Is there a specific reason for this?
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)
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.
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.
Sanctions apply on OS development?
I dont know ennough on the topic, does this ecen check out?
As they said in the article, they are just listening to their lawyers. I would assume those lawyers are correct.
Finland is experiencing suspicious acts of sabotage and disruption and believes Russia is engaged in broad-ranging influence operations against it and other European countries
Since Linus is Finnish, this literally hits home for him, hence (probably) his reaction.
Nobody has stated any actual reason. Based on Linus’ comments, Russophobia is the likely answer.
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.
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.
The security issue is very likely scenario. If you’re in Russia, you can go to jail at any moment on totally bogus charges. It is very easy for FSB to pressure some random kernel maintainer into adding hard to detect backdoor into their code, it will be XZ situation all over again.
Liberals love collective punishment and have been in a Russophobic bender for decades, with an uptick in recent years. They hate all Russians and repeat racist rhetoric from Ukrainian Nazis.
All it takes is reading the article to see why it was done. You clearly did not do that and instead inserted your own agenda.
I did read the article and drew the conclusion I just stated. Feel free to offer your own take.
For what reason do all Russians deserve to be punished and excluded as pariahs?
He just applied Russians’ favorite soviet era saying “those who is not with us is against us”
