On Tue, 22 Jun 2021 05:01:17 -0700 Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
As much as we might wish otherwise, the PSF is also a US entity and has to comply with US laws. GitHub's official policy at
https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls
gives the impression that they're reading the law as narrowly as possible, and allowing access to every person that they legally can. In particular, that policy page claims that there are no restrictions on users from Cuba or Iran, and that users from Syria and Crimea are allowed to participate in OSS projects, just not give GitHub money.
This would be worth checking if possible. If individuals of any country (mostly? except North Korea?) are able to participate as volunteers, then it may be fine, otherwise it is very worrying. But the question is also whether Github might change its policy in the future.
It is even possible for the PSF to do better without breaking the law?
Who knows, the PSF might be breaking the law already (or not). The question is whether authorities would be interested in going after a smallish community of individuals (compared to the Github user base, python-dev is negligible). Also, the python-dev community may always contemplate a move under a different umbrella if necessary. Github won't change its umbrella to just to make things easier for us. Regards Antoine.