Namecheap to suspend domains belonging to Russian citizens March 22nd

Linux Discussion
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"Are there any exceptions?
Yes, we continue to provide services to:

  • all anti-war media, protest resources and any type of websites that are helping to end this war and regime;
  • Russian citizens who are not Russian residents and don’t support this regime in any way;
  • independent journalism;
  • non-profit organizations.

Please Note : Namecheap now is offering free anonymous domains and hosting to customers who will use them for anti-war purposes. Please contact our Customer Support for more information.

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Sucks to be a regular Joe Shmoe Russian right now.

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I learned about that from an established FOSS dev who was stuck until his Ukrainian friend helped him pay for the transfer. I can’t ethically share the details because the author deleted the messages for the safety of his friend.

One of the rising questions in hosting and FOSS appears to be whether or not to go after civilians by country regardless of beliefs or involvement.

During WWII Germany carpet bombed London and this began a constant exchange of civilian carpet bombing between Germany and the UK. It was found that this strategy only made the civilians more resolute and gave justification for the war.

I think this part of history is worth considering as hosts and FOSS devs seek to do the functional equivalent with software.

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This is knee jerk virtue signaling.

Me: “Watch me flex” [clicks a button to show my disapproval of some specific political policy in a region of the world where I don’t live]

Them: must risk life, family, and/or livelihood to show disapproval

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I think people expect NATO to get involved. If they do these businesses have to pull out anyways or else ‘treason’ right? Maybe this is preemptive so they don’t have to be reactive later

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terraform-aws-modules is a good example which is now no longer Open Source according to the Open Source Initiative because ideological discrimination is being built into the terms of use well outside the scope of legal requirement.

Whether their changes are productive or counter-productive to their purpose is up for the debate but the impact is low, especially compared to namecheap.

But this isn’t something new… it’s a growing movement toward forcing ideological beliefs on people using your hosting or software contrary to the ethics of the ACLU, EFF, and the mildest of imagination as to where that leads. Consider what that would have meant for causes the majority now consider good but didn’t 10, 15, 20+ years ago.

I can’t see how, “Do what I say, not what I do” is a workable mantra for any walk of life let alone FOSS and I don’t buy the arguement that this is just a blip on the radar rather than an escalating belief system in how software and hosting should be handled.

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