SourceForge, US Laws and FOSS

FOSS = Free and Open Source Software.

Casually reading through my usual list of news websites, I stumbled across a link which led me to a recent post about Notepad++’s new website. It turns out that Notepad++ has moved hosting of their site due to SourceForge compling with US law to deny access for some countries.

SourceForge’s filtering started sometime in January. Clearly, I was enjoying my vacation a bit too much to notice anything.

As many of you would agree, all this reminds a person of the Cryptography Export Regulations which the US introduced some time ago.

Many feel that affected users should simply use TOR to conceal their location, while concerned project maintainers should use an alternative service provider for hosting. I believe that if we are a community determined to support FOSS, then such work-arounds are simply not sufficient nor is such a mind-set. It is not possible for a project to “OPEN” to all, if it is hosted on a provider like SourceForge and unavailable to certain countries.

Although I understand that SourceForge are not entirely to blame as they were adhering to laws imposed upon them, I still believe there must have been some loophole in the legislation which could have been utilised.

When confronted with cryptography export laws, Phil Zimmermann utilised a legislation-loophole which allowed printed copies of the PGP source to be distributed globally.1

Whether some creative thinking will overcome such laws and regulations is not yet apparent. However, a solution needs to be found as an increasing number of countries wish to impose restrictions against their rivals and opponents.

At this rate, it seems like we may require the creation of a darknet specifically for the hosting of FOSS products.

  1. Refer to section PGP 5.0 ↩︎

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