Of course most Github users from Russia aren’t guilty, and many of them are already against the war. Good for them! But that’s not the point.
White collar workers just flee the country: See Venezuela, Iran, etc. Even Russian Revolution itself is an example of this trend.
When white collar workers become "inconvenient" they get purged as enemies of the people. See Pol Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia. He had brutally purged roughly 25% of his own population, far more in relative numbers than Stalin, Hitler or Mao did, yet he still had been in power for decades, even after Vietnam invaded after massive refugee crisis.
Iran had violent protests in the past few years, but the protesters just got killed and that was it.
Also: I have yet to see such suggestions directed at the US or Israeli population for the many, well-known war crimes their leaders have committed and still are.
Cutting off the US for their invasion of Iraq would have seemed pretty reasonable.
But maybe not so much, since that country was provably ruled by a dictator, so people wouldn’t feel the same about the attack as about one made on a liberal democracy.
But they aren't. And you know why? Because you can't have creativity and innovations without freedom. You can't have money and success without a population where the best and most successful are allowed to create and keep a large part of the value they build.
This is why dictatorships never build Silicon Valleys while their best and brightest quietly emigrate to work and create in freedom.
By action like this, you are just turning into enemies those who want to be on your side.
Unfortunately, there is no way how to harm Putin and his friends only. Wars are like that.
Then you can't have looked very hard because there's a plethora of boycott movements against Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sancti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel_in_sports
There's even a Github example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200923222519/https://github.co...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/9/18172826/bd...
They might block it anyways because it can be used to share information, so that is not a concern.
This is why self-hosting is the ultimate best solution and is a big criterion when i choose software.If you have moral/ethical problems towards an entity: you can solve them, because you're in control, not some "magical cloud fairy" you have to beg to stop providing useful resources to a regime(yes, ultimately even normal well-intended citizens become part of the regime, like it or not) that kills your family or close ones.
As stated previously in my comments, the corporate western world is either personally fetishizing russian or totalitarian regimes (there >are< other examples besides russia/china from the past 10-15 years), or they/their higher-ups are too invested into those countries to be able to do something meaningful without hurting themselves and their own financial well-being.
It is likely an error to assume that GitHub's operators have "foss philosophy", especially given that GitHub is owned by the people who sell Windows and Office and Xbox.
Why would they be against developer freedom in Russia?
When a state behaves inappropriately, it is the responsibility of it's citizens to correct it and prevent it from happening again.
This applies equally to the transgressions of the United States as it does to Russia.
I'm just speculating here, but what if say Microsoft sent a Russia-wide update that wipes all data and kills Windows?
If it's unclear, that's a ball of sarcasm.
> I'm just speculating here, but what if say Microsoft sent a Russia-wide update that wipes all data and kills Windows?
Besides this being quite unethical because that, again, would affect the common folk, many of whom are against this war, it's a temporary measure. That is, assuming their systems aren't mostly Linux/BSD based.
Assuming it’s possible, why would any country trust Microsoft afterwards?
But do cut off civilian exports to Russia such as airplane parts. Ten time zones is a big place once the Boeings and Airbuses (90%+ of fleets?) are grounded for maintenance.
1. It still provide access to citizens
2. Those with vpn can still access it unthrottled
3. It makes the news and set precedent
4. Nobody should underestimate how angry a programmer with a slow connection will be
EDIT: with recent censorship from Russia, it's a tricky situation if github show some "invasion" notice there. Either Russia block github themselves or they irritated because they can't do anything.
Those are not the people you want to target, target the elites close to Putin, those are the ones that could probably force some change.
If we are discussing getting a city's PLCs to stop pumping sewage in reverse after a cyber attack then access should be open. If it's about Yandex server farms then it's different.
- cut off Israel from GitHub for the occupation of Palestine
- cut off Saudi Arabia from GitHub for the invasion of Yemen
- cut off the US from GitHub for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq
- etc.
No double standards for the same imperialisms, please.
For Russia this is a war of expansion.
I think under those conditions Israel could be cut off though.
