[SommaRaikkonen]

> We want every developer to be able to collaborate on GitHub, and we are working with the US government to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well.

I'm very interested in hearing about the experience of HN people from these regions in terms of open source collabs. Since Github has such a large presence, what are you all using instead?

[amiraliakbari]

Access to public repositories was not blocked, so those who wanted to work with open source projects were unaffected. For a while after the GitHub block, many used GitLab. In fact many people who needed private repositories were already using GitLab because of the limitations of GitHub private repositories and its pricing. Also many companies in Iran are using a self-hosted GitLab. After recent blocking of Iranian accounts on GitHub and GitLab, even more companies started using self-hosted GitLab.

The blocking of GitHub accounts was unexpected and presumably took into account the usage history, so many accounts were blocked and had no further access to their private repositories and gists even if they used VPN after that.

GitLab was blocked in Iran after they migrated to GCP, but was accessible with VPN. A few month ago GitLab also started blocking some Iranian accounts, so our company moved all of its repositories to a self-hosted instance just to be safe.

[eternalban]

Are there any obstacles to creating a github clone for Iran, outside of a viable business model? All these ghettoes of company private gitlabs are of no use to an Iranian software industry. Arguably it is even detrimental to Iran's national security.

Speaking of which [the industry], wtf? I left Tehran in 79, and I must tell you, AmirAli, that I fully expected Iran to be a software powerhouse by now (if not earlier), given the national propensities and talents, and the lack of an artificially imposed barrier to starting up an industrial/technical sector, and fairly open access to technical literature. Can you shed light on this?

[varjag]

Talented people are found everywhere around the world, and many are in Iran for sure. But what exactly made you expect a theocracy becoming a software powerhouse?

[rat9988]

Theocracy doesn't necessarily have something to do with being a software powerhouse.

[SV_BubbleTime]

> In fact many people who needed private repositories were already using GitLab because of the limitations of GitHub private repositories and its pricing.

Today I learned how similar to Iranians I am.

> many accounts were blocked and had no further access to their private repositories and gists even if they used VPN after that.

Can’t access with VPN? How?

[sbx320]

> Can’t access with VPN? How?

Your account is unable to access _any_ private repository after being flagged as being from a sanctioned country. That's regardless of where you're actually accessing your account from.

While you could create a new account, you still couldn't grant that new account access (since you can no longer access private repositories from your primary account). Also a new account still runs the risk of getting flagged if you accidentally access the account without a VPN enabled just once.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Oh, I see. Well that’s super lame. This requires a great deal of cooperation on Microsoft’s part.

[arlk]

Most people in Syria use VPN anyway because most of the tech tools are blocked, that includes everything hosted on GCP (including GitLab), Android docs, Bitbucket, SEO tools, not to mention cloud providers, just to name a few.

Actually the next day after GitHub ban, I rolled out a GitLab instance on my server and opened it for free access and published it in Syrian devs groups, but it barely had a dozen active users after 6 months, and all from one company not individual contributors, so I had to turn it off.

What I can say from my experience and how we as Syrians look at open source contributions is that we see it as our ticket to get a better chance in leaving Syria to a good job that allows us to start a new life. It's not something we do as a hobby or for fun in our spare time, because we don't really have spare time.

Btw, it's quite common to have Syrians working on projects for US and Europe and avoid sanctions by VPN and registering their business in Dubai. I know a Syrian company that is a GitHub and AWS partner.

[natfriedman]

GitHub still allows public repo access even in sanctioned locations like Syria and Crimea.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> Crimea

Why would Crimea be sanctioned? It was annexed.

That's like sanctioning the citizens of Iraq for the 2003 US invasion and occupation...

[Merman_Mike]

https://www.state.gov/ukraine-and-russia-sanctions/

ctrl + f "Crimea", there's some interesting information there. It lists specific companies and explains why.

edit: This is a specific example: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm889

[option]

yes, it’s stupid and such sanctions led to more anti-west/us and more pro-russia sentiment in Crimea.

Source: have relatives there

[Merman_Mike]

Which parts of the Crimean sanctions are normal people most upset about?

The ones I'm seeing on the Treasury page target specific individuals and companies. And they're coordinated with Canada and other countries, and the EU.

[select-all]

The termination of processing in Crimea by Visa and MasterCard was actually a big deal. It came out of nowhere. One morning ATMs and terminals in shops just stopped working and everybody was left with maybe some cash and a bunch of useless cards. It was not a joke. I was making trips to the nearest working ATM in Russia with like 15 credit cads of our friends and relatives with scribbled pin-codes - a 6-7 hour drive one way, often only to find that we need to drive further to find a not yet emptied ATM. And then returning with a bag of cash.

And then the same winter Ukraine cut electricity and water supply. I remember doing homework with kids by a candle light, wearing warm jackets inside because heating didn't work. Fun times. I don't know how this all was supposed to turn people of Crimea back to Ukraine and who thought it was a good idea. I think it worked the opposite way and turned a lot of locals into supporters of the annexation.

Anyway, I'd say the most upsetting result of the sanctions is almost total absence of large international and Russian business in Crimea. It makes everything very expensive. It's like an additional tax on everything. For example, no large Russian bank has a local branch. There are only few small local banks and as a result it is really hard to get a business loan or mortgage, and the rates are bad. There are almost no stores of big food chains, and it means the food is more expensive than in mainland Russia; there are no McDonalds, no Burger King or Starbucks; you cannot receive an international delivery and you have to pay to one of the many proxy services that re-send packages if you want to receive a package from Amazon; no international flights which means you always need to buy a flight to Moscow first; etc.

[goblin89]

After annexation, a number of sanctions were put in place against Crimea as a whole. Visa and MasterCard stopped processing payments, eBay and Amazon stopped shipping, Upwork blocked freelancers with Crimean addresses. Some of the sanctions were lifted months to years later, but I am wondering how this must have made the average citizen of the annexed region feel in meantime.

[aasasd]

Speaking of freelancers as others did, basically they all went through acquaintances or shell companies in Russia in order to receive funds from the West. Which doesn't sound like what the US wanted, to me.

[papito]

Except that Iraqis were not forced to take US citizenship. They are still, and will be, citizens of Iraq.

I think it's still possible to hold Ukrainian citizenship in Russia-occupied Crimea, but your life will be thoroughly miserable.

[adamc]

Presumably, they want to keep the pressure on Russia. I don't know why we would sanction Crimea rather than all Russian-held territory, though.

[dgudkov]

Because Crimea isn't part of Russia for the US and much of the world.

[curtis3389]

IIRC, Russia provides gas to Europe.

[helge9210]

No, it wasn't. It's under occupation.

[jimmy2020]

same thing for Syria.

[aasasd]

When the Great Firewall started blocking Github, there was a post on Reddit (iirc) saying Chinese devs basically had to abandon the profession and switch to other work—supposedly because so much development these days depends on libraries and frameworks that are on Github.

Though, I recently learned that Taobao has a publicly-available mirror of npm packages.

However, I'm also noticing more and more popular repositories with Chinese language, in the past couple of years—they gather plenty of stars presumably just due to the population size (can't judge them on merit). I guess the GFW block was lifted and Github is popular for publishing software even for consumption in China.

[modo_mario]

Github being fully blocked never lasted more than a few days I believe. Nevertheless I imagine a lot of Chinese also use Gitee or the like. If a library or something like that is a really common dependency i'd imagine it would have a copy on such places.

[tgragnato]

Gists and other subdomains are still blocked, but the APEX is available.

This is one of those cases where ECH would really make sense: the censor is forced to choose whether to pass TLS connections to an IP or not.

[select-all]

VPN with kill switch on all devices and an address in mainland Russia in github profile. I know quite a few people who live in Crimea and do contract work for US companies, who are not disclosing their actual location to their employers.

[SahAssar]

I'm just guessing, but probably a VPN.

[DaiPlusPlus]

I'm in a first-world nation and I still have to use a VPN to access parts of the Internet like georestricted content on Netflix and YouTube...