GitHub has made changes to the document defining the company's policy regarding trade sanctions and compliance with US export regulation requirements. The first change boils down to the inclusion of Russia and Belarus in the list of countries in which sales of the GitHub Enterprise Server product are not allowed. Previously, this list included Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.
The second change extends restrictions previously adopted for Crimea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Sudan and North Korea to the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk republics. Restrictions apply to sales of GitHub Enterprise and paid services. Also, for users from countries included in the sanctions list, it is possible to restrict access of paid accounts to their public repositories and private services (repositories can be switched to read-only mode).
It is separately noted that for ordinary users with free accounts, including for users from Crimea, DPR and LPR, unlimited access to public repositories of open projects, gist notes and free Action handlers is maintained. But this opportunity is provided only for personal use and not for commercial purposes.
GitHub, like any other US-registered company, as well as companies from other countries whose activities are directly or indirectly related to the US (including companies that process payments through US banks or systems such as Visa), are required to comply with the requirements of restrictions on exports to territories subject to sanctions. To conduct business in regions such as Crimea, DPR, LPR, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Sudan and North Korea, a special permit is required. For Iran, GitHub previously managed to obtain a license to operate the service from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which allowed Iranian users to return access to paid services.
US export laws prohibit the provision of commercial services or services that may be used for commercial purposes to residents of sanctioned countries. At the same time, GitHub applies, as far as possible, a lenient legal interpretation of the law (export restrictions do not apply to publicly available open source software), which allows it not to restrict the access of users from sanctioned countries to public repositories and does not prohibit personal communications.
Source: opennet.ru