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Sourceforge.net Blocked In Mainland China
gzipped_tar contributed a link to Moonlight Blog, which says that "SourceForge, the world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications, appears to be blocked in Mainland China. The current blocking may be related to the recent anti-China protests of Beijing Olympic Games, which will begin on 8 August. Some days before, a very popular free source code editor in SourceForge named Notepad++ start to boycott Beijing 2008. The project's developer said that the action is not against Chinese people, but against Chinese government's repression against Tibetan unrest earlier in this year. SF.net has once been banned by China in 2002. However, the ban was lifted later in 2003."
gzipped_tar adds: "As a SourceForge user in Beijing, I can confirm this first-hand. I also tried traceroute to sourceforge.net, only to find the connection being dropped at a Beijing ISP's gateway router. It appears that the projects' respective homepages are available even if they are hosted by SF, but the summary and download pages are blocked."
(As you probably know, Slashdot and Sourceforge share a corporate overlord.)
Recently I read that people were arrested and/or beaten because they didn't promote the Olympics. Is it strange that the chinese govt blocks EVERYTHING that protests against it?
I can see politics entering a free for all site like Slashdot, but Sourceforge??? While I personally think it's disgusting that China even GOT the Olympics and find their regime and it's actions reprehensible, there are proper forums for such matters. Sourceforge isn't one of them.
Except that an OSS project is voluntary. Totalitarian Marxism is not. It is imposed by a central Government and you have no option to fork the code...
It should be a rule to keep one's politics separate from such projects.
In Open Source? One might as well ask Stallman to run Vista.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I guess I don't understand your comment because you seem to be saying "good riddance!"... but why should the open-source community be happy that a government firewall is fracturing the community?
Why?
Actors feel free to express their ideas on politics, some corporations do not hesitate to sponsor or take position for a given cause.
Why should FREEsoftware refrain from doing so?
It's even distributed under GPL v2 which means they are not even forbidding those with whom they disagree to use it.
May I use your sig please?
Tell your editor that "communist China" has been down for quite some time. "China the generic fascist state" still stands, it seems.
The Olympic Brand is in very serious trouble
zimbabwe? sudan?
>I think it's idiotic for these project leaders are attaching their pet causes to software with bunch of
>contributors.
And I think you miss something fundamental about "Free as in Speech." I'd go as far as to say you are supporting the suppression of free speech with your comment.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It was one project page, notepad++. If a person wants to protest on their own personal project page, that's a perfect place to do it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Well I think the difference is the the US and British gov't stand for the ideals of freedom. I don't think freedom is something that exists... I think it's something we have to work towards. Sometimes we're not always as close as we'd like, but the ideals are still there. China has no interest and no desire for freedom of any kind. Ironically, they don't even like free software. China seems to work on the premise that if you block enough information for the outside people will begin to think they have it better than the rest of the world, and maybe they do... but I doubt it.
As a conscientious human being, you have a duty to speak out against injustice when you see it. If you have a large audience because of your software, you have a responsibility to use that platform. As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you want change, you have to speak out, you may even have to be a bit disruptive. Yeah it sucks for the rest of us, but it would suck even more if no one ever spoke up.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They're not fascist, they're totalitarian. Similar, but different.
Not a sentence!
I don't see the developer as the bad guy who keeps SF out of China, isn't it more the repressive chinese regime that is blocking SF because someone executes his right of free speach? So shouldn't we all rather be mad a this regime than at the guy who thinks he can say what he thinks (whether you agree or disagree with the content or form of delivery)?