Re: [simspark-devel] Moving to a kinder project hosting service?!

[<Oli...@cs...>]

Hi all,

On 08/02/2010, at 8:07 PM, Hedayat Vatankhah wrote:

> As you might know, SourceForge has recently blocked access to its 
> contents (downloading released files) to Iranian users (and users of 
> other countries under sanctions by USA). And Iranians should use 
> workarounds to access these files.

apologies for my ignorance, I must admit I wasn't really aware of this issue.

I agree this is an issue (but as I read they are workarounds for the time being). I have checked the explanation on sourceforge, and unless there is other evidence I tend to believe SF was required to follow this step because of how lawyers would possibly interpret US law. 

Joschka and I have OK experience using Origo (http://www.origo.ethz.ch/), a service similar to SF based at the ETH at Zurich. The service is simpler than the one at SF, but I believe it would provide everything required. Also, SVN is the only system in place (i.e. no git or cvs). I we consider a move, I would anyway propose to not shift from SVN to something else at the same time if possible. Also I would be happy if the project name stayed as either spark or simspark if possible.

SF provided good and reliable service over the past years, so it would be nice trying to find out what we can expect over the next months before moving over to somewhere else (in the past, US laws also prohibited exporting strong encryption but this was relaxed eventually). I have sent the guys at SF an email to double check what their feeling about this issue is (even though I don't expect much to come out of it). I'll post the answer here if I get one.

Finally, there would also be some work / friction involved in actually moving everything, so I would propose to do this long enough before, or right after RC2010. 

cheers
Oliver