SourceForge blocking access to users from "unwanted countries"

[Lars Uffmann]

Since all wxWidgets downloads are hosted on SourceForge, I think this is
very very important for everyone involved to read: it only just came to
my attention (via MinGW users mailing list) and I think as many
open-source developers and users as possible should know about it:

SourceForge apparently has started blocking project sites to users from
countries that are on an exclusion list of the US-administration. You
might want to read the following articles & statements by sourceforge.

http://arabcrunch.com/2010/01/following-clintons-internet-freedom-speech-us-based-sourceforge-blocked-syria-sudan-iran-korea-cuba-is-open-source-still-really-open.html
http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/
http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-sourceforge-removes-blanket-blocking/

@wxWidgets Developers: Would you consider migrating wxWidgets downloads
to a less restricted hosting service? I personally think if we ignore
this kind of censorship, it will be the beginning of the end of many
open source projects...

Best Regards,

Lars

[Vadim Zeitlin]

Post by Lars Uffmann
@wxWidgets Developers: Would you consider migrating wxWidgets downloads
to a less restricted hosting service? I personally think if we ignore
this kind of censorship, it will be the beginning of the end of many
open source projects...

Offers of new mirrors for our files are always appreciated. In the
meanwhile I don't think you can call this censorship at all because
wxWidgets sources are freely available from ftp.wxwidgets.org or directly
from svn.

But, again, if you have space and bandwidth to contribute, please do.

Regards,
VZ

[Lars Uffmann]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
But, again, if you have space and bandwidth to contribute, please do.

Well, I guess my initial reaction was a bit harsh... I have this little
rebel in me that always screams "foul" when something like that
happens... However, I still think that looking around for alternatives
is a good idea when a website like sourceforge is hosted by a profit
oriented company bound by national laws that violate the free software
foundation's ideas...

I'm not enough into the "scene" enough at the moment to judge the
usability of other available repositories - I was just thinking that it
can never hurt to host at least an image of all files on the projects
website itself - maybe with a request to the users to try mirrors
first... Would that be an idea? Or do you think it would boost the
expenses too much?

Best Regards,

Lars

[Vadim Zeitlin]

Post by Lars Uffmann
I'm not enough into the "scene" enough at the moment to judge the
usability of other available repositories - I was just thinking that it
can never hurt to host at least an image of all files on the projects
website itself - maybe with a request to the users to try mirrors
first... Would that be an idea? Or do you think it would boost the
expenses too much?

Once again, we do already have all the files at ftp.wxwidgets.org which,
AFAIK, doesn't restrict access at all. So it's not like SF is the only
place you can get wxWidgets from. AQs for providing the files from the
www.wxwidgets.org server (which is a different one), I don't think it has
enough space for it.

Regards,
VZ

[Lars Uffmann]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
Once again, we do already have all the files at ftp.wxwidgets.org which,
AFAIK, doesn't restrict access at all.

I am sorry - I thought I had checked all relevant links and only found
sourceforge downloads. Apparently that was wrong, so I am happy with
that solution, of course :)

Lars