Hi Ian,

Am 01.08.19 um 11:21 schrieb Ian Turton:
I would suspect that switching to gitlab would not be sufficient as it is still with in the USA and would be subject to the same restrictions. Also if self-hosting we will need to make sure it outside the USA.

Yes - our self-hosted infrastructure is in Germany.

We are aware that gitlab is also hosted in the US.

However, a self-hosted version of gitlab in our current infrastructure adds a significant additional burden. That's why we need to discuss it first, reach consensus and allocate resources for maintenance.

As to China: this is kind of a "black hole" for us. China (and probably also North Korea) are some of the very few countries where we have almost no feedback on usage, have almost no income of donations and sponsorships, etc. My assumption is that in China they just pirate ESRI software, or they have some alternative GIS they programmed themselves.

Andreas


There is also a suggestion that China could be added to the list of "banned" countries too. https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/chinese-developers-fear-losing-open-source-tech-trade-war/article/3011463  While this article suggests that no open source code is affected https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/github-says-chinese-developers-are-safe-export-restrictions/article/3012452

Ian

On Thu, 1 Aug 2019 at 09:35, Andreas Neumann <a.neum...@carto.net <mailto:a.neum...@carto.net>> wrote:

    Hi,

    Thanks for bringing up this discussion.

    My personal opinion is that we should be worried by such
    development and
    should have a plan B for hosting our code.

    We certainly want QGIS and its source code to be available world
    wide,
    not just to parts of the world at the mercy of some governments and
    corporations.

    But the decision to move away from github should be discussed and
    voted
    on by the core devs and voting members because apparently it has a
    lot
    of implications and a lot of work went into the CI integration
    (according to some devs).

    We already have 10k € in the 2019 budget for github to gitlab
    (hosted or
    self hosted?) migration. This money would already be available this
    year, but first we need to have a plan and the support of the
    developer
    community to do this step. If this isn't enough, we can have
    additional
    budget in 2020.

    Greetings,

    Andreas


    Am 01.08.19 um 09:37 schrieb Vincent Picavet (ml):
    > Hi Nyall, all,
    >
    > On 01/08/2019 06:26, Nyall Dawson wrote:
    >> Well, I've got to say upfront that we WERE warned about the
    dangers of
    >> this happening by members of our community, and now the worst IS
    >> happening and Github has started blocking access to projects from
    >> certain regions.
    >>
    >> See https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/86154.html, but long story
    >> short, GitHub is now blocking users in Crimea, Cuba, Iran,
    North Korea
    >> and Syria from accessing its services to comply with U.S. trade
    >> control laws. I'm unsure if we're directly affected yet by
    this, but
    >> the wording on Github's notice is very vague: " GitHub MAY
    allow users
    >> in or ordinarily resident in countries and territories subject
    to U.S.
    >> sanctions to access CERTAIN free GitHub.com services for PERSONAL
    >> COMMUNICATIONS " (emphasis added by me).
    >>
    >> What can/should we do in response to this?
    > While the impact of this decision is still very minor for us
    right now,
    > as you say it is a very good illustration on how putting us in a
    vendor
    > lock-in situation is bad.
    >
    > I would say that it is not too late to re-work on a self-hosted
    GitLab
    > instance, which would be more future-proof. That would need a
    great deal
    > of efforts though, and would require specific funding for the
    > forthcoming non-funny tasks.
    >
    > At Oslandia, we would be willing to help, if it is the path
    chosen by
    > the community.
    >
    > A Git mirror would be great of course, but does not solve the
    full problem.
    >
    > And personally, this kind of attack against free information and
    > knowledge is a concern, for sure.
    >
    > Best regards,
    > Vincent
    >
    >> Note that it ALSO applies to gitlab.com <http://gitlab.com>,
    who are also subject to the
    >> same trade laws, so moving to gitlab ISN'T a possible solution
    (unless
    >> we self-host).
    >>
    >> I think at the least we could/should endorse an official, read-only
    >> repo mirror which isn't affected by the trade laws, e.g.
    >> https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/qgis/QGIS would be a great candidate
    >> (unless osgeo is also affected by the same ruling, which they could
    >> easily be, given that they are US based too) . An official mirror
    >> would at least ensure that users in these regions can access the
    >> existing source.
    >>
    >> Does this development concern anyone else?
    >>
    >> Nyall
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--
Ian Turton
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