As for sanctions affecting Russians’ access to gitlab.com, if they do that, we need to push back on them. There is legal precedent for it, for example, Google Play used to block Iranian users because they believed they had to under the sanctions. But then civil society groups (I was involved) lobbied Google to only apply the sanctions to paid apps, since that’s what the sanctions were about. So they then allowed Iranian users access to gratis apps.
About the node-ipc module, that wasn’t “protestware”, that was malware. This is not an opinion, it is a reality.
Calling it protestware, in addition to being false, reduces the severity of the situation, which is quite serious IMO.
The fact that it was not really sophisticated makes it even worse, any system minimally protected by sandboxes would have been saved, so it has only affected the users, bravo
On October 30, 2018, GitLab Inc. is considered the first partly Ukrainian unicorn valued more than $1 billion.
On August 11, 2018, GitLab Inc. moved from Microsoft Azure to Google Cloud Platform, making the service inaccessible to users in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, due to sanctions imposed by Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States.
Re gitlab actions statement:
Let’s be kind to one another during this tragic period, as we hope for a peaceful resolution.
Sounds like too much wishful thinking by now, after what has happened since 11 March.
Re stupid response-ware bordering on malware generally, has Tusky removed its Rick Roll, or been tagged or sanctioned for it yet?
At least Anonymous sends people a relevant informative message. Do they use F/LOSS…
PS Could the forum login get rid of “With (Microsoft’s) Github” or add With Gitlab?
Given all the recent craziness with the internet, it seems like we need to get more mirrors around the world. I did a quick survey of Debian mirrors that support HTTPS that are in regions where F-Droid currently has poor coverage:
If anyone of you are in these countries or speak the related languages, please ask if they’ll also host F-Droid on their mirror.
The author of a related topic deleted their account. So I will summarize it here.
The government of the russian empire apparently is “investing 100 million into the project” of taking the GPLv3 code of F-Droid / Client · GitLab, rebranding it and presenting it as their work without either publishing the modified source code or attributing the original developers.
A Telegram post by my friend from Kramatorsk, Ukraine:
The news website it links to:
A fediverse thread mentioned on the website:
As usual, the fediverse community is deeply concerned. They hypothesize somebody can write the developer a collective letter asking to publish the sources. They are going to waiting a month before complaining about the outrageous government actions to, uh, the government. And of course they are discussing whether anyone in the russian empire is actually obliged to follow GPL.
I was confirming that they are. Reasons? You can think of few, or not, that’s up to you. Hope it’s not another reason to feel censored around here or victimised or smth.
Some of them are about plans/grants which haven’t been published which will/should be public later. Others are issues about some private/security problems. Some of them are not needed to be private IMHO, e.g., one of them is about Hacktoberfest 2021 which I see no point to be private. That’s all, nothing interesting/strange IMO.
