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Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

Wait, seriously? But GitHub is a censored platform, it's not universally accessible. Microsoft is blocking people from US-sanctioned world states:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-coun...

how can Rust conduct any official business on such a platform?

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I am surprised that you are surprised that Rust is relying on GitHub. Hundreds (thousands probably?) of companies use GitHub to host their code and daily business operations, including Rust

Rust Foundation is a US-based organization so it has to follow its declared goals and principles only to the extent that the US laws allow it, you know?

1. Don't know that there's anything preventing US-based organizations to use non-US-based computing platforms which are universally accessible. And if things are indeed that bad - that means Rust as a project has decided to define itself as a partisan US endeavor. USers might hear this and just shrug carelessly, but imagine how you would feel if the Rust foundation's websites would be inaccessible for people in, oh, say, New Jersey. Nobody from Jersey could publish rust crates. That's preposterous.

2. The UN's headquarters are in the US, the same principles should apply, although I realize legally that might not be the case. Then again - maybe projects like a programming language should actually be constituted via the UN, or ISO, to have the appropriate non-partisan legal basis for operations.

> there's anything preventing US-based organizations to use non-US-based computing platforms which are universally accessible

Trade/technology embargoes and sanction regimes are just such things. For an example how arbitrary those can be, the US sanctioned a German port for participating in NordStream 2 construction — and that project had zilch to do with the US, even its financing was done in Euro, not USD.

> The UN's headquarters are in the US,

And the US somewhat regularly declines its visas to the UN representatives it doesn't particularly like. So?

In any case, an international organization (and its members) is not automatically outside of the jurisdictions of the country (countries) it's physically in; if such a need arises, the governments have to pass specific laws regarding those specific organizations and its members, granting some sort of immunity or another. Or they just don't, and the organization simple has to function as a non-profit multinational.

Easily and with great success?

Rather successfully apparently. Maybe you’re overestimating the number of would-be contributors from sanctioned countries who aren’t using workarounds?

You realize this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people from certain countries are excluded - formally, technically or culturally - naturally they would not tend to even try to contribute.

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