SourceForge is now Blocked in Syria & Sudan. How can the rest of the Arab tech community help?

Right on!

At Habib's request, I'm adding this here (I said it on Twitter): It is most definitely getting worth getting to the bottom of this with SourceForge regardless; they may think they're being compliant, but just like the LinkedIn incident last year (http://bit.ly/5jUf48), they may be overfiltering.

Incidentally, I've also heard rumors of these companies being periodically threatened by the powers that be. Those of you in the US who are reading this should continue pressuring the US government to reconsider the sanctions on Syria, Sudan, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. It's absolutely absurd for the US government to, on the one hand, request Twitter change their maintenance times for the sake of Iran, while at the same time banning Iranian users from accessing certain US software products.

Just my two cents.

I don't wanna sound negative here, but to sourceforge I say: join the club

members of this club are:

1. google code (which hosts way many open source projects).
2. mysql (even before being bought by sun, they blocked downloads)
3. the "late" sun (may she rest in peace)

do they have the right, well... no, says who? says open source initiative, if you are interested check this out http://blog.w43l.com/2010/01/open-source-and-politics/

can we change that? I believe at least we can try

here is some links that might be useful
open net initiative
global network initiative
realizing rights

do you know what is ironic? some of these initiatives are supported by google (:

This isn't only a matter of Syrians as they would like to make it look like, as Jillian pointed out, once LinkedIn banned us 'connecting from Syria', and when they were contacted, the matter was resolved.

This angle can also be worked, which is, the rights of other non-banned nationalities, including US citizens connecting to that network, not being able to get served equally, just because of their location. Its disgusting.

I like Hichame's idea, perhaps a large scale version of what we're doing (techies using proxies) could be applied in this situation, perhaps we could come up with a solution to banning from the outside in general?

I wrote about Google not allowing Chrome to be downloaded in Syria in 2008 on the Mediashift blog. The problem is the US foreign export controls act. What I'd like to understand is how does this act track with Hillary's speech yesterday about Internet Freedom. Did she mention this aspect of things? (I haven't yet watched the whole thing because I'm looking for a way to download it once, so that I don't exceed my bandwidth quota for the month and have to pay $10/GB to Lebanese-government controlled telecom monopoly Ogero for the bandwidth it takes to download it over and over again.)

If I'm not mistaken, to change the law would require an act of Congress. In the meantime, it might be interesting to talk to Sourceforge about why they decided to do this at this particular point in time, and to use the current rhetorical leverage that we might have in drawing comparisons between the effects of China's Google attacks and censorship on activists and the effects the US export controls act is having on Syrian and Iranian activists.

Talking out of both sides of its mouth seems to be something US foreign policy makers and enforcers have a history of doing very well. So the points probably aren't lost on them, but they haven't been pushed to the brink where they actually have to address the issue.

What really frightens me is that some other US companies might be encouraged by Source Forge's actions and might actually ban Syrian users from using their products... The bad thing about this situation is that a lot of well known open source apps (Like PortableApps.com stuff, etc..) are hosted on Source Forge! When it comes to Syrian developers, other services (which honestly I think are way better than Source Forge, like GitHub or BitBucket) are still available! But, like I said, it's about the apps that are already there from a regular user's perspective!

Anyway, I think all influential Arabs must move for this to get Source Forge to take back their decision.

Gaith,

I never disagreed with you before, I simply stated that it's not part of the mission of the organization that I work for! You refused to listen when I told you that it doesn't matter what MY personal opinion is (which, by the way, has always been the same).

OpenNet doesn't just cover "third world countries" (please note our focus on Europe too), we focus on one clear thing: governments' censorship of their own citizens. I do occasionally blog about the sanctions issue, but please realize: I am not a principal investigator of OpenNet and I do not shape its scope!

I actually JUST wrote a blog post about Clinton's failure to mention sanctions as well.

You were incredibly rude to me and demonstrated an inability to listen, which is why I stopped talking to you.

I've had mail the following to the FSF and the OSI.

SourceForge and GoogleCode has now blocked all access from by countries on the U.S. 'Foreign Assets Control sanction list'.

If you live in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan or Cuba, you simply can't access SourceForge.

As defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI):

1. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

2. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

SourceForge and GoogleCode are not opensource anymore. This clearly a violation of the license agreement.

We would be pleased if you could attend this cases. Thanks

We have a open a public petition too, please support our cause. http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/CountryBlocks/

@samir I do not see ur point about OpenNET on their website

their website says: "ONI’s mission is to identify and document Internet filtering and surveillance, and to promote and inform wider public dialogs about such practices."

if opennet only reports sites that are blocked by the ISPs in some countries then they should say our mission is to report sites that are blocked by the ISPs in some countries. Rather than miss lead the public about what they do, and have a map that is red in china and the Arab world and clear and stunning in USA.

@brothers in syria, Sudan is blocked too, so you should care about them too not just about your self.

@Jillian C York I wish i saw your same comment here when i was trying to do scope about Sudan on AC last year as i did for Syria, your change of directions here is applauded but i am still suspicious because of my last encounter with you and OpenNET.

I think it is the time for OpenNET to report US censorship rather than just report "Third word countries" this is funny that it comes at a time when Clinton had a speech yesterday about Internet freedom where she said: "We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas"