Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

11-2025

Abstract

The GitHub platform has fueled the creation of truly global software, enabling contributions from developers across various geographical regions of the world. As software becomes more entwined with global politics and social regulations, it becomes similarly subject to government sanctions. In 2019, GitHub restricted access to certain services for users in specific locations but rolled back these restrictions for some communities (e.g., the Iranian community) in 2021. We conducted a largescale empirical study, collecting approximately 156 thousand user profiles and their 41 million activity points from 2008 to 2022, to understand the response of developers. Our results indicate that many of these targeted developers were able to navigate through the sanctions. Furthermore, once these sanctions were lifted, these developers opted to return to GitHub instead of withdrawing their contributions to the platform. The study indicates that platforms like GitHub play key roles in sustaining global contributions to Open Source Software.

Keywords

Government Sanctions, Open Source

Discipline

Software Engineering

Research Areas

Software and Cyber-Physical Systems

Publication

IEEE Software

Volume

42

Issue

6

First Page

74

Last Page

80

ISSN

0740-7459

Identifier

10.1109/MS.2024.3505204

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2024.3505204

Download

Share

COinS