SourceForge Clarifies Denial of Site Access

Recently there were some complaints from certain users outside the US stating that they were no longer able to access SourceForge.net. SF.net (who shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has outlined the reasons for these bans, and until someone with sufficient power to alter US law or the lists governing who is allowed to access what data from where, there is unlikely to be a change in these bans. It is worth noting that SF.net is not alone in these difficulties, as the same problems have been reported from other repositories, like Google Code. "As one of the first companies to promote the adoption and distribution of free and open source software, and one that still puts open source at the center of its corporate ideals, restrictions on the free flow of information rub us the wrong way. However, in addition to participating in the open source community, we also live in the real world, and are governed by the laws of the country in which we are located. Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible. The possible penalties for violating these restrictions include fines and imprisonment. Other hosting companies based in the US have similar legal and technical restrictions in place."

Comments

Re:Violation to freedoms of Free Software

[Hurricane78]

You know what this law essentially is?

The law says: If there are evil people in your country, all people in that country must be evil and punished.
If a skinhead on the street would say something like that, you’d call him a fucking racist.
And that’s exactly what it is.

Also, this thing here shows, why centralization can’t work.
Fuck SourceForge! A clone of their services, with all features, is set up in what? A week? Tops.