  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 large-scale 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.
