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<p>Hi</p>
<p>(not a board member)</p>
<p>Tricky subject. My position would be to stick with the
obligations of law (an interesting question is which one(s)
apply... the one of your country of residence, or US law for OSGeo
projects?), and code of conduct of our projects (thinking here if
a contributor would start harassing others based on political
views). My quick browsing of
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/restrictive-measures-against-russia-over-ukraine/">https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/restrictive-measures-against-russia-over-ukraine/</a>
doesn't show any restriction that could affect our normal FOSS
activities. The only related point would be if a EU based service
provider would want to provide services to a Russian entity since
there is a "prohibition to provide IT consultancy service", but
for code & translation sharing not involving explicit monetary
exchanges, nothing strikes me as banned.</p>
<p>Whereas our software is used for good or evil is something that
could be debated for long (some OSS licences have tried to exclude
evil use, but I believe that's not legally enforceable).
Cartography has certainly a long and strong connection with
military activities (which can be for good or evil)...</p>
<p>Even<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 10/01/2024 à 12:27, Jeroen Ticheler
via Board a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:18cf320636b.106ba42e2797556.2826310393198863912@geocat.net">
<div>
<div>Dear board,<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>With a long war in Ukraine going on, I would like to know
if we have had talks in the OSGeo board or community on how we
deal with contributions to our software from Russia and
Belarus? We have sincere and great contributors that are
residents of those countries on one hand, and we have things
like international sanctions on the other hand. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the GeoNetwork community we have active contributions on
the language translations from contributors we know and that
we don't know. Sometimes with usernames that are generic.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Now I personally have both positive and negative feelings
about this. Negative because I dislike the idea that our
software could be used for bad things by a hostile government.
Positive because contributions coming back to the project
improve things for everyone and helps making the world a
better place by being inclusive and friendly. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As also described in <a
href="https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/russian_foss_contributions_blocked/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">this article</a> it
does not help much to block Russians or Belarussians from
contributing; They can still use the software and _not_ share
their improvements with the project (a fork is easily
maintained outside of our repositories). So my stance at this
point is not to take active action. I'm very interested to
know what the board thinks about the topic and if other
projects have had similar discussions?<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks and greetings,<br>
</div>
<div>Jeroen</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div>Jeroen Ticheler <br>
</div>
<div>E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jeroen.ticheler@geocat.net">jeroen.ticheler@geocat.net</a><br>
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<div><a href="https://www.geocat.net"
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<div>Veenderweg 13 <br>
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<div>6721 WD Bennekom <br>
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<div>The Netherlands <br>
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<div>Tel: +31318416664 <br>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
Board mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Board@lists.osgeo.org">Board@lists.osgeo.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.spatialys.com">http://www.spatialys.com</a>
My software is free, but my time generally not.</pre>
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