Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers
Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers
Removal of kernel maintainers linked to Russia attributed to sanctions
"Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.
It's entirely clear why the change was done, it's not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to "grass root" it by Russian troll factories isn't going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren't troll farm accounts - the "various compliance requirements" are not just a US thing.
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."
fuck yes. fuck russia. fuck russians.
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."
Man, it's like you spend centuries brutalizing all your neighbors, if not outright conquering them and enforcing holocausts, and this is the thanks you get!
Putin:
Russian culture is so underappreciated 🥺
No, it is appreciated. Just not in the way you want it to be.
No. Not fuck Russians as a blanket policy. The Russian government is full of corrupt and evil bastards, but it's certain that most Russians are the same as most other citizens; They just want to go about their business.
I'm in favor of blocking the Russian accounts, they're probably mostly state actors. The ones that aren't actively sabotaging the codebase are unfortunate causalities, but it's better than the alternative.
I have no problem with Russians, but I do have a problem with the Russian government, and that makes me suspect Russians due to the chance of the Russian government using its leverage to get them to do what they want. So I understand the move, but I'm saddened that FOSS gets sucked into international politics.
FOSS is inherently political, though, and an international collaboration like Linux is inherently internationally political. Allowing big corporations to influence the direction of the codebase? That's political. Allowing the free usage and distribution of the software to anybody for any purpose not otherwise afforded by existing copyright law? That's political. Collaborating with contributors from almost every country on Earth? That's political. Being headquartered in the United States? Again political. Creating a hierarchy with Linus Torvalds at the top? The definition of politics.
It feels like people only start screaming "that's politics though!" whenever it becomes political in a way that's controversial to them – without recognizing how completely pervasive politics are in every single aspect of our lives. The fact we're even talking on Lemmy right now is political – in all likelihood, we both decided that Reddit's system of governance was unfair and thought a federated system was somehow more ideal, in this case a platform created by outspoken authcoms. That's even disregarding the Internet which Lemmy sits on top of, including net neutrality, freedom of speech, the infrastructure connecting different jurisdictions, the way it came about through organizations like DARPA, CERN, the IEEE, and ICANN, etc.
So, basically it's enough to say "Fuck Russia, Fuck Russians" here and it gains you massive support.
Seriously?
First, how does this fuck Russia the state?
Second, what everyday Russians have to do with it? What justifies sneaking in hate messages to a diverse ethnic group with no single ideology?
Saying "Fuck Russians" is about the same as "Fuck Jews" because Israel has done bad things. This is not okay.
Russia has said they are going to do asymetrical warfare with the west. So why should we not prepare for what they claim they will do? Russians arent owed anything by us. Not a seat at the table, not a chance to contribute to open source software, not to be listened to. Not rights beyond their borders. It doesnt matter if they are nice. Its not our job and not realistic to expend time and resources to take each individual russian's personal measure and apply sanctions onesey twosey on the bad ones. If they dont like it they should take it up with their motherland and get it sorted. I think we should immediately shut down all visas of any kind with Russia. The fact that the US is still allowing them to vacation here is absurd.
First, how does this fuck Russia the state?
It makes it more difficult for Russia to put backdoors into western IT infrastructure
With respect to screwing the state, it diminishes the nation's standing in the world. Tech companies under the government are unable to compete with other tech companies when it comes to promises of supporting Linux properly.
By itself it's not much but add the sum total of sanctions and you hopefully inflict an obvious contrast in prosperity available through global trade for a well behaved nation versus losing access to all those markets through misbehavior.
If the world doesn't want to step in with direct force, this is about the only sort of potentially effective measure available. Without force nor economic measures, you are left with shaking your head is disapproval.
Well, if your state is breaching international law, deporting children, using artillery to reduce cities to ashes, sending hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to their death and allying itself with fucking north korea to "denazify" a country while swinging its nuclear dick around...
then maybe it's time to leave the country or accept that people with a russian mail address are persona non grata in the rest of the world. It's not their first war of aggression, and enough is enough.
fuck russia. fuck russians.
and fuck hospital- and refugee camp bombing zionists btw. (not all jews are zionists!)
At the very least, a strong majority of russians are supporters of genocidal imperialism, however a solid argument could be made that it's more like an overwhelming majority.
This holds true across all demographic segments; income, education, age, region, rural vs urban. You may have a situation where the support for genocidal imperialism is a mere majority (e.g. younger cohorts), while others approach an almost absolute majority (older cohorts), but the majority always holds no matter how you slice and dice it.
This is backed by almost all quantitative and qualitative research conducted over past ~35 years. I can share a pretty funny anecdote about how an allegedly opposition minded russian (who gets quoted in the NYT) had to twist his own quantitative findings to present a better picture of russian society.
Even recent qualitative research run by opposition minded russian researchers shows a damning picture among of even allegedly moderate russians (in russian, I can share it).
A strong majority of everyday russian support the extermination of Ukrainian culture and sending everyone who disagrees to a torture camp. And this is not limited to Ukraine, they have a similar attitude to all nations that freed themselves from cancer that was the USSR.
Unfortunately many are ignorant of the nature of russian society or prefer to reject difficult information (it's just social media hate).
Torvalds is a Finn and he understand these things and he doesn't have the liberty of shying away from reality.
When compare "Fuck Russians" to "Fuck Jews"; what exactly are you referring to? Russian as in the ethnicity or Russian as in the nationality. This is actually a pretty important point.
Our countries welcome Ukrainian refugees.
I am friends with Russians in my country.
Russiana living here sneak benefits by saying they are Ukrainians.
The majority of Russians living here voted for Putin polls have shown.
Some Russians denounce our media and only watch Russian state TV.
So if they can't adapt after beeing here for decades I tend to believe that the Russian common sense differs immensly from ours. And therefore I agree with this propaganda: Fuck Russia.
They talk about eachother on the highest level but Russian citizens - here or in Russia - do not form loud critique. If my Brother was jailed for critique I would apread the word in my circles who would spread the word.... WE IN THE WEST WOULD MAKE US HEARD.
Russians benefiting from the lower prices just agree with their government and apparently do not care about their country killing innocent people.
So fuck Russians as well.
- Obviously not every Russian is stupid or bad. But if they want to get out of their war, they have to speak up. This is exactly what they demand from other countries with inner conflicts.
Propaganda goes both ways
Yes. Fuck Russia and fuck Russians. Slava Ukraini!
Because the ex-Soviet elite layer, one can say, a one big mafia corporation, after USSR's breakup has taught its ways to Western elites, and Western elites have taught them something too.
Actually in that context Linus' dad being a Finnish communist who lived in USSR for some time is an interesting additional fact. I even remember reading that in J4F and marveling at his rose-tinted view of USSR there.
These people want to pretend that this didn't happen and their institutions are not already dying, and that they are very different from Russians.
So they think they can avoid something by hating more on Russians, that must help. It's like avoiding infected people during a plague, only your crowd is already infected too, it's too late.
Also when you are more used to something and conscious of it, you have more immunity.
In Russia we have a choice between obvious propaganda, delusions reactive to that propaganda (which are not truth, but humans want to think that the clear opposite of propaganda is the truth), various fuzzy neutral-pessimistic grassroots opinions, and 100 sorts of foreign obvious propaganda. We are also conscious of how much power we as people really have. Even those who volunteer for Ukraine are not doing that due to "lack of real news", they are doing that due to various kinds of desperation and cynicism, some just being evil.
In any Western country you have the same choice, but due to the common delusion that your kinds of obvious propaganda are not that, you tend to avoid using it. That's just an earlier stage.
I think it's pretty reasonable and okay for Palestinians to yell "Fuck Jews" IMHO
I wouldn't want them to go genociding back, but breaking ties in collaboration would be very fair and reasonable
You should approach the same fuck first approach to Israel and the us with what they are doing in Gaza and Lebanon while you are at it. That would show your adherence to standard behaviour in the light of current genocides going on.
Sure Russia is bad so fuck Russia but do you have the balls or boobs to say fuck Israel ?
Yes, fuck Israel and fuck Russia. Not sure why I'm responding to this dumb bait, but here we are. It's not a straw man argument when both countries are run by literal human feces
It's even funnier when we realize Russia is possibly the reason there even is an Israel-Palestine conflict.
Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920. While a large majority emigrated to the United States, some turned to Zionism. In 1882, members of Bilu and Hovevei Zion made what came to be known the First Aliyah to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Tsarist government sporadically encouraged Jewish emigration. In 1890, it approved the establishment of "The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine"[51] (known as the "Odessa Committee" headed by Leon Pinsker) dedicated to practical aspects in establishing agricultural Jewish settlements in Palestine.
So they encouraged and supported those settlements.
You should approach the same fuck first approach to Israel
Why should they do that in the comments section under a post about Russia?
If you think caring about one tragedy means ignoring another, that’s a ‘you’ problem.
People who actually care about human suffering don’t play the ‘whataboutism’ game—because it’s not a contest, it’s a crisis. Your deflection isn’t advocacy; it’s just lazy, performative outrage disguised as moral high ground.
He didn't expel all Russians, just the ones working for sanctioned Russian companies.
Important context and a good decision
That would've been great for them to clarify earlier XD
Good! So why the incendiary comments Linus made on Russians. It is so hard to say something like this: "I have to expel them from the project due to a US law forced us to do it. However, I had trust on them all these years and they contributed a lot to the project (that is why they were working here). Now, I am against the law because we should not discriminate people for the origin. Moreover, the claim that they can harm the software is unwarranted because it is OPEN and many eyes are on it. Finally, this harms the entire Linux project because now makes it an "American"project rather than an global one. Sad times."
I am also against Russian aggression on Ukraine! But would no ban any Russian because of that. The same I am completely against US occupying Iraq and 1/3 of Syria, yet never would occur to me not to hire an American because what their country does. I really don't understand why is so hard to understand for Lemmy community the double standard.
Some people would disagree with you https://lwn.net/Articles/995294/
Your own link 1) does not attest to that and 2) has a comment replying to it directly contradicting what it's saying in the first place.
I think given the current political situation this is the right call. No one knows what the Russian government might compel otherwise innocent devs to do.
That said, we (and I mean society, not any particular individual) should be mindful that we don’t slip into bigotry.
I’ve worked side by side with RU devs who were both personable and damned competent. Never were their tech skills in doubt, and I retain quite a bit of respect for those individuals.
I’d not do the same today explicitly because of the political and compliance implications. It’s unfortunate, but necessary.
i wish there was more we could do to help russians topple their dictatorship
Necessary for what?
Linux Fundarion is based in America. It needs to follow its rules and politics. I guess a lot of things will happen after this. As something so important for open technology like It , should be based in a more open, mor asvanced in laws and neutral territory.
This is hardly the first time the core Linux code stack has been forked and independently developed. Seems like this is going to invite a Russia-specific development environment that just pulls in updates from the main branch and adds in Russia-internal development (which will likely then be copied by non-Russians and backloaded into the core Linux stack under someone else's name, because why waste good dev work?)
But the argument appears to be anyone with a Russian-sounding name is getting removed from the core development team, until they can prove to the American team that they aren't... spooks, I guess? Also
The driver code to which the dropped maintainers contributed remains in place.
So this isn't such a high security risk that the code is being pulled (presumably because its been vetted and appears beyond repute). This is purely a CYA move to eliminate veterans on the team because they were forthright about their identities.
should be based in a more open, mor asvanced in laws and neutral territory.
Its not clear how a policy of booting people based on their surnames accomplishes this.
Not gonna lie, this is kinda a refutation of the whole open source model. I was led to believe that it shouldn't matter who writes the code, as long the code is able to be interrogated/corrected.
Removing people from CREDITS looks like someone should have been mindful before acting.
They were removed from MAINTAINERS, which is what identifies the people responsible for maintaining a piece of code, a subsystem of Linux, not the credits, which is encoded in the git commit history.
The current ceo of usa is supporting a genocide in gaza and the former ceo is a fascist. Does the same logic apply here?
I think pressure should be put on the US to divest from genocide. Sanctions from our allies would be helpful... Surely with the international court declaring Israel's actions a war crime it is easy to make a case for it.
Our election system has fucked over anti-zionists and needs reforming, which is happening, but not by this November.
Ranked choice voting is gaining popularity, electoral college is under pressure and people are fed up with voter suppression and gerrymandering and things are moving in a positive direction on the local and state levels.
With that logic, the US contributes should be expelled too. We have more examples of US folks being served NSLs than Russians.
Its an American-based venture, owned and operated by American businessmen. They're not going to burn their own guys, even if some of them are spooks (no evidence that anyone on the core dev team is a spook, but crazy to think the FSB would have people in and the Five-Eyes guys wouldn't).
I do wonder how long until we start seeing mainstream code-forks that span geopolitical regions. Will we have a Digital Iron Curtain, with BRICS countries doing their own FOSS branches independently of NATO block?
What current situation?
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Is so hard to believe Open Source should be open? If there were a malicious intent, others would have been able to detect it in no time… because it is ‘open’! If the open system works, it should not matter there are CIA or FSB, commies or libertarians “infiltrated” making the code.
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If those Russians had been in that position is because their contributions have been stellar, otherwise they would never have gotten there. Their contribution and effort has been robbed from them just because they mothers give them birth in the wrong coordinates.
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Linus is a god for many of us… with human traits though... His Finland, although historically robbed by Russia, achieved its highest splendor during the decades of neutrality, not by fiercely antagonizing one or the other power… same as Switzerland, Ireland, Austria and Singapore.
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All this started with a US law so he has to comply with. However, instead of those unhelpful comments, he should say that in open software it is unwarranted… not to mention countries can get sanctions for their actions, but not civilians that cannot choose where they are born.
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If we are to believe that Moscow is trying to put something into the kernel “undetected”… gosh, what an organization based on the US with a so pro-establishment leader may be doing so? For real, now I am starting having my doubts on the kernel!
Linus is a god for many of us… with human traits though… His Finland, although historically robbed by Russia, achieved its highest splendor during the decades of neutrality, not by fiercely antagonizing one or the other power… same as Switzerland, Ireland, Austria and Singapore.
Ukraine was neutral before 2014, that didn't help avoid an invasion. Not to mention they occupied Moldova and Georgia before that too.
They have not been able to attack the Baltic nations or Poland because they joined NATO.
Neutrality word salad is only for the ignorant or those who support russian imperialism.
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Linus is from Finland. Finns barely tolerate Russians under usual circumstances. These are not usual circumstances.
True he could have banned them long ago, it's his project in the end, but he didn't, he only did it after the sanctions
Linus's dad was a Finnish communist and lived in USSR for some time, one can say a VIP person. You actually lack the context to realize how important this is. Many people of such connections (not accusing Linus, no) are usually still connected to Russia's regime more than, ahem, me. The documents about just whom that encompasses are still secret in Russian archives. Well, technically one can get a permission, but random people are refused it.
Finns barely tolerate Russians under usual circumstances.
Yes, we know that, massacring Russian civilian population during 1917-1918 and then doing that David-n-Goliath thing in the Winter War, which is the only thing they want to remember, and then 1941-1945 with Finnish troops participating in the blockade of Lengingrad and making concentration camps for civilian population, again.
I don't get how that should work in Linus's favor, though.
Oh, and also during the Cold War the foreign country most integrated into USSR's MIC was Finland. Not something of the Warsaw Pact ones, but Finland.
You're telling me they barely tolerated building warships for USSR, right? Poor guys.
And then people in the Interwebs are asking why some average Russian doesn't go and rebel or blow up FSB buildings or something. I wonder the fuck why.
That's why.
Just so we're clear, your opinion is that Russians working for sanctioned companies should remain as maintainers of the kernel because Torvalds is a Finn and that he's obligated to Russia because "Finland bad"?
So, therefore, Putin can and should exploit access to the kernel via these Russian maintainers because Finland is somehow historically worse than the USSR?
Am I misunderstanding you?
If he did that that would have been genuine discrimination. If he has to do it now because of sanctions, then ok fine. But otherwise I don't want to see an open source project treating people differently based on where they were born.
Come on lemmy, how is this pro-racism comment upvoted so many times? Please, think.
Oh no, the treaty-breaking, nuke-threatening, war-crime-committing invading force is being discriminated against!
Holy shit, gtfo. Maybe don't be an actual cunt if you don't want people to "discriminate" against you? The guy didn't even fire all Russians, only those tied to sanctioned companies. He did less than should've been done. But that's only because what should be done to Russia at this point is assassinating their leader, disarming the country, executing the army, installing a puppet government that ensures economic and military inferiority, and selling tickets to piss on Putins grave for the rest of the world to blow off some steam.
Edit: here's a view from a Russian, maybe that helps:
"Russian" is not a race.
Absolutely based as fuck as usual.
To directly quote Linus:
Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.
It's entirely clear why the change was done, it's not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to "grass root" it by Russian troll factories isn't going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren't troll farm accounts - the "various compliance requirements" are not just a US thing.
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.
Linus really pouring on that "white death" energy.
Save your sanity and do Settings -> Blocks -> Block instance -> lemmy.ml
Also perhaps block me if you strongly disagree with the above.
That instance's mods blocked me this morning lol.
The amount of people simping for Russia in that other thread is insane. Apparently calling Ukraine a country of Nazis is fine, but saying Russia is a dictatorship is not lmao.
If you see a tankie or pro Russia comment, 99% of the time it's a lemmy.ml poster
Hexgears and of course lemmygrad.ml are of the same kind
yep I got banned from there for simply stating that ukraine has a right to defend themselves after Modi called for "peace". Apparently absolute pacifism is only required from one side.
Some of us are actually normal
Yeah, when I created my Lemmy account I had to choose an instance before knowing anything about Lemmy yet. And .ml seemed like the default one to choose, given https://join-lemmy.org/ told me it is ran by the devs.
Oh well.
I see you, hang in there buddy!
Seriously, the hexbears just moved one over to keep getting exposure.
Yesterday I accidentally commented in .ml and mentioned that voting third party in our current voting system is playing with fire to get a worse candidate in office. I was told I must therefore start a grassroots movement for ranked choice voting, because apparently I can't have an opinion without a movement.
Normally I let a few downvotes get under my skin more than I care to admit, but in this setting it was kind of a badge of honor. Honestly it was kind of "fun" to see what people were saying.
Save your sanity and do Settings -> Blocks -> Block instance -> lemmy.ml
I approve this comment.
improved my lemmy experience ten fold just blocking that instance.
I would encourage that, but if your instance doesn't defederate them you may have to go a bit farther since you'll still get replies from lemmy.ml users, as users are not blocked as part of this functionality. And that is by design, it's not meant to act as a replacement or alternative to defederation, it's meant to act as an alternative to blocking all communities on an instance.
This is about open-source being open. I'm a very non-tankie, and I think this is bad- though a bit better if its only people working for sanctioned companies.
Go look at the principles of open-source or free software as defined either by the OSI and the FSF and then come back when you find the one that says that Linus needs to violate US sanctions to keep employees of Russian companies in trusted roles within his project.
Also, what does this have to do with being tankie or not? Modern Russia is very openly not communist.
This is about open-source being open.
tell that to the mods of [email protected] who ban you for disagreeing with them.
Please stip blocking people, please stip talking about blocking everyone
Yes, i gettit. Different opinions can be annoying but if we don't all participate in. A similar environment.we all just disappear in our little echo chamber pillars, unable to hear or understand the others, which leads to more extremist opinions on all sides.
We NEED to hear others, if not just for the fact that others may NEED to hear our voices too.
I honestly this echo chamber crap is squarely caused by the Internet, the tool that promised to bring humanity together, and instead ended up dividing us more than ever because anyone hearing an opinion they don't like immediately bans that voice. Can't have anyone disagreeing now!
I get it, there are some stupid opinions out there, dangerous ones too, but the more we ban them, the more they will only be able to talk eachother into extremism and the WILL be back, with more people, and more extremist opinions.
FFS, we need to learn to start listening to each other again. An entire generation has grown up with "if you don't like to hear that opinion, just have it banned", and it's not helpful.
Early Internet was a wild west crazy town for sure, loads of assholes lurking around, but it was better than what we have now, where EVERY space is curated and hawkishly guarded against those that might even look in the wrong direction.
I've spent quite some time on right wing subs back in the day in Reddit, discussing whatever topic with hard line conservative right wing types and when you do you find out they are human too, usually with a lot of fears, and you actually get to understand why they feel the way they feel, and you can get them to understand that yeah, maybe it's not the best solution. You find common ground and got somebody a little closer to the light. Yes, I'm a big fan of that black guy (forgot his name) who goes out to talk to KKK members to convert them away from the KKK.
I know this isn't for everyone, but a lot of us can and should step up and start talking, start listening. I'm not saying st all you should agree with a neo nazi, but you can listen to him or her, understand where they're coming from, and have them do the same. Once you both see the humanity in each other you can actually make everyone be a little better.
It's better than the alternative where the inevitable outcome is that we'll start having civil wars everywhere and just kill those we oppose.
No, actually...
... but seriously, the Internet is so different from real life that no comparisons make sense. Opinions that would have been uttered by the craziest village idiots in a local gas station 30 years ago are now distributed and magnified by the social media machine. In the past, you could see with your eyes, hear with your ears and even smell with your nose which people you really really should not listen to, but in the internet, those people look exactly like you and me.
And it's all sapping your energy and time, the most precious resources you have.
That's why blocking is fine, even whole instances if they are shown to be crazy enough.
Also, I would like to point out that the creators of the clients for the first community platforms (usenet) recognized early on the importance of shutting people up (killfiles).
I understand what you mean but I'll have to disagree. Letting people just do anything like that is like not charging criminals for the crimes they've commited. It could make people act similarly.
We NEED to hear others, if not just for the fact that others may NEED to hear our voices too.
We have tried engaging in good faith, but they don't WANT to hear us. For example, the mods of [email protected] (specifically https://lemmy.ml/u/OurToothbrush) ban for people for simply disagreeing with them. Happened to me and I've seen multiple others.
I'm surprised to find somebody with some sense around here.
I have never used a block or mute feature on any site or any service in all my life. It is wild to me that people today actually use those features, let alone to constrict the ideas that they allow themselves to be exposed to.
I conducted a fun little experiment over at /c/[email protected] in which I posited the question: "If it were possible, how would you deprogram an extreme conservative?". I then waited twenty hours before posting "If it were possible, how would you deprogram an extreme progressive?". The difference in reception between the questions exposed the intense lib-left bias that is pervasive on Lemmy, a byproduct of people constantly walling themselves into self-made echochambers.
I hope people do not do that and take into account this campaign against lemmy.ml. I am aware of the accusations against the admins of this instance, but I practically never see here this kind of brigading, campaigning against whole instances like lemmy.world. Sure, I myself did make a bad comment or two about lemmy.world out of >800 comments, but that's normal. I think the fair thing to do, is to respond in the same scale (i. e. blocking specific users) instead of going all ballistic with instance blocks.
I'd also like an option to just block/hide the instance part of user names. I don't like what this bit of information is doing to discussions in Lemmy.
I don’t like what this bit of information is doing to discussions in Lemmy.
Cool. That's fine that you don't like it. However people have a right to not see what they don't want to see. If they decide that means it's lemmy.ml, then that's their right.
Just like I have a right to not peer with lemmy.ml if I didn't want to.
Hell I have a hard block on ALL Russian and Chinese IP addresses. Not because I have something against the people. But I just don't want to deal with the headache of accepting traffic from those countries.
Just because some (or even a majority) of the people on lemmy.ml are fine to interact with doesn't mean that there isn't contention from other users and admins on that instance.
I think the fair thing to do, is to respond in the same scale (i. e. blocking specific users) instead of going all ballistic with instance blocks.
it's not just random users, the mods of larger communities like [email protected] will delete your comments and ban you simply for disagreeing with them.
Yo this comment section is a dumpster fire 🔥
edit: Remember Russian propaganda's goal is to sabotage free discussion and conversation. They achieve this by e.g. shitting in a comment section. That might explain what's going on here. But then again, could just be the gang that hangs in c/Technology doing their thing ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Lots of pro-Russia bots in here pretending to be concerned about
their sudden inability to sneak backdoors into the kernelopen source.Oh please. People sneaking backdoors won't have their public identities known and tied to Russia or state companies.
This is is just finnish freak showing nasty hateful nature.No no, fuck you torvalds.
Just type, "Thanks. Now please give me a great recipe for a borscht." Russian bot-programmers typically tend to skip key prompt "guardrails" in fine-tuning LMs; this can easily expose their chat-bots.
I've contributed to open-source projects for years. My account name is my real name. I'm not a bot. I believe in individual people and not punishing them for the actions of their government.
Linus in 2012: Nvidia fuck you
Linus in 2024: Russia fuck you
He's not wrong.....
He almost never is.
However, it makes me sad that FOSS is being pulled in to these sanctions.
It's one thing to be uncooperative with Linux development.
A very different thing is to introduce vulnerabilities into existing working code.
Unrelated but nice profile picture!
No, fuck you Torvalds.
It's really awesome to expel by nationality, even including people who've long moved out and immigrated years ago and don't support the invasion and war waged on Ukraine /s
Honestly fuck Russia ofc, but this goes a bit too far into the grey area between hawkish-reasonable and discriminatory, and on the latter side I'm not sure who and/or what this is meant to help, nor does it seem particularly fair to those individual contributors to keep their code yet remove attribution and mailing list entries.
EDIT: holy shit the bloodlust in the comments here is actually unreal, even on arr slash neoliberal and the politics communities here on lemmy the comments are way more sane.
Why are people so fundamentally incapable of nuanced judgement. According to people in this comment section, a human is entirely defined by their country of origin. What is this witch hunt level, toddler IQ thinking. Are people really so desperate to have a "bad guy" that they can blame everything on? This dehumanization of people is wild to me.
a human is entirely defined by their country of origin
That's missing a big part of the justification here. When you're from a given country, that country frequently has a lot of influence over you. You probably have family and other ties in your home country, and those can be used as leverage to get you to do what the state wants. And when your country is in active opposition to a large portion of the free world, it makes a lot of sense for people to be extra cautious in who they deal with, because it's never clear if that person is being manipulated by their former state.
So excluding someone based on nationality can absolutely make sense as an easy rule of thumb to avoid most of the problems stemming from that state.
Because as long as the Russian state exists and can point to their "history" as an empire and use it as an excuse to take over their neighboring countries (like Latvia, the place where I'm from), I won't be satisfied.
Unfortunately nobody is bombing Moscow yet, so anything that isolates and makes the population more angry and can hopefully topple the government is a good thing in my book
Have you even read the policy? "The people removed from maintainer positions were identified as employed by companies on the US and EU sanctions list. These companies are directly involved in the Russian military complex and therefore are directly complicit in war crimes being committed daily in Ukraine". Racist? My ass.
Yeah. Times like this I wonder whether a better world is even really possible, or whether social liberalisation was but a blip on a trajectory of bigotry, antagonism, tribalism and savagery.
Even in harmless contexts, the commodification of national identity as the first and foremost trait of a person even for the purposes of smalltalk or jest always makes me think if perhaps most are far more nationalist than they'd care to admit or even themselves think. It's a haunting thought.
It's disappointing behavior by Linus. It's understandable that sanctions could force the removal of people just for being Russia.
His reply however shows he personally is in favor of removing people just for being Russian.
I wonder if any of the people who pressured him to take some time off for being a "jerk" will give a shit for this response.
keep their code yet remove attribution
Isn't that a violation of the GPL?
Have you ever wondered if a russian can get a non .ru domain, and still collaborate? .ru and .su tlds are directly controlled by the Russian state
One of the mainrainers had a gmail.
Yeah for sure. If that's the basis then just block those domains. Unless I misunderstood, which is totally possible, it doesn't seem like that's the entire extent of the block.
You sound surprised. Lemmy.world is the biggest propaganda instance on Lemmy but they'll tell you it isn't and it's only propaganda when the other guys do it.
Nah, that honor definitely goes to lemmy.ml
Russia represent Russian citizens the same way the US represent US citizens. If you're an US citizen and you think US international actions look bad on you then tough luck. Being a citizen of a specific state comes with its own responsibilities and consequences. If Russian nationals have long moved out of Russia and migrated elsewhere and don't support anything Russia does, why are they still Russian citizens? If they don't want to get sanctioned and they've long migrated from Russia they should apply for citizenship elsewhere. If they choose to stay Russian citizens that's on them.
As for nationality vs citizenship. Nationality is too vague of a term because it can mean both citizen of a state and originating from said state. I'm pretty sure in this case the discussion is about people who are Russian citizens, not people who originate from Russia but are no longer associated with them. Using nationality only muddies the discussion.
If they don't want to get sanctioned and they've long migrated from Russia they should apply for citizenship elsewhere
Have you ever thought about doing this yourself? Don't have to go far to figure that it takes at least 5 years of hard work in most cases, if possible at all. Citizenship unfortunately isn't something you can acquire or renounce at will. Not without being obscenely rich, that is.
Russia represent Russian citizens the same way the US represent US citizens.
Lolwut. Russia isn't even a democracy.
If you're an US citizen and you think US international actions look bad on you then tough luck.
You really think Joe Schmoe Ignoramus from Shaboygan, Wisconsin just trying to buy gas is to be held responsible for the civilian deaths in Palestine? War in Iraq? Unhinged.
Being a citizen of a specific state comes with its own responsibilities and consequences.
No, because being a citizen of a state is not a choice. You are born where you're born.
If Russian nationals have long moved out of Russia and migrated elsewhere and don't support anything Russia does, why are they still Russian citizens?
Because they may have family (e.g. elderly parents that require care) there and prospects of being able to visit otherwise aren't great.
If they choose to stay Russian citizens that's on them.
But that's besides the fact actually getting a citizenship in another country is very very difficult. I've been in the UK for like 15 years, since 10 or so years old, and only just barely eligible now, gonna take another 2 years if not more to go through the process.
Your entire comment is "Tell me you're a westerner without the least bit of awareness of how immigration works without telling me." basically, living happily with a golden US passport or in the Schengen, not how it works for the majority of the world, or there'd be no one left in the global south.
Nationality is too vague of a term because it can mean both citizen of a state and originating from said state.
No it really can't.
Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
In international law, nationality is a legal identification establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states.
How is this keeping to open source philosophies in any way?
“No, you can’t work on this, you’re Russian.”
I don’t support the Russian Government or its actions in any way, but these devs are probably not part of it. They maintain drivers for fucking ASUS hardware.
Because there are both US and EU laws preventing code from countries deemed a threat. Torvalds is paid by the Ameircan Linux Foundation, which has to work under US law and he himself is an EU citizen. Also a lot of other developers are from those countries and if they do not comply, they could get into some pretty bad legal trouble.
So it pretty much boils down to kick out the Russians or kick out all US and EU citizens and well we see Linus choice.
It's not that hard of a choice either ofc, given one is essentially required.
Do you also know Finland is next to russia and it does not have to be US influence for someone like Linus to know Russian gov can pressure developers? This change removes code commit not the contribution rights.
That's the start, of course. One could always play good cop, bad cop: "I have to do this to comply with the law, sorry, there's nothing else I can do." What Linus has done here is play bad cop, bad cop: "the law says I have to obey sanctions, and by the way I support the sanctions and this move anyway."
This has nothing to do with open source. If Russians want to work on the Linux kernel, they're absolutely free to do so, because the source code is free and open source. What they are being restricted from is getting their changes submitted to the normal Linux foundation trees. FOSS doesn't mean you're entitled to have the maintainer of a project look at your patches, it means you can use the software however you want.
And yeah, it makes me sad that Russian kernel maintainers are being excluded. That doesn't mean it's a violation of open source philosophies (a maintainer can exclude anyone they want for any reason), it just means it's an unfortunate policy due to international sanctions.
Russians aren't restricted from getting their changes submitted, they just can't be maintainers. This means that they need another maintainer to approve their changes, just like if you or me were to submit a change. A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what actually happened.
The central project of open-source community closes doors to people based on nationality, and everyone is cheering...
Why? You seriously miss the implications of breaking the very basic principles of open source? You are ready to forgive literally anything if it is claimed to target Russia or Russians in any way?
For those of you who say about backdoors:
- US is known to create the most complicated spy networks with myriads of backdoors. Where are the bans of the US maintainers?
- Israel is a literal powerhouse of state-sanctioned spying software - Pegasus, as well as many less renowned programs, was created here. Any bans, anyone?
- China is known for invasive software. Maybe ban them all too?
The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code. Threat actors can be anywhere - and Russia is not some unique threat location, nor was it banned with that justification - just "compliance requirements".
This is politics permeating the sacred place we all had. This is a giant threat to the community, and the way Linus framed it in his message is even more terrifying. This was never meant to happen.
The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code.
Which is the job of maintainers. Which now aren't Russian, any more. To the best of my knowledge the kernel is still accepting code from Russian citizens, ultimately not having Russians in maintainer roles isn't going to stop the FSB from infiltrating the kernel but it certainly does make it harder.
This also isn't in any way a judgement on the removed people, it's just that it so happens that if you're a Russian citizen you're quite vulnerable to wrench attacks. You could even say that the kernel org is protecting them from being used like that.
"Protective restrictions" is a code for discrimination. Or would you argue that not allowing, idk, women to vote is a good measure for protecting them against being violently coerced to vote one way or another?
(this is a random example, just a small mark so I wouldn't be eaten alive)
I’m actually shocked by how people are acting about this.
You see, it’s actually a really bad thing to ban devs from an open source project based on nationality over all else. “Oh, but they are state actors!!!” How do you know? Because they are Russian?
OK, this is bs.
They're not banning devs, they're banning maintainers.
Russians can submit as many patches as they like for review, they just can't sign off on their commits themselves.
Seems pretty fair to me.
It seems they're not being removed because they're Russian, but instead because they work for specific companies who are subject to US sanctions:
I'm actually shocked
I'm not. Ever since the war, every single closet xenophobe of the west has been taking full advantage of finally having an acceptable group of subhumans to hate. If any of this surprises you, you haven't been paying attention.
Exactly! Being Russian doesn't mean having any political affiliation.
Moreover, even Russia the state is adopting Linux and is greatly disinterested in messing it up. If anything, this could really be the attack on Linux-reliant Russian infrastructure, but even then it most likely will be a reason for a fork, no more, no less.
breaking the very basic principles of open source?
No, the basic principles of open source are either the four freedoms (if you agree w/ Stallman) or the OSI open source definition. Here are Stallman's four freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Russians still have these freedoms WRT the Linux kernel. They can still run, study, and redistribute modified versions of the Linux kernel. There's no violation here.
And the OSI definition is similar (and longer, so I won't repeat it here).
No part of the definitions of open source or free software obligate a maintainer to work with anyone else, the only obligations are to the legal freedom of the code. Russians can still use, modify, and redistribute the software, they just aren't allowed to have maintainer positions within the Linux foundation. They can still submit code, and it's up to the maintainers if they choose to look at that code.
That said, I'm sad that it has come to this. I hate the idea of international politics interfering w/ FOSS, but I still maintain that it's 100% fine for Linus Torvalds (and his legal counsel) to make this call. So I agree with the core of your argument, that politics interfering w/ FOSS is bad, but I disagree that it violates any part of the basic concept of FOSS, FOSS maintainers should always be able to decide who they work with, and the rest of the community gets to decide if they're okay with that or if they'd rather follow someone else's fork.
Fair on your part, I might've gone too far with my argument.
I was talking more about collaborative nature and what happens to it when the major open-surce project decides to gatekeep based on something highly arbitrary.
Linux is long past a simple hobby project, and it should be managed responsibly and with respect to the people that make this all happen.
Torvalds responses make clear he has spent too much time with the wrong people. Calling everyone paid actors is such an embarrassment to his own intelligence. When the linux kernel starts falling behind because of a lack of competent maintainers after banning any country that NATO isnt friends with, we will know that this is where it started and that people cheered.
Open source IP laws operate under the jurisdiction of the citizen's country. What kind of principles do you think open source represents? Because if it's about free movement of information and global collaboration, I'm pretty sure that pirates are the group that better represents those values
Arrrgh!
Russians can still contribute code, don't bundle those together just to have something to list. You are correct about pegasus, but this is about kernel and rights to commit without review.
The comment right above you is fantasising about how America will have to disarm russia and execute the army and install a puppet government. It's not that people don't care about America, it's that they cheer for it's crimes.
in today's political landscape: genocide is acceptable and ignorable; progressives are dirty commies that you should ignore at all costs; and being russian is enough to get you kicked out of contributions to FOSS and all this comes from people who call themselves "liberal".
A lemmy.ml user criticising others for supposedly believing genocide is acceptable. Remarkable.
Russia is committing a genocide in Ukraine.
Some sanctioned Russian companies can no longer have maintainers in the kernel. Boo fucking hoo.
And kicked out of all FOSS contributions? Why are you lying? Russians can still contribute.
Do China next
And Israel
And the US
I'm surprised how many people treat GPL to ignore borders. The IP law still operates only by the rules your country decides.
I can understand the desire for information to be free, but unless Open source movement becomes it's own country the discussion should end there.
I can understand the desire for information to be free, but unless Open source movement becomes it’s own country the discussion should end there.
Ideally the internet would be extra-sovereign
hear hear!
Did they get paid?
Edit: Very likely they were paid, and that's where IP addresses end and sanctions begin.
Every worker within an organization has to be paid, somehow.
Somebody must bear the costs of the supposedly “free (gratis).” In the end, nothing is truly free cost. And, not a single person would work for free (no payment, compensation, or benefits, or in other words, gratis) full-time.
It is an absurdity to think otherwise.
Free and open-source software is handed out at zero-cost to make it possible to lower the barrier of entrance; to make it as widely available as possible. Knowledge should, indeed, be free (gratis).
Nobody says to ignore the law... it is Linus comments that were bad. Instead of defending the people that was working for him all these years and he had trust on them, he decided to throw them under the bus because he is from Finland. Well, Finland prospered the most on its life under neutrality.
The whole Grad is seething I'm loving it.
russian economy after over 1k days of war is evaporized and putin now is Xis little dog. so if we all work together now nobody will remember a country called russia in 100 years. nations are just a phantasy and it wont hurt to let go of some.
The Russian economy after over 1k days of war
is evaporizedhas evaporated and now Putin is Xi's little dog.soIf we all work together, nobody will remember a country called Russia in 100 years. Nations are just aphantasyfantasy, and it won't hurt to let go of some.I think it's scary that the Russian Federation will probably "Balkanize" if Ukraine won't capitulate, and with how many nuclear weapons it has, that's terrifying to consider.
Then again, they probably don't work very well given what we've seen about the performance of the so-called "2nd/3rd most powerful army on Earth". But even a few potentially in the hands of an even more unhinged maniac than Putin is unsettling, to say the least.
well the fall of the udssr was a joy so i expect part 2 to be great aswell. from what i understand the russians also want to buy mcdonalds, iphone and porsche and not live gulag life. when hitler was dead all of a sudden my fellow germans werent into nazi shit much. once putin gets to eat bullets chances are good russians lose interest in killing their neighbours. stupid russians.
We've seen missiles taking off and getting intact to all parts of Ukraine, then exploding.
Their precision was far worse than advertised by Russian state propaganda, but that's irrelevant.
A nuclear weapon doesn't have to be more precise than needed to hit an average county, in US terms.
Also the Russian economy has done nothing of the sort. Its good, nice things dependent on Western companies have died, say, cars production.
But even in their advertised form sanctions work on the span of decades, not years or months.
The performance of the Russian military was what you say in 2022, but now it is good enough for Russia to be making advances in Ukraine now. Ukraine is bleeding.
This is easily solvable by Western troops being sent to the grinder (one can do that unofficially - everyone does) on a bigger scale. For whatever reason this doesn't happen.
About performance of the Russian military ... I'm not sure you realize how much experience matters. Humans are soft, unreliable creatures. A learning structure created by most experienced, intelligent, honest humans will decay over time if it's not checked against reality, that being war. And war against a military close to its equal, not against someone much weaker.
Russian military in 2022 was very different from what it is now. So was Ukrainian military, but like I said, Ukraine is bleeding.
My point is that both militaries in experience (not talking about anything else) will be among the best in the world when this war ends.
You have to be arguing in bad faith if you’re trying to say “citizens of nation shouldn’t be responsible for their nation”
The open source benefit is not that they can directly impact it, it’s that their government can’t
If it was framed as a measure against possible government coordinated infiltration, sure. But that's not the case.
You have to be arguing in bad faith if you’re trying to say “citizens of nation shouldn’t be responsible for their nation”
I say that in good faith
it’s that their government can’t
Then take action against specific people if you see that happening.
You know. I don't like what the Russian leadership and military are doing. I feel like ultimately we're in the cold war era. But you know, at the height of the cold war, radio operators around the world still worked Russian stations.
Yes, there was a very clear policy, neither side talked about ANYTHING beyond their signal report and working conditions (information about radio, power output and aerial basically). At the height of the actual cold war, the individuals were not cancelled like this.
Sanction the leadership, sanction the money, and sanction the military. But the normal people that are subject to the propaganda? I don't understand the benefit in doing this. I also don't see how the sanctions effect an open source project..
Seems a bit weird. Maybe there's information we're not privy to, but on the face of it, just based on what we're seeing. Seems like a very very odd move.
don’t understand the benefit in doing this.
FSB wants backdoor in kernel. FSB notices subsystem maintainer is Russian, lives in Chelyabinsk. Can close eyes to backdoor, can pretend to review. FSB in Moscow make call to FSB in Chelyabinsk telling to buy heavy wrench at hardware store.
Same could be said for any intelligence service . it is better to focus on preventing and detecting these things through analysis and code reviews.
And they could just offer boatloads of cash to someone in another country to insert something so this doesn't really prevent anything it only isolates a certain subset of people.
If that were true, surely they'd not trust ANY of their existing work, or at least any done since the Special War Operation. Wouldn't that make sense?
They've left the code, and removed the people arbitrarily. Seems a bit off to me.
I don't think this only happens now, governments like Russia, USA, China, Israel will likely always be making these attempts.
I am on your side and don't understand the fury of down votes in this section regarding this stance. I am from a shit hole of a country too and if my life long contribution to open science (hypothetically speaking) could be so completely disregarded because of something ultra shitty that my country did, I would be super sad and probably mad at the OS community for leaving me behind so quickly.
I also don't understand the benefit of doing this. Most people seem to claim it's for security reasons but that does not make sense to me. Closing doors to someone without any proof of malintent is so against open source philosophy that it is perhaps more damaging in its core. And being the kind of government Russia is (or for that matter Israel, China, USA etc etc) they will always try to gain cyber war advantage by such methods. This approach is therefore clearly unsustainable. You would only be able to give dev access to a handful of countries in the world.
It sure as hell won't scratch a dent in the Russian government's armor when all these sanctions did not. It is not going to achieve 1/1000th of what all those ambargoes, frozen accounts etc aimed and failed to achieve.
Therefore there is either missing information (external pressure to take this action) or this is simply an action based on personal judgement.
Therefore there is either missing information (external pressure to take this action) or this is simply an action based on personal judgement.
Looking at the other post about NVidia drivers, I am starting to wonder if western governments (or perhaps just the US) are going after large orgs and suggesting how current sanctions should be interpreted. In which case, not sure I can then blame the Linux foundation, since you know, you don't need government heavy breathing down your neck.
I thought it said expulsion of Russian Mountaineers so that was pretty confusing
It's really such a shame that the mountaineers always take so much credit when the Linux sherpas do so much of the work.
Good
altlinux devs:
oh come on we are not trollsSo the Rest of the world should trust CIA, NSA contributions but not Russia's FSB ? come on , opensource should be tolerant towards all espionage agencies no matter their skin color.
This is the difference between political systems where one is really really bad but at least doesn't regularly assassinate opponents in the most horrific ways, and allow people to speak their minds.
I don't trust the US any further than I can throw it, but no matter how you look at it, it's the lesser evil.
Hell, look at sports. If a Russian athlete wins you can pretty much disqualify them for doping without having tested them because they all do it and I feel sorry for them, I feel sorry for that situation. There is a reason (beyond this war) why Russian athletes weren't allowed to compete at certain events, and it's the insane amount of doping used by them. I'm sure these athletes don't want to do this crap, but a state basically forces them to.
I can see the worry about similar issues with developers.
No, they don't.
no matter their skin colour
Russia is very, very white. Overwhelmingly so.
This has nothing to do with skin colour.
Replying because I need to think about how I'm going to vote for this comment and plan to come back later.
Don't know the whole story but :
If you banned them because they are promoting the Russia, it's okay. But it's not if you banned them ONLY because they're Russians. But maybe you could like said to them to do like in the sports, and operate as a "no-country" people, but surely not ban them for their nationality
Just goes to show that even a legend can act like an idiot.
Like not risking his lifelyhood to fight US and EU sanctions against a genocidal regime?
Exactly. He obviously isn't the one pushing for this, because if he was, he would've done it when the war started (or even before). That said, as a Finn, he doesn't have any reason to stand up for Russians, so when legal push comes to shove, there's not a good argument for him pushing back.
I agree with the person you're replying to in the sense that Linus's decision is OK, but the delivery could be less "idiotic". This could be a different message entirely. Even a cold "Yes we have some things happening. Can't tell more for now" would've been fine.
I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression?
Where did that come from? Sir this is a kernel mailing list. Why the nationality chest beating? I'm Polish and I have a smirk all day on November 4 but it's just so childish from Linus.
I mean he’s legally obligated to, not really a choice. He can say screw it, but then he opens himself up to legal troubles.
He makes a habit of that tbh (See tivoization, etc)
"Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it". Back when Pearl Harbor happened, people started to see japanese citizens as enemies. Not solely the Japanese government to that time, but even the humble japanese, even if those had despises against their government. Almost a century after, humanity is making the exact same thing, this time involving Russians and Ukrainians, as well as Israeli and Palestinians (exactly, "both sides"). Like how it happened back in Pearl Harbor, the prejudice extended all the way to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medical), the subject of this community and thread.
I was born a Brazilian, without my consent. Also, without my consent, there is this thing called "Brazilian politics". I hate both the current and the former governments. I have no money nor conditions to simply leave the country but even if I did, I'd stay born as a Brazilian. Everyone who meets a Brazilian readily asks things such as "how's carnival, how's samba, how's football, how's Neymar". Being a Brazilian necessarily mean that I have to like those things? Being a Brazilian necessarily mean that I consented to the current politics within this country? If Lula is sided with Putin, does it necessarily mean that me, a Brazilian citizen unknown to Lula or the entire government (I'm just one among 220 million people), endorse him as well? Should I blame myself for my entire life for being born Brazilian? Should a Russian do the same? An Ukrainian? An Israeli? An Palestinian?
Is the existence of sanctions a slippery slope to Japanese internment camps?
Indirectly common people are being seized from their humanity. I guess the disliking people know how immigration is not something freely accessible, lots of people around the world just don't have the necessary conditions to leave the country where they were born against their own consent, be it Russia or whatever other country.
The point of sanctions is to make it harder to run a country, part of that is making the citizens angry with the government
They don't target Russians outside of Russia, and do target non-Russians in Russia, because they're meant to actually be somewhat effective rather than just inciting hate
I'm sure lots of Russians were already angry with their government way before the sanctions, so what now? Ideally, people could do massive protests, Putin would be scared as heck so he renounces, people invoke the good old democracy again, they vote, a new leader takes place, Ukraine-Russia war would cease, both Russians and Ukrainians would happily fly together mounted in winged unicorns... Except everyone knows it doesn't work that way!! Governments (not just Putin's) have multiple ways to fight any protests going inside their country, governments can tear gas citizens, governments can end lives from their own citizens, governments can end a protest before it even happens through censorship and massive electrical/internet blackouts. Even when citizens has guns, governments have stronger guns. Lots of recent examples are there to demonstrate how this happens.
People from a sanctioned people can and will starve and die, because their governments and their bureaucrats and forces (police and army) can have their own sustenance, so it doesn't really matter for them if their own citizens starve to death. Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, they won't change simply because population became angry: I guess everyone in the west remember the Tiananmen Square, did it change China's government? I guess no.
So instead of sanctioning and indirectly punishing the people, one option would be that organizations (maybe Red Cross, UN, I dunno) could intervene silently and peacefully inside a country, helping people to flee their country to a safer place, effectively reducing that country army's recruitment potential and weakening its military power (did anybody from NATO, WEF, UN, or whatever organizations, even thought about this, helping Russians flee away from Russia in order to weaken Russia's military?).
It's worth remembering that military recruitment is often a mandatory thing, and the only way common people can run away from it is running away from the country, something that won't happen if they have no money to start emigration processes (it costs money, you know, it's not a free thing, even seeking political asylum needs money). Cutting money will only cut lives unrelated to the leaders that are carrying wars (and I'm sure Putin won't cry because Ms. Mary Marylovski died from starvation because US and Europe indirectly cut her income, because Ms. Mary Marylovski is another unknown citizen to Putin or other higher level government bureaucrats).
I digressed from technology here, but those are my thoughts on the matter.
SELinux from NSA is evil. Got it.
I don't think that's what they were saying, but I don't think you're making that point in good faith either.
What are you even trying to say or suggest here?
It is appling the the same standard
- Russia -> FSB -> operated by Russian -> contributing to Linux -> Bad
- USA -> NSA -> operated by Americans -> authored SELinux -> Bad
Should this logic work? Hell no. It's simply prejudice that against any nationals that they have ill intent of doing something because their country do something bad. Just like a child can't choose their parents, a citizen can't choose their nation at born.
The wrench attack argument can be applied to any nationals too, by anyone.
Absolutely idiotic take that endangers not only Linux but fractures the concept of open source itself.
I think it's a great change. But then again I'm not a lemmy.ml user.
Thinking this endangers Linux is pretty hilarious. Linux will be fine without a handful of Russian maintainers lol.
Does anybody really believe that the whole Linux project will fall apart because of this?
Was worth it just to see you morons fume
Go look at the principles of open-source or free software as defined either by the OSI and the FSF and then come back when you find the one that says that Linus needs to violate US sanctions to keep employees of Russian companies in trusted roles within his project.
That's a dick move
I really hope this thread is filled with bots because otherwise you have really hit the bottom. The thread is filled with racism and bigotry, and it's allowed only because it's against russians...
Looks like it is about time for a hard fork maintained outside NATO countries.
Just because Russians can't approve commits anymore?
you mean like the Ubuntu fork North Korea uses?
I hear they're friends with Russia now, maybe they'll share.
lol @ "hard fork"
Go and do it then.
Don't know how feasible is a fork of the kernel, but if given a choice, I would choose the distro with the kernel that does not ban people from any nationality every time.