@jspaleta Did you ever hear anything back from Red Hat Legal? Perhaps we should escalate this now, if we haven’t heard anything back. My non-lawyer read on the situation makes me think we might be able to get somewhere on this finally.
I expect this will take time to work through. See this excerpt from Red Hat’s website on export control. Red Hat is the legal entity that is ultimately accountable for Fedora, so we are governed by what is written here:
Embargoed Destinations
Red Hat’s software and/or technical data may NOT be exported, re-exported or transferred, either directly or indirectly, to a prohibited destination and/or country under the EAR or U.S. sanctions regulations (currently, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Belarus, the Crimea Region of Ukraine, and the occupied Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic regions of Ukraine). Please note that this list is subject to change.
As it says, the list is subject to change. And there has been a lot of recent changes in the Syrian context. Jef and I are looking into this and figuring out next steps. For now, we ask for some patience while we do our legal due diligence. I hope that we can make Fedora Linux accessible for everyone in Syria soon.
Having worked in an organization with (substantial) export control requirements. anyone expecting a quick result has never been in the line of fire of being (what we amusingly called) the designated felon (get it wrong, and you are going to spend a fair amount of your remaining life in prison, so you really, really, really need to get it 100% right, often (for the more complex issues) with supporting opinions from at least some outside lawyer firms, so you can at least try to argue you had the best advice possible if someone decides your conclusions were not correct; and all of that evaluation takes time (months, or years, was not unusual)).
As I had other interests than spending the rest of my life in prison I let our export control officer (the designated felon) provide the recommendations, and followed them exactly.
Hi folks. There is ongoing work behind the scenes. Jef and I hope to bring good news soon. Stay tuned. 
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Thank you for your efforts and I believe that you will make the right decision. 
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I am working on something to share soon here… hoping to have a public announcement ready before the end of February.
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An official update to this matter is coming out on the Fedora Magazine at 2026-02-17T08:00:00Z. Stay tuned! 
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I am super happy to share that Fedora, Fedora Linux, and the Fedora Project are once again accessible from Syria:
This includes a separate block on this Fedora Discussion site, which was lifted a few minutes ago.
From a Fedora Council perspective, this issue is now closed. I’ll be following up on the Pagure ticket soon and officially closing that. Thanks @devzaid for raising this issue to the Fedora Council for closer inspection. I know it took a while, but I’m happy that we were finally able to reach this outcome!
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