US Sanctions Hit Github Developers in Several Countries

The recent US trade sanctions have caused Github to restrict the use of its private and paid repositories by developers in several countries.

Github affirms that the restriction is based on place of residence and not nationality as subject to the new US trade law. Hence, developers that are affected include those residing in North Korea, Crimea, Iran, Syria and Cuba.

“We have gone to great lengths to do no more than what is required by the law, but of course people are still affected. GitHub is subject to U.S. trade law, just like any company that does business in the U.S.,” said Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub.

Not even the use of VPN could flout this restriction. In response to developers who then requested for copy of their repos, Github said, “Unfortunately we are not legally able to send an export of the disabled repository content. I’m sorry for the frustration here, but GitHub must comply with U.S. export control laws and sanction requirements.”

The first region to get the hit was Iran, as all Iranian accounts had been blocked; both free and public repositories. Many developers were locked out from their accounts with the pain of not being able to download a backup of their data.

“GitHub is subject to U.S. trade control laws, and is committed to full compliance with applicable law. At the same time, GitHub's vision is to be the global platform for developer collaboration, no matter where developers reside,” said Microsoft, the new Github owner.

“As a result, we take seriously our responsibility to examine government mandates thoroughly to be certain that users and customers are not impacted beyond what is required by law.

This includes keeping public repositories services, including those for open source projects, available and accessible to support personal communications involving developers in sanctioned regions.”

In line with Microsoft’s statement, Github now allows Developers to download a backup of their repo, only if they make it public first. While developers feel it’s not cool to have them expose their data or codes, it is however a bit of relief for some who can now pull down their data and delete the original Github repo.