LocalFOSS

As Googles' Summer of Code program gets underway, Iranian citizens living both in Iran and overseas are discovering that they are being prevented from taking part.

Google claims that they cannot legally allow the students to take part in the program, due to US laws that prevent the export of technologies to a range of countries including Iran and Cuba.

This situation has been brought to light in a series of blog entries by Roozbeh Pournader, an Iranian FOSS developer involved with the Free Software Foundation.

When localfoss contacted him he expressed his surprise at Googles' move. "This is new practice. Many US companies hire Iranians, specially Iranians living in the US, and this is something new. For example, one of Google's Senior VPs, Omid Kordestani, is an Iranian."

"Sometimes, the US companies need permission from the US government for employing Iranians for certain positions, which they go and ask for it, and the permission will be granted in more than 95% of the cases."

"But this practice, banning Iranians from something that does not even require permission from the US federal government, is totally new. Even the most obscure theoretical barriers will not apply to Iranian students who are permanent residents in the United States."

localfoss contacted Google Summer of Code maintainer Chris DiBona for comment, and he expressed his regret and reiterated that Google felt that it was required under US law not to work with students from Iran or any other country on the list of restricted nations.

"American export law has a bit called "deemed export" that means, simply, we can't work, financially or technically with students from the 7 nations listed in the us state departement's list of state sponsors of terror."