Why GitLab Banned Chinese and Russian Users: Inside the New Country‑Lock Policy

GitLab, the open‑source code‑hosting platform backed by Google investment, posted a statement that it will enable a “work country/region lock” for team members who have access to customer data, citing the current geopolitical climate as the most humane solution.

The lock targets two countries: China and Russia .

According to the updated hiring process:

GitLab will not extend offers to Chinese or Russian citizens.

Employees with customer‑data access are prohibited from moving to China or Russia.

The original announcement reads:

On Monday, October 15, 2019, we decided to enable a “work country/region lock” for team members with access to customer data. This reflects concerns from some enterprise customers and is a common practice in the current geopolitical climate. The affected countries are: China Russia This issue tracks the process of adding the lock to the support handbook and updating recruitment procedures to ensure: We do not offer positions to individuals residing in these regions. Current team members are prevented from moving to these regions while retaining their prohibited roles. There is no technical method to enforce this permission issue, and it creates a “second‑class citizen” scenario for some teams, which we consider the most humane solution because it does not affect on‑site employees.

Community reactions are mixed: some praise GitLab’s transparency, while others criticize the policy as discriminatory.

— The transparency shown by GitLab is surprising (in a positive sense). Even though some discussion is sensitive, it is useful. — Thank you! We aim to be transparent when making tough decisions. — Congratulations on moving in the right direction, though the step is small. — This is indeed discrimination, though not racial; hiring Japanese developers is still possible, but discrimination based on source nationality raises legal concerns. — For Chinese employees, the policy could expose intellectual property to Chinese competitors.

GitLab was founded by Ukrainian developers Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov, originally written in Ruby and later partially rewritten in Go. It is considered a major competitor to GitHub, launched in 2011, and has grown to over 290 team members and 2,000 open‑source contributors by 2018.

Recent controversies include a change to the terms of service that introduced third‑party analytics of user behavior, leading to strong community backlash and a public apology from the CEO.

The broader open‑source community is questioning whether “code has borders,” referencing the Open Source Initiative’s non‑discrimination clauses, which state that no individual or group should be excluded from contributing.

Ultimately, the article urges readers to consider what kind of developer world they want to build, emphasizing that restriction and discrimination are not paths to success.