Since when did SourceForge start exporting software?

Sam Varghese
Saturday, 30 January 2010 07:15

Opinion and Analysis

SourceForge, the world's largest site for hosting development of free and open source software, has shut out users from a number of countries, saying it is merely following US laws.

The site is using automatic IP blocking to prevent developers and users from Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Sudan from accessing the site.

SourceForge merely hosts projects, something in the region of a quarter of a million. It does not own any of them. It does not export anything. US law applies to the export of American products. How then is the ban justified?

In the late 90s, when the well-known PGP encryption product was facing problems about exporting certain kinds of encryption due to US laws, the owner, NetWork Associates, sold its products to international customers from its Dutch subsidiary. But then the company had something to gain from doing so - money.

SourceForge clearly sees no gain in stretching its neck out for people in the countries mentioned. The extent to which the US and other Western media have demonised these countries appears to have worked.

A post on the ArabCrunch.NET highlighted the issue on January 22, asking "Is open source still open?" It took three days for the technology news accumulation site, Slashdot, to link to this post. And it happened only after SourceForge had issued a "clarification". But then that isn't surprising - SourceForge and Slashdot are both owned by GeekNet. Corporate interests clearly come first.