Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted
www.phoronix.com
  • jol ( jol@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
    67·
    2 years ago

    Linus has never been the best communicator, but he usually speaks the truth. But this is just bonkers and wrong. Not everyone living in Russia has “ties with Russia” other than “they were born there”. If this is about sanctions, he could have still just told them that. But instead he just disrespected contributors completely and then double down in it by being xenophobic.

    • dan ( dan@upvote.au ) 
      11·
      2 years ago

      In the article, Linus explicitly said that it’s not just a US thing:

      And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts - the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.

  • communism ( communism@lemmy.ml ) 
    49·
    2 years ago

    Everyone who disagrees with me is a paid russian troll of course. Nobody would oppose blacklisting people based on nothing but their nationality unless they were getting paid for it.

  • Mihies ( Mihies@programming.dev ) 
    32·
    2 years ago

    I’d really like to see the criteria for delisting people, though. As Russia is not the only one waging wars, there are worse countries out there. I guess it all boils down to Linus being from Finland.

  • The Menemen ( menemen@lemmy.ml ) 
    29·
    2 years ago

    Man, I wish he’d leave the communication to someone else. He is so, so bad at it. And this isn’t the first time

    The way he attacks critics puts himself in a bad light. But much more importantly, I read this and am still unsure if he has administrative/legal reason, security reasons or political reasons…

    If I’d work in Russian propaganda, I’d love this so much. Hope this will not cause disruption in the community.

  • Alavi ( somegeek@programming.dev ) 
    24·
    2 years ago

    One of the worst news I’ve read lately.

    Why aren’t Israeli maintainers removed? Oh because linux is basically owned by IBM now.

    The linux kernel isn’t free anymore. It’s open source, but not free.

    • The Doctor ( drwho@beehaw.org ) English
      8·
      2 years ago

      Probably because the advice in question was lengthy and technical (subtype: laws and legality), and the short form had the disclaimer "Please don’t publish the short form because it’s too much like giving legal advice.) Something similar happened back in 2012 with Project Byzantium, when we were consulting with the EFF with respect to having cryptographic libraries included in the distro.

    • kattfisk ( kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
      47·
      2 years ago

      Yes, the sanctions against Russia, as mentioned by Linus. The change also said the maintainers “can come back in the future if sufficient documentation is provided”.

      My guess is that the Linux Foundation must ensure that none of the people they work with are in any way associated with any organisation, person or activity on the sanctions list. And that they preemptively removed all maintainers that might risk violating the sanctions while they work with them to establish whether they might be covered by the sanctions or not.

      Regardless of what you or they think of the sanctions, they are the law, and I don’t think anyone wants the Linux Foundation to have to spend their money on lawyers and fines because they had a maintainer who also worked on a research project funded by a sanctioned entity. (If that is how it works, IANAL)

      • Whom ( Whom@beehaw.org ) English
        10·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, it seems like they genuinely are just trying to be compliant with the law. I do think the “anyone who has concerns about this is a Russian troll” thing is obnoxious though, knowing of the existence of sanctions doesn’t mean we’re all lawyers who know the requirements here for open source projects.

        • kattfisk ( kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
          5·
          2 years ago

          The massive negative outcry over this fairly uninteresting change certainly seems oddly overblown, almost as if there are parties trying to turn it into a big political issue to paint Russia as a victim. But idk, nerds freak out over stuff all the time completely on their own.

          Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I think the Linux Foundation has a hard time being clear on the matter because it just isn’t clear. These are new laws and a global open source cooperation run by a non-profit is likely a corner case that the lawmakers did not think about at all when making them.

          • Whom ( Whom@beehaw.org ) English
            4·
            2 years ago

            almost as if there are parties trying to turn it into a big political issue to paint Russia as a victim

            Idk, there’s probably some of that but until today with the clarification that the bans are happening from a list of employers they’re required not to work with, things were pretty unclear and I don’t think it was unreasonable to assume they were going beyond what was required…especially with Linus’ response being pretty tone deaf given the information critics had. People were angry what seemed like random Russian citizens were being targeted and Linus responded angrily as if we all already knew their employers were on a list despite it not being reported yet.

            It’s not a huge deal but Linus is just not very good at handling this kind of thing. Nerds should have assumed there was more behind the scenes and given the benefit of the doubt, though.

      • IsoKiero ( IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz ) English
        24·
        2 years ago

        Phobia, by definition, is uncontrollable, irrational, and lasting fear for something. In the current geopolitics situation I’d say that it’s not uncontrollable and very much not irrational. Fear, as a fellow Finn, might be a bit strong word, but it’s a definetly a concern.

        When I first read that I thought that the response is a bit harsh, as Russian (and Soviet Union) individuals have traditionally been a big part of open source community and their achievements on computing are pretty significant, but when you dig a bit deeper on that, a majority of Soviet era things are actually built by Ukrainians in Kyiv (obviously Ukraine as a country wasn’t a thing back then).

        Also, based on my very limited sight on the matter, Russians are not banned from contributing, but this is more of an statement that anyone working for the government in Russia can’t be a part of kernel development team. There’s of course legal reasons for that, very much including the trade bans against Russia, but also the moral part of it, which Linus seems to take a stand on.

        Personally I’ve seen individuals at Russia to do quite amazing feats with both hardware and software, but as none of us are in a void without any external infcluence nor affect, I think that, while harsh, the “sanctions” (for a lack of better word) aren’t overshooting anything, but they’re instead leveling the playing field. Any Joe Anynymous could write a code which compromises the kernel as a whole, but should that Joe live in Russia, it might bring a government backed team which can hide their tracks on a quite a bit different level with their resources than any individual could ever even dream about.

        So, while that decision might slow down some implementations and it might include some of the most capable of developers, the fear that one of them might corrupt the whole project isn’t unreasonable and, with ongoing sanctions in place (and legal requirements that follow) the core dev team might not even have a choice on this.

        In current global environment we’re living in, I’d rather have a bit too careful management than one which doesn’t take things seriously enough. We already have Canonical and others to break stuff way too often, we don’t need malicious government to expand on that with nefarious purposes which could compromise a shit on of stuff on a very fundamental level if left unattended.

        • TheOubliette ( TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 
          13·
          2 years ago

          Phobia, by definition, is uncontrollable, irrational, and lasting fear for something. In the current geopolitics situation I’d say that it’s not uncontrollable and very much not irrational.

          Russophobia is the fear or hatred of Russia or people from Russia. Etymology is not semantics, as anyone should already know.

          When I first read that I thought that the response is a bit harsh, as Russian (and Soviet Union) individuals have traditionally been a big part of open source community and their achievements on computing are pretty significant, but when you dig a bit deeper on that, a majority of Soviet era things are actually built by Ukrainians in Kyiv (obviously Ukraine as a country wasn’t a thing back then).

          This is simply false. Soviet contributions spanned a large array of ethnicitied and nationalities and Ukraine was a minority in their regard, as were all ethnicities and nationalities.

          Though I don’t see why your point would matter. Is Russophobia only bad if Russians have made enough contributions to your field of interest?

          Also, based on my very limited sight on the matter, Russians are not banned from contributing, but this is more of an statement that anyone working for the government in Russia can’t be a part of kernel development team.

          To my knowledge, nothing at all has been said about working for the Russian government or: this issue. It I’d a blanket exclusion of all Russians from the maintainer list.

          Personally I’ve seen individuals at Russia to do quite amazing feats with both hardware and software, but as none of us are in a void without any external infcluence nor affect, I think that, while harsh, the “sanctions” (for a lack of better word) aren’t overshooting anything, but they’re instead leveling the playing field.

          Presumably you support much harsher sanctions against all Americans, Brits, Germans, French, and Israelis, then. Are you any of these things? Perhaps you should start advocating for sanctions on yourself.

          Any Joe Anynymous could write a code which compromises the kernel as a whole, but should that Joe live in Russia, it might bring a government backed team which can hide their tracks on a quite a bit different level with their resources than any individual could ever even dream about.

          That is in no way unique to Russia and we already have plenty of examples of US, Israeli, and other Western countries compromising systems and software. Do just a little bit of critical thinking.

      • sunzu2 ( sunzu2@thebrainbin.org ) BannedBanned from community
        13·
        2 years ago

        I mean fuck Russia, but if these people aint regime whores for Putin I don’t get the angle here…

        If there is no security issue, this seems excessive.