Just to make things clear, Phoronix said they are being "delisted".
No, they have actually been banished, because if you're not a maintainer of some Linux kernel subsystem, Linus Torvalds stops accepting merge requests from you. You need to go through an actual maintainer first.
Is this being done as a sanction against Russia or because it is feared that the Russian government would get some rogue developers to submit code to the kernel that enables attacks?
Individual Russian programmers are not responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, so I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
They can still contribute to Linux - being removed as a maintainer doesn't mean you can't fork Linux. If they have downstream changes they want to contribute to everyone upstream, there is nothing here preventing them from doing it the same way everyone else does.
As if a normal person would bother lol. If I was discriminated this way just because of my country of birth, I'd stop engaging with such an organization at all.
Most people working on the Linux kernel are being paid by their employers to do so. This creates roadblocks for those companies. The days of the kernel being developed by a majority of idealistic developers is long gone.
I was trying to find the reason of their removal in the email conversation, but I couldn't have done it. The only statement was provided was something like "the reasons are clear". But it's not clear whether they were removed because of their association with sanctioned companies or just because of their country.
Individual Russian programmers are not responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, so I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
True, but individual Russian programmers are not free of Putin's influence, and could be compelled to do undesirable things.
The day after the invasion of Ukraine, my employer locked out all contractors we employed who resided in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. They got their access back once they relocated to a non-combatant country, which most of them did in short order. That probably also saved many of their lives, since it meant they escaped the draft.
Treating employees like slaves, and boasting that you “help” their stupid asses is so charming. Oh my dear cork hat! Oh my dear plantation!
Are you, like, completely ignorant of what's going on in the world?
The day after the invasion one of them, totally unprompted, basically apologized on behalf of his country in our standup and said he opposed the war (they still had access to Office 365 throughout).
Ah! Finally the spies have been freed from Putin influence by being relocated to a safer country, no matter that if someone is truly as brainwashed as you say changing countries is pointless. Fucking hypocrisy
Ah! Finally the spies have been freed from Putin influence by being relocated to a safer country, no matter that if someone is truly as brainwashed as you say changing countries is pointless. Fucking hypocrisy
WTF, man? I actually worked with a few of those folks. I don't think they were spies, but the policy was understandable, given the context. It dealt with risks that were practical to mitigate on such short notice when there was a lot of uncertainty, but didn't mitigate all risks. Nothing's perfect.
If you haven't heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by "news", I don't mean Russian
state-sponsored spam.
As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
Russia is the reason that Finland still has compulsory military service.
Finland is also the only European country bordering Russia (excluding Norway and its small border w Russia) to escape being a Soviet Socialist Republic after WW II. Sure, they allied with Nazi Germany to accomplish that, but they joined the allies against Germany eventually.
The article is a snapshot of the discussion that's still happening on the mailing list.
Linus later responded with:
No, but I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to go into the details that
I - and other maintainers - were told by lawyers.
I'm also not going to start discussing legal issues with random
internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have
been riled up by them.
I'm also not going to start discussing legal issues with random internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them.
Oh boy, everyone who disagrees with me works for the Kremlin.
Communicating clearly that you cannot currently accept contributions from people potentially associated with problematic businesses is an understandable decision. Tone of voice stated following the removal of a list of names of people you used to work with not too long makes this sound like a petty statement if anything.
Russia spends hundreds of millions on propaganda (paid trolls), sabotage, and espionage. There is lot of cases for Article 4 of NATO already. It's better to say sorry than to risk millions of lives.
Yes, you could say that. Did you you miss the part where one country is invading another country in an actual armed conflict? Then a bunch of other people choose one side or the other. They call each other names and they posture and they try to influence support. They use whatever pressure they can.
Linus and his lawyers have clearly chosen one side. You seem to have chosen the other but want to appear as if you haven't for whatever reason.
There are bunch of countries invading others as of now including Russia, US and it's allies. Who do you choose?
If this was about war, he had 2 years to take action. If this was about law he should let everyone know.
This seems more like he is being compelled by government to do something while masking it as his own. Hence the lack of reasoning for his decisions or calling anyone who questions him as Russian actors.
Open source communities are similar to communism in that they are practices of an ideal state (Utopia; Republic). It takes a philosopher king to rule behind the good. But it is hard to have a ruler with the qualities of a philosopher king.
There is a term for open source software: BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). At Wikepedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life ), Linus is included. But the virtue of being benevolent is too difficult to ensure and maintain.
That's a wrong conflation. Some successful open source communities and projects are set up with a BDFL, but not all or even many (see your own link). In fact, they are rather special, which is why they garner so much attention .
And if anyone thinks a Finn of all people would buy any BS or sad tears from their "annoying" neighbour (to put it mildly) you need to read up on some history
Of course in the end it sucks for a lot of people that has nothing to do with it.
Part of this is not about how politics affects open source world. It's about lack of open discussion and transparency. Certainly it'd be wrong for linus to call the opponents "trolls" from Russia.
If this was purely because of sanctions, this could have been handled much more gracefully. But it's clear from Linus' comments that he just doesn't respect these volunteers because they happen to be from a particular country.
I'm Finnish. ... Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
If we're suddenly taking history as a criterion, half of the world should ban British developers from touching their projects in any way, for their repeated aggressions and ruinous colonialism. This sort of behaviour is slowly building a soft Great Firewall around the West, and making it seem like China had the right idea all along.
Russia is an Empire of Evil and Murder. Even Russian rulers hold their own people in contempt and have no use for them except as slaves. 800 years of their history proves it.
You missed the point, he didn't mention history in general, but specifically "Finnish history".
In this respect it's not about British colonialism but more about about Russian imperialism / Stalinism (see Russo-Finnish war 1939).
Did he just now realized that history? For over 30 years accepting contributions from the "enemy"? Then when the history is employed, how about he as a Finn bans also Swedish contributors?
Did you just realized that Torvald is not racist or anti-russian at all?
He didn't block any russian maintainers until today (more than 2 years after russia turning genocidal imperial again).
The correlation of the historical anti-Finnish aggression with present aggression and direct new threats against Finland is fairly recent, and Linus isn't pointing to his awareness of the historical and present national context as a reason for the action but as a recent why it is silly to expect him to be lax about the legal advice that is the reason for the actions.
Linus is acting based on his country's historical grievances, it only makes sense that other projects make decisions based on their own maintainers' grievances - if we approve of this as a good way of making decisions in open source. That's my point.
And even with Linux, it's not Linus' personal project anymore, hasn't been for decades - it's a global project with developers from many countries with their own views and biases. Being BDFL doesn't mean that your geopolitical agenda becomes the whole project's. Or at least, it wasn't so blatantly put on display previously that that was the case.
A high profile project like Linux doing this will have long term repercussions for how open source operates globally.
That's quite a misrepresentation of his statements.
"I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression..." is certainly not about grievance. As a matter of fact, the russian aggression is real and not about finish historical grievances.
Open source is fostering collaborative environments, while russia as a state is destroying them deliberately. How does that fit together?
Russia invaded it’s neighbor. These sanctions are one of the consequences.
It sucks for the good-faith programmers in Russia but what would you have the rest of the world do? The Russian state must be sanctioned for its blatant disregard for international norms.
Please don’t just respond with whataboutism. The whataboutism in these threads involves different people in different times. This is happening now.
You can't invoke "international norms" and then in the very next paragraph "but no talking about precedent, that would be whataboutism".
Norms are established through precedents. There are considerable precedents in the 21st century that military invasions DO NOT lead to international sanctions. So this isn't a valid argument, and it's true that that decision was emotional and politically motivated.
It’s a perfectly valid argument. All invasions are generally bad, some worse than others. And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.
The idea that you turn a conversation about fairness for victims into a conversation about fairness for bullies means you don’t actually care about victims.
If you want perfect fairness for bullies, not victims, then you don’t actually care about victims at all.
This whataboutism is a circular argument where any brazen invasion can be justified by some previous perceived slight. Because someone somewhere got away with something, now anything is permissible.
This is arguing that we have not sanctioned murderous evil actions in the past therefore we must not do so now or ever after. It's a pretty bad argument.
The problem with this discourse is that what you said is hardly relevant. We have a clear understanding of what is considered moral and ethical behavior and what's not. The subject matter may as well be discrimination as no valid legal reason was given for action taken against a group of people otherwise. To say that a group of people is valid to discriminate against because reasons is also discriminatory in itself. If one wants to claim moral superiority, they have to abide by what is moral, otherwise that would make them a hypocrite. To discriminate against someone who did nothing wrong for you, and in fact was working for your cause, and to do that due to the fact that you can do nothing else for a good cause is both hypocritical and petty.
The legal reasons is the sanctions against Russia for their illegal war of aggression. All of Russia and all who live within its borders are responsible for these actions.
There is something beautiful about how U.S. news outlets were always going on about how Russia is a dictatorship, with rigged elections, where you'll be beaten, arrested or killed for protesting or speaking out--Russians supposedly have no agency. And yet simultaneously, now, Russians apparently must be held accountable for everything their government ever does, because they "voted him in" or "should overthrow Putin".
We can't have it both ways. Either Russia is a functioning democracy (which I don't personally believe exists anywhere but that is another topic), or perhaps the average person does not actually have very much say in such events.
Sanctions are meant to harm innocent people as much as possible, on purpose, with the idea being that it will cause so much unrest that the government either caves to the pressure or the people revolt. While I find that very sick in and of itself, I would at least appreciate it if we were honest about that rather than making contradictory moral statements.
That said, worse yet, almost hilariously, I cannot think of a single time sanctions have ever truly worked in a situation even remotely similar to that of Russia. Just think about countries like North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc -- like it or not, these countries have not toppled as a result of the sanctions. Do they hurt? Yes, of course, but they evidently do not destroy nations the way we believed they would.
Instead, the innocent are hurt, as was the intention, yet the goal never gets achieved. North Korea still has nuclear weapons, and all we've done is force Iran to develop its own industry, such that, ironically, it is now capable of sending weapons to aid Russia.
They have had a century to institute actual democracy. If 70% supported deposing Putin instead of the war it would be difficult for him to retain power or he would have to change tack to retain control and keep his skin intact.
We didn't think of the poor Germans when we burned them alive as part of the effort to stop the Nazis and few argue that the Germans aren't collectively complicit save only for those who actively resisted.
I'm fully willing to hold blameless those who burned weapons and recruitment centers, spoke out publicly against the war within or after fleeing Russia, shot their commander, or surrendered to avoid an unjust fight.
I'm aware those are all extremely risky. I know exactly why someone would want to keep their heads down and I none the less blame them no less than I blame all the good Nazis who didn't believe in the ideology but kept their heads down while Jews burned in ovens and their neighbors rotted in battlefields and economic consequences are the least of what is just and fair.
A million people are dead including many of their own they are complicit.
People who will suffer economically under sanctions or in this case from exclusion but who if the war isn't stopped may suffer explosive dismemberment or see their kids come home in a box.
The subject matter may as well be discrimination as no valid legal reason was given for action taken against a group of people otherwise.
All decisions are discrimination, and discrimination in general is fine. There are narrow, specific kinds of discrimination that are suspect and need additional justification. OTOH, a perfectly valid reason was offered: legal advice based on international sanctions imposed on Russian entities in response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Now, certainly, there was not public information sufficient to assess the correctness of that decision, and I would not prejudge any claim from any party adversely impacted that chose to challenge it.
But I’d also note that where there is not a contractual relationship or some other binding commitment to way against the potential consequences of sanctions violations, legal advice will likely be “better safe than sorry” in that it is better to cut off relations where there is no commitment more broadly than sanctions might require rather than to err on the other side, too. Acting in such advice mag still be a reasonable and prudent decision.
When the word "whataboutism" is used, you know it's the one rejection of a valid argument or analogy that helps clarify the argument. The ones that can't deal with that coined the therm "whataboutism".
Israel has invaded its neighbour. U.S. invaded lots of nations and still bombs multiple nations continually. But no consequences for the same. Whataboutism is necessary since the NATO/Western block juggernaut always raps others on the knuckles but always gets away scot-free when it concerns their own military actions. The sanctimonious hypocrisy is utterly sickening to those in the East and South.
Many people must realise that we are close to the ww3 and that russians really pay a lot to attack what ever is possible to attack. Linus just protect us all.
Am I right to assume that they're not delisting all Russian Linux maintainers, just the ones with some connections to Russian Government?
If that is so, then this is comparable to booting people with nazi connections from western scientific projects in 1930s, i.e. perfectly fine and in fact the only reasonable thing to do.
Again, this is not being done because these people are russian. Claiming ethnicity-based oppression where none exists is a known russotroll dogwhistle, and I think the commenters on this forum should be sophisticated enough to understand that.
Does being a russian means "some connections to Russian Government"? What is the specific criteria used in this case?
The specific criteria is legal advice received regarding sanctions regimes.
Does punishment by a nationality means USA is nazi itself?
No, because (1) nationality alone isn't the basis of the action, (2) Linus has specifically noted that the compliance issues were not solely US law, (3) treated people differently based on their nation of nationality and residence (not your own citizens by national ancestry) is not, even approximately, sufficient to be described as “nazi”.
What about that public hatred against a Russian nationality expressed by Torvalds? Is it OK to use a nazi hatred for decisions in USA?
Torvald’s expressed that it was irrational to expect him to backtrack and violate the rules on behalf of people connected to the Russian state while it is conducting aggression given the history involved, which is... well, beyond a stretch to call that a “nazi” attitude.
But nice job trolling on behalf of Russia and calling everything hostile to the interests of the Putin regime “nazi”.
1. Specific reason has not been disclosed. Why these people but not others.
2. If not USA law then what? What is the state selective criteria to honor their dictate? "Good" states are entitled to dictate, all others are ignored. Is this the way how LF works?
3. Torvalds said his decision is based on the past war where Finns were on the Hitler's side. Still so pathetic about that loss.
Am I right to assume that they've not delisting all Russian Linux maintainers, just the ones with some connections to Russian Government?
AFAICT, it is ones employed by sanctioned entities (which presumably is because of those entities connections to the regime, but the direct impetus for the Linux action is compliance with the sanctions regime, not an assessment of regime connections by anyone involved with Linux.)
Just another reason not to use Linux. I've gone to bat so many times for Linus but time and time again he proves that Benevolent Dictators for Life on tech projects are a bad idea for modern times.
Banning Russian users (IP blacklisting) is a pastime for anyone that ran any kind of service in the late 90s and early 2000s. This isn't as controversial as it's made out to be.
This shows that Linux is/ will become just as bad as Windows or some other proprietary software. Linus really needs to step down. Open Source exists so it can be available to everyone, regardless to anything let alone silly politics. Linus is clearly a very xenophobic man (evident by his posts) and has no place to decide anymore.
A complete betrayal of the spirit of open source and the Internet. It's sad that we are living in a world like this. People just pour hate and bias to others and disguise it with some high-sounding excuses. The bright future which envisioned by people in the 2000s will never come and we humanity will fxxk up eventually.
There are no words for such a stupid move. But it is consistent with the decline of Western "civilization". Volunteers in freedom projects are not passports.
Just to make things clear, Phoronix said they are being "delisted".
No, they have actually been banished, because if you're not a maintainer of some Linux kernel subsystem, Linus Torvalds stops accepting merge requests from you. You need to go through an actual maintainer first.
Much ado about nothing. There's a list of maintainers. Being delisted means you're not on the list.
If you're not a maintainer you cant maintain the kernel. D'oh.
You should not be demanding charged language just because it elicits an emotional reaction.
It's ok to make your point about it in the comments but please don't alter titles to do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
(I've reverted the title now.)
Related:
Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41919670
Is this being done as a sanction against Russia or because it is feared that the Russian government would get some rogue developers to submit code to the kernel that enables attacks?
Individual Russian programmers are not responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, so I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
They can still contribute to Linux - being removed as a maintainer doesn't mean you can't fork Linux. If they have downstream changes they want to contribute to everyone upstream, there is nothing here preventing them from doing it the same way everyone else does.
As if a normal person would bother lol. If I was discriminated this way just because of my country of birth, I'd stop engaging with such an organization at all.
Most people working on the Linux kernel are being paid by their employers to do so. This creates roadblocks for those companies. The days of the kernel being developed by a majority of idealistic developers is long gone.
It's because of their government, not of their country of birth
Specifically, the removed individuals work for Russian organizations that are sanctioned.
So this isn't really about individual Russian programmers at all.
I was trying to find the reason of their removal in the email conversation, but I couldn't have done it. The only statement was provided was something like "the reasons are clear". But it's not clear whether they were removed because of their association with sanctioned companies or just because of their country.
More like Russian government would use a spanner to convince a maintainer to put a backdoor.
Delisting them is actually best for both - maintainer and linux. Russia cannot break your skull anymore and linux keeps a contributor.
True, but individual Russian programmers are not free of Putin's influence, and could be compelled to do undesirable things.
The day after the invasion of Ukraine, my employer locked out all contractors we employed who resided in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. They got their access back once they relocated to a non-combatant country, which most of them did in short order. That probably also saved many of their lives, since it meant they escaped the draft.
Treating employees like slaves, and boasting that you “help” their stupid asses is so charming. Oh my dear cork hat! Oh my dear plantation!
Are you, like, completely ignorant of what's going on in the world?
The day after the invasion one of them, totally unprompted, basically apologized on behalf of his country in our standup and said he opposed the war (they still had access to Office 365 throughout).
Ah! Finally the spies have been freed from Putin influence by being relocated to a safer country, no matter that if someone is truly as brainwashed as you say changing countries is pointless. Fucking hypocrisy
WTF, man? I actually worked with a few of those folks. I don't think they were spies, but the policy was understandable, given the context. It dealt with risks that were practical to mitigate on such short notice when there was a lot of uncertainty, but didn't mitigate all risks. Nothing's perfect.
He has a point about history.
Russia is the reason that Finland still has compulsory military service.
Finland is also the only European country bordering Russia (excluding Norway and its small border w Russia) to escape being a Soviet Socialist Republic after WW II. Sure, they allied with Nazi Germany to accomplish that, but they joined the allies against Germany eventually.
The article is a snapshot of the discussion that's still happening on the mailing list.
Linus later responded with:
Oh boy, everyone who disagrees with me works for the Kremlin.
I mean, it's likely not just deflection/paranoia in his case.
It certanly looks like. This is, unfortunately, not the Linus i knew from lkml.
Anyway, it is a good alarm signal about open source (especially after npm and xz).
In the end we are all amunition. /s
With what's been going on in the world and with Russia, it really doesn't. That's the thing.
Maybe don't blatantly misrepresent what he wrote, even if you still disagree with it.
Labeling shows lacks of argument.
There are in reality a lot of people who work for the Kremlin or have been riled up by them. I'm not sure he's that paranoid to suspect that.
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6e90b675cf942e50c70...
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41917357
Just swallow a chill pill and move on. I hate to say it but writing a blog is not going to help much.
That's the Spirit!
Reposting from a duplicate discussion.
Communicating clearly that you cannot currently accept contributions from people potentially associated with problematic businesses is an understandable decision. Tone of voice stated following the removal of a list of names of people you used to work with not too long makes this sound like a petty statement if anything.
I really wish that you and those close to you experience the joy russians bring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_inva...
/\ that is just from the last 2 years
Ahh, old one "anyone who disagrees with me is a Russian state sponsored troll".
If he had just written - compliance, we cannot work with sanctioned entities, that would be fine and understandable.
Russia spends hundreds of millions on propaganda (paid trolls), sabotage, and espionage. There is lot of cases for Article 4 of NATO already. It's better to say sorry than to risk millions of lives.
This could have still been explained just by providing the legal requirements that led to the decision.
US spends billions on paid propaganda.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/china-cold-war-2669160202/
Cool, this post and discussion is about Russia though.
Hence money spend on propoganda is no measure to justify such reasoning. One could say, people supporting Linus' statement are US funded trolls.
Yes, you could say that. Did you you miss the part where one country is invading another country in an actual armed conflict? Then a bunch of other people choose one side or the other. They call each other names and they posture and they try to influence support. They use whatever pressure they can.
Linus and his lawyers have clearly chosen one side. You seem to have chosen the other but want to appear as if you haven't for whatever reason.
There are bunch of countries invading others as of now including Russia, US and it's allies. Who do you choose?
If this was about war, he had 2 years to take action. If this was about law he should let everyone know.
This seems more like he is being compelled by government to do something while masking it as his own. Hence the lack of reasoning for his decisions or calling anyone who questions him as Russian actors.
So… they both do it?
Whataboutism?!? Is a thread critical of Russia? How is it possible?
Why bring corporate lingo into an open source project though
Linux is an ultra-corporate project (look who pays Linus and Greg and look at the members, what they say Linus will do).
so it's just these accounts can not contribute to Linux kernel, or their contributions were removed?
Removing all the old contributions is probably impossible.
IIUC in case they want to contribute, they must send the patch to the new maintainer of that part of Linux, instead of sending it directly to Linus.
omg it's a hot buzz in non-tech circles. People thought Russians are no longer be able to participate or using Linux.
participate: It's still not 100% clear, but I guess they still can send patchs (or fork the project).
using: It's GPL2. Everyone can use it, nobody can add restrictions. (Some people think this is a feature and some that it's a bug.)
Open source communities are similar to communism in that they are practices of an ideal state (Utopia; Republic). It takes a philosopher king to rule behind the good. But it is hard to have a ruler with the qualities of a philosopher king.
There is a term for open source software: BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). At Wikepedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life ), Linus is included. But the virtue of being benevolent is too difficult to ensure and maintain.
That's a wrong conflation. Some successful open source communities and projects are set up with a BDFL, but not all or even many (see your own link). In fact, they are rather special, which is why they garner so much attention .
If open source were communist/socialist then Linus wouldn't own the kernel
Greg puts in the article the way it is
And if anyone thinks a Finn of all people would buy any BS or sad tears from their "annoying" neighbour (to put it mildly) you need to read up on some history
Of course in the end it sucks for a lot of people that has nothing to do with it.
Part of this is not about how politics affects open source world. It's about lack of open discussion and transparency. Certainly it'd be wrong for linus to call the opponents "trolls" from Russia.
I mean, no, it wouldn't, if the opponentns are largely, in fact, trolls and paid actors backed, directly or indirectly, by the Russian state.
If this was purely because of sanctions, this could have been handled much more gracefully. But it's clear from Linus' comments that he just doesn't respect these volunteers because they happen to be from a particular country.
If we're suddenly taking history as a criterion, half of the world should ban British developers from touching their projects in any way, for their repeated aggressions and ruinous colonialism. This sort of behaviour is slowly building a soft Great Firewall around the West, and making it seem like China had the right idea all along.
Russia is unique in that they are both presently and historically a threat to the entire western world.
.... and China.
Not so much a threat as actively attacking.
Russia is an Empire of Evil and Murder. Even Russian rulers hold their own people in contempt and have no use for them except as slaves. 800 years of their history proves it.
Junk away.
If that would be the case no russian would have reached the maintainer status to anything related to the kernel.
You missed the point, he didn't mention history in general, but specifically "Finnish history". In this respect it's not about British colonialism but more about about Russian imperialism / Stalinism (see Russo-Finnish war 1939).
Did he just now realized that history? For over 30 years accepting contributions from the "enemy"? Then when the history is employed, how about he as a Finn bans also Swedish contributors?
Did you just realized that Torvald is not racist or anti-russian at all? He didn't block any russian maintainers until today (more than 2 years after russia turning genocidal imperial again).
The correlation of the historical anti-Finnish aggression with present aggression and direct new threats against Finland is fairly recent, and Linus isn't pointing to his awareness of the historical and present national context as a reason for the action but as a recent why it is silly to expect him to be lax about the legal advice that is the reason for the actions.
Linus is acting based on his country's historical grievances, it only makes sense that other projects make decisions based on their own maintainers' grievances - if we approve of this as a good way of making decisions in open source. That's my point.
And even with Linux, it's not Linus' personal project anymore, hasn't been for decades - it's a global project with developers from many countries with their own views and biases. Being BDFL doesn't mean that your geopolitical agenda becomes the whole project's. Or at least, it wasn't so blatantly put on display previously that that was the case.
A high profile project like Linux doing this will have long term repercussions for how open source operates globally.
That's quite a misrepresentation of his statements. "I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression..." is certainly not about grievance. As a matter of fact, the russian aggression is real and not about finish historical grievances.
Open source is fostering collaborative environments, while russia as a state is destroying them deliberately. How does that fit together?
Russia invaded it’s neighbor. These sanctions are one of the consequences.
It sucks for the good-faith programmers in Russia but what would you have the rest of the world do? The Russian state must be sanctioned for its blatant disregard for international norms.
Please don’t just respond with whataboutism. The whataboutism in these threads involves different people in different times. This is happening now.
You can't invoke "international norms" and then in the very next paragraph "but no talking about precedent, that would be whataboutism".
Norms are established through precedents. There are considerable precedents in the 21st century that military invasions DO NOT lead to international sanctions. So this isn't a valid argument, and it's true that that decision was emotional and politically motivated.
It’s a perfectly valid argument. All invasions are generally bad, some worse than others. And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.
The idea that you turn a conversation about fairness for victims into a conversation about fairness for bullies means you don’t actually care about victims.
In other words, there are no norms or standards for handling these situations. It's purely political.
If you want perfect fairness for bullies, not victims, then you don’t actually care about victims at all.
This whataboutism is a circular argument where any brazen invasion can be justified by some previous perceived slight. Because someone somewhere got away with something, now anything is permissible.
This is arguing that we have not sanctioned murderous evil actions in the past therefore we must not do so now or ever after. It's a pretty bad argument.
The problem with this discourse is that what you said is hardly relevant. We have a clear understanding of what is considered moral and ethical behavior and what's not. The subject matter may as well be discrimination as no valid legal reason was given for action taken against a group of people otherwise. To say that a group of people is valid to discriminate against because reasons is also discriminatory in itself. If one wants to claim moral superiority, they have to abide by what is moral, otherwise that would make them a hypocrite. To discriminate against someone who did nothing wrong for you, and in fact was working for your cause, and to do that due to the fact that you can do nothing else for a good cause is both hypocritical and petty.
The legal reasons is the sanctions against Russia for their illegal war of aggression. All of Russia and all who live within its borders are responsible for these actions.
There is something beautiful about how U.S. news outlets were always going on about how Russia is a dictatorship, with rigged elections, where you'll be beaten, arrested or killed for protesting or speaking out--Russians supposedly have no agency. And yet simultaneously, now, Russians apparently must be held accountable for everything their government ever does, because they "voted him in" or "should overthrow Putin".
We can't have it both ways. Either Russia is a functioning democracy (which I don't personally believe exists anywhere but that is another topic), or perhaps the average person does not actually have very much say in such events.
Sanctions are meant to harm innocent people as much as possible, on purpose, with the idea being that it will cause so much unrest that the government either caves to the pressure or the people revolt. While I find that very sick in and of itself, I would at least appreciate it if we were honest about that rather than making contradictory moral statements.
That said, worse yet, almost hilariously, I cannot think of a single time sanctions have ever truly worked in a situation even remotely similar to that of Russia. Just think about countries like North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc -- like it or not, these countries have not toppled as a result of the sanctions. Do they hurt? Yes, of course, but they evidently do not destroy nations the way we believed they would.
Instead, the innocent are hurt, as was the intention, yet the goal never gets achieved. North Korea still has nuclear weapons, and all we've done is force Iran to develop its own industry, such that, ironically, it is now capable of sending weapons to aid Russia.
They have had a century to institute actual democracy. If 70% supported deposing Putin instead of the war it would be difficult for him to retain power or he would have to change tack to retain control and keep his skin intact.
We didn't think of the poor Germans when we burned them alive as part of the effort to stop the Nazis and few argue that the Germans aren't collectively complicit save only for those who actively resisted.
I'm fully willing to hold blameless those who burned weapons and recruitment centers, spoke out publicly against the war within or after fleeing Russia, shot their commander, or surrendered to avoid an unjust fight.
I'm aware those are all extremely risky. I know exactly why someone would want to keep their heads down and I none the less blame them no less than I blame all the good Nazis who didn't believe in the ideology but kept their heads down while Jews burned in ovens and their neighbors rotted in battlefields and economic consequences are the least of what is just and fair.
A million people are dead including many of their own they are complicit.
That’s an insane take. The vast majority of their citizens are just regular people like you or me.
People who will suffer economically under sanctions or in this case from exclusion but who if the war isn't stopped may suffer explosive dismemberment or see their kids come home in a box.
All decisions are discrimination, and discrimination in general is fine. There are narrow, specific kinds of discrimination that are suspect and need additional justification. OTOH, a perfectly valid reason was offered: legal advice based on international sanctions imposed on Russian entities in response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Now, certainly, there was not public information sufficient to assess the correctness of that decision, and I would not prejudge any claim from any party adversely impacted that chose to challenge it.
But I’d also note that where there is not a contractual relationship or some other binding commitment to way against the potential consequences of sanctions violations, legal advice will likely be “better safe than sorry” in that it is better to cut off relations where there is no commitment more broadly than sanctions might require rather than to err on the other side, too. Acting in such advice mag still be a reasonable and prudent decision.
When the word "whataboutism" is used, you know it's the one rejection of a valid argument or analogy that helps clarify the argument. The ones that can't deal with that coined the therm "whataboutism".
Whataboutism isn't an argument, it's a deflection.
No, its called applying the same argument and same standard to both parties. Your "Laws" are equally applied or not at all.
"Whataboutism" was originally a valid criticism of "tu-quoque" attacks.
Now it's frequently used as a defense for hypocrisy.
Israel has invaded its neighbour. U.S. invaded lots of nations and still bombs multiple nations continually. But no consequences for the same. Whataboutism is necessary since the NATO/Western block juggernaut always raps others on the knuckles but always gets away scot-free when it concerns their own military actions. The sanctimonious hypocrisy is utterly sickening to those in the East and South.
This isn't punishment. This is negative reinforcement. This applies to an ongoing unwanted behavior.
A lot of these developers work at Russian war machine and secret police suppliers (like ALT Linux or Baikal) so no this is not just that.
During the BRICS meeting...well done Linus, this is a good way to strengthen a multipolar world.
Linux and Wordpress are competing in the "well-managed" open source community of the year reward.
Before there were BCacheFS and "Rust for Linux" controversies this year.
Many people must realise that we are close to the ww3 and that russians really pay a lot to attack what ever is possible to attack. Linus just protect us all.
Linus typically excels at focusing on 'issues' rather than 'individuals'. However, this time he has chosen to do the opposite.
Key takeovers:
1. Linux is occupied by USA
2. US praises public hatred against a nationality
No, the targets are only contractors of specific firms.
Am I right to assume that they're not delisting all Russian Linux maintainers, just the ones with some connections to Russian Government?
If that is so, then this is comparable to booting people with nazi connections from western scientific projects in 1930s, i.e. perfectly fine and in fact the only reasonable thing to do.
Again, this is not being done because these people are russian. Claiming ethnicity-based oppression where none exists is a known russotroll dogwhistle, and I think the commenters on this forum should be sophisticated enough to understand that.
1. Does being a russian means "some connections to Russian Government"? What is the specific criteria used in this case?
2. Does punishment by a nationality means USA is nazi itself?
3. What about that public hatred against a Russian nationality expressed by Torvalds? Is it OK to use a nazi hatred for decisions in USA?
The specific criteria is legal advice received regarding sanctions regimes.
No, because (1) nationality alone isn't the basis of the action, (2) Linus has specifically noted that the compliance issues were not solely US law, (3) treated people differently based on their nation of nationality and residence (not your own citizens by national ancestry) is not, even approximately, sufficient to be described as “nazi”.
Torvald’s expressed that it was irrational to expect him to backtrack and violate the rules on behalf of people connected to the Russian state while it is conducting aggression given the history involved, which is... well, beyond a stretch to call that a “nazi” attitude.
But nice job trolling on behalf of Russia and calling everything hostile to the interests of the Putin regime “nazi”.
1. Specific reason has not been disclosed. Why these people but not others.
2. If not USA law then what? What is the state selective criteria to honor their dictate? "Good" states are entitled to dictate, all others are ignored. Is this the way how LF works?
3. Torvalds said his decision is based on the past war where Finns were on the Hitler's side. Still so pathetic about that loss.
Trolls are ones who justify this LF move actually
1. No
2. Invalid premise, since they're not punishing by nationality
3. Also invalid premise, Torvalds is not expressing hatred towards Russian nationality
AFAICT, it is ones employed by sanctioned entities (which presumably is because of those entities connections to the regime, but the direct impetus for the Linux action is compliance with the sanctions regime, not an assessment of regime connections by anyone involved with Linux.)
Just another reason not to use Linux. I've gone to bat so many times for Linus but time and time again he proves that Benevolent Dictators for Life on tech projects are a bad idea for modern times.
Linus Torvalds sold out and betrayed the ideals. Продажный уёбок!
Linus Torvalds sold out and betrayed the ideals. Продажный пидор ты предал все идеалы!
Banning Russian users (IP blacklisting) is a pastime for anyone that ran any kind of service in the late 90s and early 2000s. This isn't as controversial as it's made out to be.
This shows that Linux is/ will become just as bad as Windows or some other proprietary software. Linus really needs to step down. Open Source exists so it can be available to everyone, regardless to anything let alone silly politics. Linus is clearly a very xenophobic man (evident by his posts) and has no place to decide anymore.
just the tip of the iceberg. if you think about it, maybe the kernel that runs everything in the world shouldn't be controlled by a single edgy dude.
A complete betrayal of the spirit of open source and the Internet. It's sad that we are living in a world like this. People just pour hate and bias to others and disguise it with some high-sounding excuses. The bright future which envisioned by people in the 2000s will never come and we humanity will fxxk up eventually.
Toivo Tuomas Savolainen - does this rings a bell?
WWII in Soumi is called "Continuation war" - does this rings a bell?
What about Israel bro?
There are no words for such a stupid move. But it is consistent with the decline of Western "civilization". Volunteers in freedom projects are not passports.