This is a shame, I always thought Linux was supposed to be an International collaboration, hate to see it caught up in this bullshit political agenda.
Does invading your neighbor count as international collaboration? Not that all Russian people can be held directly responsible for the actions of their government.
@theunknownmuncher The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with. Russia invades a neighboring country when we install a leader that is going to allow us to put missiles on their border. I really hate to see political hegemony get in the way of a good collaborative effort, we all suffer for it if we allow this.
there is simply no meaningful response to this
no matter whether you think russia is justified in invading ukraine or not, if russians get banned from the kernel bc russia invaded ukraine, yankees have to get the boot as well
The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with.
Absolutely fair point. I agree with you on this portion of your comment.
Aside from the fact that it’s pretty insane to suggest to kick someone off a project for no reason other than their nationality (the article doesn’t say any of these maintainers supported the invasion or had any ties with the government), even if these people actively supported the government, as far as kernel development is concerned… I don’t really care? If their contributions are good then I want their patches to be merged. Tor was made by the US government, which I in no way condone, but I still use Tor.
I’m sure removing these maintainers would be of great help to the Ukrainian war effort…
More seriously: We need to help Ukraine more. But this doesn’t do that. It just hurts a bunch of people (both the maintainers, and the people using their code) for no benefit whatsoever.
I think the general idea is to create as much drain on Russia as possible. Limit there ability to import and export good while creating brain drain and terrible moral.
How many Russians have defected at this point? Spoiler is a decent amount.
@lily33 @theunknownmuncher The best way we can help Ukraine is by removing outside influences from both sides. What is being portrayed as a war in Ukraine is really a proxy war between Russia and the US that was egged on by the US. This is most unwise given that both nations are armed to the teeth with nukes. We really should be looking at ways to de-escalate not escalate this war.
100% agree with you! Like I said, I don’t think we can hold all Russian people directly responsible for the actions of their government.
I wish for an ideal world where politics could stay out of Linux, but this is extremely tricky and cannot be treated black and white. Labeling things as “political” and then crying to keep “politics” out of things is often used as a weapon for exclusion, for example by sexuality or race, and I think exclusion should be anathema for Linux and open source projects.
You do realize that the US has invaded far more countries than Russia has, do burgerlanders have no self awareness at all?
Russia literally invaded everyone around them. Look at all the former USSR counties.
The US has been involved in a lot of places but that’s not a justification for Russia attacking its neighborhood.
@yogthos @theunknownmuncher I am in the US and I realize this. There was a funny meme a while back about look how aggressive Russia is, they put their country all around our military bases. Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in that. What other country has military bases throughout the world?
Ehh they keep saying we are not involved we are not whatever. You can only say that so long. I mean the soldiers are coming from somewhere these are not people grown in vats.
It’s a little unclear what you mean, like because more than half a million Russian soldiers have already been killed so far and yet the war keeps going, that the people must be responsible for supporting?
Russia is conscripting, so most are not there by choice but required by law. If you draft dodge and get caught, you go to prison, and still just end up on the frontline anyway, since they are emptying their prisons to use as soldiers, too. And these people will be shot and killed by their own side if they attempt a retreat, while fed propaganda and misinformation about their treatment if they surrender. There has been significant human trafficking to support their war effort. They’ve also depended heavily on mercenary forces outside of their military in order to have skilled soldiers, and are now even receiving soldiers from North Korea in order to continue fighting.
Besides that, there are so many factors that go into why a person would decide to join the military and in reality, they are usually economic ones or from extensive propaganda.
Political agenda is a funny euphemism for imperialist invasion and genocide.
@Midnight If Russia were the only one involved, and if weren’t provoked by outside powers like say, oh, the United States, yea I could agree with you but my knowledge of history precludes my accepting that explanation.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: blatant russian nazi acct
You see the Russians are the real Nazis, not the Banderites who attacked Eastern Ukrainians for the decade before this war started.
Putin is a despot trying to make his mark on history. No amount of appeasement from the global West would have stopped him from ordering the invasion.
I totally think them invading Ukraine is fucked up too but I also think the Israel situation is messed up too and would you be against someone maintaining code just because they are from Israel?
That would be wrong. Linux is supposed to be about more than political alignments its supposed to be a collaborative effort its always been about that.
This is wrong and its super wrong they don’t tell anyone what compliance they are following or who issued it to them which is also supposed to be against what open source is about.
this is the genocide you must be referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
“propaganda”? Oh. You mean like Russia started a full blown unprovoked war with a peaceful nation? That “propaganda”?
Sucks others got caught in the crosshairs, but that’s just what happens when your authoritarian government launches unprovoked wars and gets sanctioned.
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NATO Expansion: The argument that NATO’s eastward expansion “provoked” Russia is often linked to Gorbachev’s 1990 talks with Western leaders. However, this promise was tied to Germany’s unification, not a blanket prohibition on expansion. And importantly eastern european countries sought NATO membership because of their historical (and justified) fears of Russian imperialism (a dynamic Marxists should understand as nations seeking sovereignty free from external dominance.)
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Western Involvement in Ukraine: The U.S. supporting a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is thought to be imperialism. But ignores the agency of Ukrainians, who led the Maidan protests because of already existing deep dissatisfaction with Yanukovych’s corrupt, oligarchic regime and his pivot to Russia. Supporting popular uprisings against oligarchs should align with Marxist values even if “the West” has its own interests
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The Role of Fascism in Ukraine: Yes, Ukraine has issues with far-right groups like so many countries but exaggerating their influence as a justification for invasion serves to divert attention from Russia’s own reactionary politics. Far-right elements in Ukraine do not define the country’s political landscape, nor do they justify imperial aggression from another state. Russia has its own history of fostering right-wing authoritarianism.
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Minsk Agreements: While the West" and Ukraine could be criticized for their handling of the Minsk agreements, Russia also violated these accords by continuing support for the separatists. Both sides share blame for the failure of Minsk, but it doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified. Ukrainians didn’t provoke a full-scale invasion; they were defending their sovereignty.
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NATO as a “Defensive” Alliance: Criticism of NATO’s imperialistic behavior is fair its actions in places like Libya show it isn’t 100% defensive. But in this case, NATO’s expansion was driven by countries seeking security from a historically imperialist power. Ukraine wasn’t “provoking” Russia by wanting self-determination; it was trying to secure its future.
You’re trying to push this “Actuall, but Ukraine DID provoke” narrative by mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate, but isolated incidents. Like linking far-right activity to justify the war conveniently ignores Russia’s (I should probably say everyone’s) own far-right issues. Marxists should reject imperialism in all its forms, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
I agree to this. I was literally just in the shower thinking how Linux, the space station, and the Olympics are the only times we as humans come together to collaborate
You know that Russia wasn’t able to compete in the Olympics or Paralympics this year, right? The individual athletes weren’t banned however, but they had to compete under a neutral banner and weren’t in the parade of nations.
Edit: I should have added, was disgusted because Israel were allowed to compete. Huge double standard there.
If I recall correctly Russia is not allowed to participate because of their state doping program not because of their politics. So unless there was an Israel state doping program discovered that’s not double standard.
@princessnorah @secret300 A shame people can’t be more civilized. Really I don’t think we’ve evolved all that much in spite of our technology.
@JWBananas @secret300 Yea you know the funny thing about that, CFC’s are heavy and tend to sink to the ground if not propelled into the stratosphere by rockets, say like the old Space Shuttle with it’s solid chlorine oxidizer boosters, or the various military missiles which mostly have been converted to liquid hydrogen and oxygen engines. But nah we got to spend $3k to replace our A/C because it contains CFC’s that never would have made it up into the atmosphere anyway because of you know, physics, little things like gravity, so the military can avoid blame.
@secret300 The project to discover elements 119 and 120 which previously were a US/Russia collaboration also put on hold. All of humanity moves backwards when we fight, nothing is gained.
Linus Torvalds Confirms Decision to Remove Maintainers from Russia
You couldn’t come up with a more powerful spit in the direction of FOSS. And from Linus, who is now kind of showing f*ck to the entire community. Here you have freedom, openness and all that. Today they just wiped their ass with it, and by one of the founders.
This is the moment when the split politics, dirty ones from all sides, have penetrated into the very heart of OpenSource - into the Linux kernel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_YozYt8l-g
Yeah better discriminate based on nationality /s. But why stop at that? Poor people are too easily bribed can’t have them. I hear the CIA recruits from top US universities, can’t trust those college grads either. Anyone belonging to some homophobic church or religious group? Better not what if they’re closeted gay and get blackmailed? Anyone in a monogamous relationship should be excluded for the same reason, if you think about it. *tips forehead*
If we follow through with it, I would absolutely never ever trust anyone from the US, for example. US is very much known for cyber espionage and shady operations, and could absolutely backdoor Linux.
This is all power play, and it comes from a very certain direction amidst this political struggle.
You want your open source code not to have backdoors? Review it meticulously. This is really the only way, and the one an entire open-source community relies on - pretty successfully, by the way.
by this logic it turns out that the code quality control system is built in such a way that if someone has malicious intent and wants to add malicious code, but is not affiliated with dubious structures, then he will easily succeed? Hey, what about enough eyeballs and shallow bugs?
I do agree that quality control should catch things, but we are all human and we don’t catch a 100%. So if quality control is flooded with too much things to catch, the chance of one slipping by increases.
Also, a lot of FOSS is based on volenteers, do we just ask those people to put in more hours? Who is responsible anyways if something makes it through and actually causes damage to something or someone?
I find the decision quite reasonable. You at least filter out the party most likely to pull something shady. We should still be very careful, but it takes away some the work.
@MrAlternateTape @fireshell <sarcasm>But Stuxnet proves nobody in the United States would do that.</sarcasm>
Uhh
sirLinus, this is aWendy’sLinux kernel.
.
Why force your political beliefs on something that has nothing to do with?
Not sure if being against Russian aggression can be called a “political belief” as nearly all Finns pretty much agree on it.
@vga @ChiefSinner That it was “aggression” in and of itself is a political belief.
Kernel cannot follow or not follow any legal rules. Linux Foundation can.
And if regulations become a serious issue and go against the spirit of open-source, it is time to move the Foundation somewhere else.
i don’t know what exactly was in question in the kernel, that the lawyers had to worry about, but From EAR rules… “note that open source software can still be subject to export control measures if it includes technologies or functionalities that are regulated. In such cases, specific controls may be applied to prevent the unauthorized export of these technologies or functionalities.”
IF something was deemed controlled, it makes sense to pull it so kernel can ship anywhere, and whomever received it can do their own tweaks
@BCsven @fireshell Or Linus from moving the organization back to Finland, or Iceland, or Switzerland, or some other more neutral territory.
I’m not sure if you’re kidding, so I’ll just note that Finland and Iceland are NATO member states, and Finland is notoriously against Russian aggressions due to history.
“Compliance requirements”? The kernel’s american now?! WTF?
The commonality of all these maintainers being dropped? They appear to all be Russian or associated with Russia. Most of them with .ru email addresses.
Not short-sighted in the least…
Similarly, the driver code remains within the kernel – including for Russian hardware such as around the Baikal CPUs from Russia’s Baikal Electronics.
Not a hypocrite move at all…
Are israeli developers blocked as well? How about all american developers considering how the US foreign policy keeps fucking everyone up all over the place in the name of liberty and freedom… of oil?
The kernel’s american now?! WTF?
Now we see the intended outcome of the “Inclusively” movement of the past few years.
I can’t wait to see this “Inclusively” extended to China, India, Brazil and others.
We’ll truly be the most Inclusive ever!!! What a great thing!!!
Fantastic to hear! wonderful news. Racists and Xenophobes will try to stop global collaboration, but the real conflict that matters will always be the smart vs the lowiq. FOSS is about humanity first and not any particular sub-category. Everyone who gets in the way is trying to divide and stop FOSS from saving the planet.
I wanna skirt by all the political stuff and ask what that text editor is?
You do realize that the Linux foundation is an American based entity right? It isn’t a shock that it is bound by US law.
“Compliance requirements”? The kernel’s american now?! WTF?
Nope, but it is not above the law.
I suppose any law in any jurisdiction you want to use it, don’t you think ?
Guys, are you all really that young to not remember alla the fuss with crypto software ? Same thing here: you want to distrubute something in a country, you need to follow the country’s law, even if they are stupid.
Linus is an absolute cunt for not only following this gleefully but then attributing pushback to “russian trolls” and “state propaganda” fuck you man.
These people weren’t the MIT pricks who inserted vulnerabilities into the kernel, they were contributors who did hard work and helped advance FREE software. Linus is now turning his back on the GPL and manning it clear that Linux can be controlled by the US state on a whim.
How exactly is he turning his back on the GPL? Those Russian maintainers are still free to fork the kernel, make whatever changes they want, and release it. The GPL has never guaranteed that a maintainer has to take contributions from anyone. Open source could never function that way.
Yep, anyone who is celebrating this is shortsighted and letting their own nationalistic ideas and jingoism cloud their judgement.
There is a hot war going on and the US is using sanctions to isolate Russia from using western technology to continue their genocide. That goes a little beyond “nationalistic ideas”. Russia is being isolated for their actions and this was past due. It sucks for the Russian maintainers, but under the heading of “war is hell” this is a minor inconvenience.
The US is the most belligerent nation on earth, shall we ban american contributors? How about israeli?
Should their code be removed from the kernel?
The real question i haven’t seen answered is Who owns the kernel code. Torvalds owns the Linux™ but that’s to prevent others from buying it, but i was under the impression the source code is owned by all those who contribute to it and not whoever happens to be employing Torvalds at the time. Or is it a matter of where https://git.kernel.org/ happens to be hosted?
I’d suggest Codeberg but that’s in Germany, so maybe another forgejo instance hosted maybe in Switzerland.
