Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted
www.phoronix.com
    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
      46·
      29 days ago

      Yeah. Why is everyone saying this is removing their contribution credits? It’s just a list of active maintainers…

      • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        29 days ago

        That’s a fair point. I rarely read comments on news articles, but morbid curiosity overpowered my self-preservation instinct.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
    85·
    29 days 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.

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
      41·
      29 days ago

      It’s really disappointing seeing Russian contributors being disrespected like this, the regime that rules Russia wasn’t entirely their fault, and allegiance, nationality, and ethnicity are all clearly different things

      Also, wouldn’t a state sponsored Russian hacker pretend to be from the US or something anyway? No way they’d contribute code as a Russian, that’d just increase others’ suspicion

      I agree with Linus a lot too but I strongly disagree here. I hope he’s just being made to say this because of government policies

    • Goun@lemmy.ml
      32·
      29 days ago

      I don’t understand how sanctions can impact free software, tbh, what’s free about this? This leaves a weird taste, I have to admit.

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
        9·
        28 days ago

        Linux foundation is a US company, and he’s a EU citizen and there’s companies that those devs where employed that are under sanction , hot that hard to understand

      • prole
        12·
        28 days ago

        Yup. If you don’t want to “mysteriously fall from a window,” you do what they say.

        I agree 100% with Linus here

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
    68·
    29 days ago

    so are we okay with banning development time donated to foss because of nationality?

    are these people found to support heinous shit or is this just wartime shenanigans?

    • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
      27·
      28 days ago

      Dude is Finnish, from his own mouth, it’s just normal racism against an aggressive imperial, like how people hate the us

      Edit: like how people from lemmy.ml hate Americans, if that wasn’t clear

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
        25·
        28 days ago

        finland has pretty bad climate-change-exploitation-fucking-over-the-third-world dealings in my country, despite enforcing seemingly very good stuff inside their own borders so meh, id argue they aint close to the victims they make out to be. some would argue that as a consequence for having a strong socialist influence.

        i have mixed feelings about them as a country, but i recognize there are plenty of good (and even well known good) people on there because of the aforementioned good stuff, linus included. for different but not that dissimilar reasons i think contemporary russian citizens should not be blanket banned from helping everyone out.

        • ouch@lemmy.world
          11·
          29 days ago

          finland has pretty bad, climate-change-exploitation-fucking-over-the-third-world dealings in my country

          Which country is that, and what dealings?

          • umbrella@lemmy.ml
            5·
            28 days ago

            brazil, and they do some shady stuff in the amazon. mainly fuck you extrativism.

            • ouch@lemmy.world
              5·
              28 days ago

              Can you find any links where one can read about this?

              If Finland is wasting tax payer money to something shady, it should be brought to the local media.

              • umbrella@lemmy.ml
                3·
                28 days ago

                heres one i found with a quick google.

                this one is about southeast/northeast brazil, but the finnish are involved in aggressive extractivism in northwest brazil (amazon rainforest) too, and i think its even worse over there. you will dig up pretty horrible things if you do some research on it. about most of the western 1st world countries tbh.

  • ouch@lemmy.world
    67·
    29 days ago

    As a finn, I understand that there are probably legal reasons for doing this.

    I just wish they would be transparent and share those reasons with us. The Linux kernel is certainly not the only free software project that is impacted, if this comes straight from EU/US sanctions. Maintainers of other projects have a lot of interest in what is happening.

    Transparency is also important because if EU/US policy/sanctions are causing issues for free software projects, then that discussion needs to be public, so that there is a chance to amend the policies if necessary.

    • sudo@programming.dev
      9·
      28 days ago

      The legal reasons was because the Linux Foundation is based in the USA and the targeted devs worked for companies explicitly sanctioned by the USA. Linus said he knew and trusted the devs he was forced to delist.

      The Linux Foundation needs to relocate to some stable neutral country like Switzerland.

    • hitwright@lemmy.world
      29·
      29 days ago

      I’m pretty sure not just the US wants Russia sanctioned to the oblivion. All of the Europe that borders Russia wants that. Now why would it be like that?

      • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
        7·
        28 days ago

        It makes no sense to discuss here.They probably follow Russia’s narrative of Europe being a puppet of the US.

    • dan@upvote.au
      17·
      28 days 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.

      • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
        9·
        28 days ago

        That’s more like his opinion or a post facto justification. Turns out it is a US thing.

        If your company is on the U.S. OFAC SDN lists, subject to an OFAC sanctions program, or owned/controlled by a company on the list, our ability to collaborate with you will be subject to restrictions, and you cannot be in the MAINTAINERS file.

        So to get back, you have to basically prove that you have no relations with OFAC SDN companies.

        This update is from https://lwn.net/Articles/995186/

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    59·
    29 days 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.

    • hitwright@lemmy.world
      19·
      29 days ago

      I guess it’s difficult to otherwise explain the position you have? It’s not like people face criminal charges in Russia just for speaking against it. It’s easy to see how the state would want to introduce backdoors to most western systems.

      It’s extremely sad that a lot of good Russians get swooped in this. But even abroad their lives are in danger to fight the state.

      • ghu@lemmy.ml
        24·
        29 days ago

        I doubt if someone wants to introduce a backdoor, they would do that with a russian mailing address. People removed were open and transparent about their nationalities which means there is even less chance them being bad actors than some random guy pretending to be American.

        • hitwright@lemmy.world
          12·
          29 days ago

          Aren’t the removed commiters with direct access to the kernel? It’s not like it’s some rando that makes pull requests.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        28 days ago

        I think you’re making up a world in your head. Who are these “lots” of “good” Russians who are abroad and whose lives are in realistically danger of state assassination? Not that it has never happened, but you’re blowing things out of proportion. Probably Russia does it at a scale roughly similar to the US.

        • prole
          12·
          28 days ago

          I think you’re making up a world in your head.

          My friend, they poisoned people in the UK with a fucking nerve agent. They are so brazen and open about people being killed for not doing that the Kremlin tells them.

          They have purposely made a meme out of the “suspiciously fell from window” thing, because they want people to know exactly what happens and why.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
            4·
            28 days ago

            they poisoned people in the UK with a fucking nerve agent.

            Yes, they did. How often is that happening? Proportion.

            • prole
              5·
              27 days ago

              We’re not talking about taking out former spies in foreign, sovereign nations you dolt. I used that as an example to show just how brazen and open they are about this stuff. Using such a dangerous method, on foreign soil, is basically unheard of.

              If you actually want to talk about frequency, we should be looking at the defenestration cases…

              This shit is happening so frequently that there are several wiki pages dedicated to listing them:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_in_2022

              Scroll down to “see also” for a long list of related articles about the Russian government assassinating citizens and low-level bureaucrats.

              Assuming you actually give a shit

              EDIT: apparently Lemmy markdown doesn’t like the link. For anyone who can’t figure out why it’s not working, or for some weird reason thinks I would make up a wiki page with a title that specific:

              Suspicious deaths of notable Russians in 2022–2024

              And, again, after checking out the main article, take a look at the “see also” section.

              • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                3·
                28 days ago

                Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.

                In any case, the defenestrations I’ve heard of have been within Russia, not outside it.

                Using such a dangerous method, on foreign soil, is basically unheard of.

                Not unheard of. US drone strikes on US citizens is a no-less dangerous a method.

                • prole
                  2·
                  27 days ago

                  It’s almost as if the markdown on Lemmy changed the text of the link so it’s not valid.

                  And you couldn’t take the 3 second to fix it, and then actually learn something.

                  Well done.

                  You also seem confused about what we are even talking about. We are referring to software developers WITHIN RUSSIA. So the risk of defenestration is very real. Again, to repeat myself, I only brought up Russia using chemical warfare on foreign soil as an example to show how open and brazen they are.

                  I edited the original comment with a fixed link if you actually care

            • prole
              2·
              28 days ago

              Disagree. Chemical warfare is an entirely different beast.

              • sudo@programming.dev
                1·
                27 days ago

                We’re talking about poisoning a single person not a gas cloud. Poisoning a single person vs drone striking a wedding.

        • LeFantome@programming.dev
          4·
          28 days ago

          Very nice link that not only does not have a list of names but also fairly explicitly explains that it is not talking about Americans killing Americans.

          I am not going to spend more than 30 seconds on it but here is the first list of “lots” of Russians that are believed to have been assassinated by their own government.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_in_2022–2024

          Despite your personal attacks, the trivially discoverable facts are not on your side.

          I used Wikipedia since you apparently find it credible.

          My favourite “suicide” of a notable Russian in the last couple of years was the one that had a suicide note signed by “illegible signature” ( what it actually said ). I guess the FSB did not totally understand the instructions.

          Indeed A LOT of falling out of windows. Quite a bit of poisoning as well. These are the successful ones. How about that time they poisoned the entire Ukrainian peace team including the owner of the Chelsea Football Club?

    • Vilian@lemmy.ca
      8·
      28 days ago

      That’s true, as he said just use your brain, Russia is under sanctions he literally said that, so Russian troll is a actually very accuracy

  • Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    53·
    29 days ago

    We’re gonna start seeing large open source communities start to break into smaller ones because of sanctions from now aren’t we?

  • Mihies@programming.dev
    33·
    29 days 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.

  • menemen@lemmy.ml
    32·
    29 days 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.

    • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
      4·
      28 days ago

      It is inherently disruptive. And “knowing” Linus, if he apologizes for the communication, it won’t come soon enough.