I'm talking about something like keeping a fork on a git hosting website in a country where it's accessible by anyone. No individual open source developer is going to be prosecuted for doing that.

Once again for US citizen in US under US jurisdiction - testing what DoJ will consider violation of the sanctions is dangerous games with only downsides. As the Aaron Swartz case showed it is enough to get entangled.

Especially if you maintain something that could be considered dual purpose

You're so scared of the country you live in that you are publicly recommending to your fellow Americans that they don't host a project on a (gasp) German website like codeberg? You have completely lost perspective, or you are a mindless rule-follower, or a coward, or some combination of all of these.

I also find the Aaron Swartz case extremely sad and depressing, but what he was doing was very different from using a European website in the way the website owners intend.

> with only downsides.

Of course there are upsides; that is the whole point of this discussion: the upside is that the resources will be available to all people in the world.

Don't challenge state authority if you are not prepared to fight, have reasonable chance of winning and are ready to pay the price of failure.

If you are US citizen, you are forced to comply with the laws. The fact that you host something in Germany, doesn't mean it is not under sanctions.

If you tomorrow move your repo from github to codeberg and write "moved here so my iranian friends can have access to my work" - well chances are no one will notice. But if the state by bad luck puts their crosshair on you - don't be surprised if the result is the same as the Aaron Swartz case.

I am not claiming that you are even wrong. Just that when you are playing russian roulette - don't act surprised if there is a bullet.