No to Racist sanctions!

Today I saw a banner demanding Github to ban Russia. I wish nobody use Github. I wish developers moved to some Free/Libre and Open Source solutions like Gitea, Gitlab, etc. But also as an Iranian who has suffered from such sanctions, I tell you this is not good.

Everyone knows about the tension between the West and Iran. Regardless of the details, we Iranian people have suffered from such approaches in recent years.

The double standards are unfortunate. Many of the Google free services are banned while Google search and Gmail are open (maybe as the main source of sucking data from the society?). Github revoked access to private repositories while they were free service. Even Fedora removed one of the Iranian members of the team because of being Iranian! The result? The government and even companies get more reasons to reduce their dependencies on centralized and proprietary solutions.

I like such reduction in dependencies but is there any idea about the consequences of such sanctions? I can understand the mood for making a wave against war (which never existed for many other wars launched by western countries) but is this something to be proud of? Isn’t it racist? Is this what those who are pro-sanctions want?

Such sanctions disconnect people from collaboration on international Free/Libre and Open Source software development. It is not a sanction against them but ourselves.