan, I believe.
Reply With Quote
  #7   (View Single Post)  
Old 26th January 2010
J65nko J65nko is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Budel - the Netherlands
Posts: 4,128
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by DutchDaemon View Post
Mfaridi's base are belong to Afghanistan, I believe.
Yes his nationality is Afghan, but from a few PM exchanges on bsdforums.org I know he works for a company in Iran, at least at that time
__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump
Reply With Quote
  #8   (View Single Post)  
Old 27th January 2010
ephemera's Avatar
ephemera ephemera is offline
Knuth's homeboy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 537
Default

I haven't read the original article but in any case banning people from select countries from downloading free software is not cool at all.

This is off-topic but sometime back I was denied access to some forum because they had banned IP address originating from my Country.
Ok, so, I sort of understand why they did that but still it really pissed me off.
Sometimes you got to do it for practical reasons but to the person on the receiving end it feels like an insult.

Last edited by ephemera; 27th January 2010 at 08:47 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #9   (View Single Post)  
Old 27th January 2010
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

No, it is not cool. But the US government feels that a trade embargo for these countries is in order, and this includes software.

As jggimi and the sourceforge article point out, getting sued is even less cool.

Your beef is with the US government, not with sourceforge ...
__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
Old 27th January 2010
bmk1st bmk1st is offline
Port Guard
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 25
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker View Post
No, it is not cool. But the US government feels that a trade embargo for these countries is in order, and this includes software.

As jggimi and the sourceforge article point out, getting sued is even less cool.

Your beef is with the US government, not with sourceforge ...
The trade embargo also applies to US citizens who buy products from these countries. If an American goes to Canada, buys boxes of Cuban cigars, then goes back through the border with cigars. They can get caught and be arrested for transporting banned items to USA.
Reply With Quote
Old 27th January 2010
jggimi's Avatar
jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,977
Default

Actually, Cuban commerce falls under special regulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_with_the_Enemy_Act

I know this because I live less than 2 KM from Canada, and used to enjoy cigars.

(No, I have never transported Cubanos over the border, but I have heard that one should not visit the Havana House in a vehicle with US plates.)

Last edited by jggimi; 27th January 2010 at 03:46 PM.
Reply With Quote
Old 27th January 2010
bmk1st bmk1st is offline
Port Guard
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 25
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
Actually, Cuban commerce falls under special regulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_with_the_Enemy_Act

I know this because I live less than 2 KM from Canada, and used to enjoy cigars.

(No, I have never transported Cubanos over the border, but I have heard that one should not visit the Havana House in a vehicle with US plates.)
Oops. I was thinking of wrong thing. Thanks for the clarification.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Open-source Flash? stukov Off-Topic 35 17th December 2009 04:53 PM
open source web hosting control panel's crayoxide General software and network 2 28th September 2008 11:42 PM
open-source driver question sjalex Other BSD and UNIX/UNIX-like 3 15th July 2008 05:37 AM
What Open Source package shall I run? satimis Off-Topic 2 2nd June 2008 12:43 PM
From Windows Dysphoria to Open source bliss FloridaBSD Off-Topic 1 5th May 2008 03:54 AM


All times are GMT. The time now is 07:24 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Content copyright © 2007-2010, the authors
Daemon image copyright ©1988, Marshall Kirk McKusick