[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.