26 January 2010, 17:15

SourceForge no longer serving open source to US sanctioned countries

SourceForge has confirmed that it is now blocking access from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria to its open source project hosting site. The access blocks come as a result of the company moving to comply with US export restrictions, which make it illegal to transfer or export certain technologies to countries on the US government's sanction list. Failure to comply with the sanctions list can incur penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment.

The company says it deeply regrets "that these sanctions may impact individuals who have no malicious intent, along with those whom the rules are designed to exclude" but says that until either the countries are removed from the sanctions list, or the US administration changes policy, the blocking must remain in place. The company points out that other hosting companies in the US have "similar legal and technical restrictions in place". For projects looking to be hosted without restrictions, Wikipedia has a comparison of open source hosting facilities which notes countries blocked from access and countries blocked from posting.