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Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status
- fancyfredbot 2y agoNot sure this is really what anyone had in mind when sanctioning Russia? The maintainers probably aren't pleased but can't see a direct route from there to Putin's opinion of the war in Ukraine.
- lawn 2y ago"Putins opinion on the war he started" undersells the issue that Russia has actively been undermining, killing, and sabotaging in western countries.
- codr7 2y ago[flagged]
- drivingmenuts 2y agoWait ... Western countries killing in Russia? What?! As part of the Cold War, sure, but that's the nature spying; we do it, they do it, everybody does it. Seems like you're implying armed forces level killing in Russia, though. Care to explain that?
- codr7 2y ago[flagged]
- budududuroiu 2y agoSo?
- codr7 2y agoSo pointing fingers and demonizing isn't very constructive.
- Spooky23 2y agoLet the Russians banish western developers from working on Russian projects.
- homebrewer 2y ago[flagged]
- sobellian 2y agoWell, what do you propose? We're obviously far past the point of diplomacy. The sanctions are not designed to change hearts and minds. They're designed to make Russia's war efforts more difficult. The sorry state of affairs is that Russia's government has made itself a huge problem and there are no good solutions.
- 4bpp 2y agoI doubt this particular move will complicate Russia's war efforts in any appreciable way. There is no non-fanciful way in which the named, well-established and closely watched kernel maintainers could have leveraged their status for it, and the tech scene has been one of the remaining bastions of pro-Western sentiment in Russian society. How many young programmers will be disenchanted with the West after hearing of this, and finally relent and answer their government's call to go write software for military drones or whatever?
- sobellian 2y agoWell, this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41932923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41932923) seems to indicate that Russian military industrial companies seem to get some use out of contributing to the kernel. As to your question, I cannot answer it to any degree of accuracy and I believe you cannot either.
- Wytwwww 2y agoBecause appeasement generally always works out long-term?
- elzbardico 2y ago[flagged]
- FredPret 2y agoIf America isn’t perfect, does that mean its enemies must be? Surely you don’t live in so simple a world? Anyway, us encroaching on Russian interests (debatable) is hardly an excuse for them to go blowing up a country full of innovent civilians.
- elzbardico 2y ago[flagged]
- lawn 2y ago[flagged]
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- lawn 2y ago[flagged]
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- Wytwwww 2y agoThat certainly absolves Sadam of the tens of thousands of murders committed by his government. That's a perfectly reasonable and sane take. Hitler himself faced quite a few false accusations (e.g. even for crimes actually committed by the Soviets). Certainly that would mean that he did nothing wrong according to a troll like yourself?
- TZubiri 2y agoProbably not sanctions, but national security concerns. The former aims to punish and worsen the situation of the other country, the latter aims to reduce the attack vector and improve the situation of the US.
- matrix2003 2y agoIt’s pretty evident at this point that any Russian citizen in Russia or with family in Russia can be coerced, and it’s also pretty clear that Putin specifically does not have good intentions. There are lots of good people there. It’s too bad there is a crazy person at the helm.
- weaksauce 2y agoall you have to look at is the number of russian oligarchs being defenstrated since the invasion began to know that if it served russian aims to inject malware into the kernel somehow via their maintainers it would probably be tried. the maintainers are probably not oligarch level rich so imagine the pressure on them if needed.
- ogurechny 2y agoIt is evident everyone CAN be coerced. Not that everyone WILL BE, because some people still think of themselves as people, not some “honest citizens” or “economic agents”. It is also evident that someone quite far from Russia HAS ALREADY BEEN coerced to make that unannounced change, but you try really hard to look the other way. “Those Linux nerds” were shown who's the boss in the room when it comes to “important matters”. Don't you feel that the form of that change itself is a sign of silent disobedience, and you are expected to participate in public outcry forcing further developments instead of just bending over willingly? It is totally possible that there was some direct intelligence that those accounts can be used in some clandestine operation in the future, probably without even asking some of the owners. After all, spies are #1 information source to other spies, they run the global spectacle together. Still, accepting “this is secret” as an excuse, you are already accepting defeat.
- 2y ago
- type0 2y ago> The maintainers probably aren't pleased but can't see a direct route from there to Putin's opinion of the war in Ukraine. Then they should be reminded that their military is actively using Linux to kill Ukrainian civilians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_Linux
- diggan 2y agoIs there any new "compliance requirements" (sanctions I suppose?) that made this happen? Or is a delayed change since the sanctions started?
- LudwigNagasena 2y agoIt’s surprising to see that there are any compliance requirements Linux adheres to.
- Narretz 2y agoThe latest change would be EU sanctions that disallow export of technology from March 2024: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/05/17/microsoft-blocks-russian-corporate-clients-from-cloud-services-vendor-says-a85150 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/05/17/microsoft-blocks-r... But this change here feels like there was pressure from the DoD or White House. A lot of sanctions seems to be introduced and enforced informally.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- diggan 2y agoThat cited change is actually from December 2023: > The ban complies with the EU’s 12th sanctions package adopted in December, which ordered companies in and outside the bloc to stop exporting products and technology to Russia by March 20. That would mean that either A) it's not what triggered this change or B) the kernel wasn't legally following compliance requirements for almost a year But besides that, that sanction is between EU<>Russia, not sure if that would ultimately enforce the kernel to implement those compliance requirements, unless also agreed and followed by the US.
- monkeyshelli 2y agoI'm wondering does the latest events of N.Korean troops joining the attack against Ukraine have something to do with this?
- whimsicalism 2y agoStrongly opposed to any sort of sanction regime that results in this.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago[flagged]
- whimsicalism 2y agoFrankly, that is completely irrelevant to the kernel maintainers list.
- rvnx 2y agoIt's of the main reasons these sanctions exist. It's the biggest topic in Europe since WW2.
- whimsicalism 2y agoWell, I oppose the inclusion of OSS in those sanctions. I’m also generally skeptical of the theory of change - economic decoupling generally doesn’t make conflict less likely or protracted.
- selimthegrim 2y agoSo you think in 1992 when FRY was sanctioned research and Internet links should not have been affected when flights were suspended for example?
- whimsicalism 2y agoI don’t know a lot about that sanctions regime. If it was targeted stuff related to directly preventing the ongoing genocides, sure keep them - but in general, I would be opposed.
- 2y ago
- even_639765 2y ago[flagged]
- fuoqi 2y ago[flagged]
- even_639765 2y ago[flagged]
- Chengkurt12 2y ago[flagged]
- fuzzbazz 2y agoAlternative title: Nobody with an email ending in .ru left in the MANTAINERS file.
- yeputons 2y agoThat would be a nice explanation, but some people with @gmail.com were also removed from the list.
- neocon4life 2y agoI doubt anything would happen the next time US invades a country.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41917357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41917357
- forinti 2y agoAre US corporations going to be forced to fire their Russian coders?
- fred_is_fred 2y agoThey should have already based on the sanctions two years ago, Belarus also. Some examples: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/8/23159656/microsoft-russia-business-changes https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/8/23159656/microsoft-russia-... https://www.reuters.com/business/russia-shrugs-off-jobs-impact-after-reports-dell-exiting-country-2022-08-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/russia-shrugs-off-jobs-impa... https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/statement/2022/06/hpe-announces-intention-for-orderly-exit-of-russia-belarus.html https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/statement/2022/06/hpe-ann... https://newsroom.ibm.com/Update-on-IBMs-Business-Operations-in-Russia https://newsroom.ibm.com/Update-on-IBMs-Business-Operations-...
- maeil 2y ago"Coders in Russia" != "Russian coders".
- trebligdivad 2y agoThis could get messy in other projects, depending where this rule came from. I know there are .ru maintainers in at least one other ; and what about distros?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- stop_nazi 2y ago[dead]
- nimbius 2y agoSounds like overreach by a company that is heavily invested in Linux as a base for its products, and is having a difficult time with US trade regulations. Its pandering. I hope these developers petition to be added back.
- pelagicAustral 2y agoProbably the best thing that can happen to the kernel... this type of measure generally backfires spectacularly by giving talent the opportunity to thrive, if anything as a way to fight back against injustice and arbitrary decisions, or for sanctioned opposition to invest in resilience by dumping more money in things otherwise not consider a priority. I always thought Argentine music from the 80's and early 90s was legendary, and this stems from a post-Falklands war, self-inflicted sanction against anglo music... regional bands thrived and created gems that even today can be appreciated as masterpieces...
- aguaviva 2y agoRegional bands thrived and created gems that even today can be appreciated as masterpieces... Care to name a few?
- shangers 2y agoI used to pirate a lot of random music in early 00’s and went through a Latin phase. Downloaded one album by Fabiana Cantilo full of covers by what seemed to be other Argentine artists and some names are Soda Stereo and Andres Calamaro. They seem to have a lot of what kids today would call bangers. Some of my favorite Argentine songs: Donde Manda Marinero, En La Ciudad De la Furia. Fabiana’s album that I torrented back in the day happens to be covers of the famous songs and I like a lot of them too Disclaimer, I just happened to know some Argentine songs that are total ear worms, not necessarily an expert in Argentine music
- aguaviva 2y agoFantastico, gracias
- mlindner 2y agoBy removing a few Russians who are more than likely to leave the country anyway?
- wiseowise 2y ago
- worstspotgain 2y agoHow convoluted, insidious, and camouflaged can a hidden backdoor or exploitable intentional defect be? If hacking or subversion is possible, it has been tried and will be again. If anyone is going to try it, chances are Putin's people will. It's by far the sneakiest, most advanced cheating and infiltration apparatus humanity has ever known. It inherited a large "meddling war chest" from the Soviet Union, then invested heavily into it for 25 years. The Internet increased its opportunities a million-fold. Its semitransparent tentacles are now embedded into nearly every consequential organization on the planet. Consider the xz episode as a baseline. It was fairly sneaky, but it was introduced by a newcomer to the project and affected mostly existing code. A more elaborate exploit might be submitted with a new feature by an established maintainer.
- snvzz 2y agoNot a good idea for Linux to get involved in geopolitical drama. Any self-respecting maintainer will not come back after this. Linux might have a lot of developers, but has a hard time finding and retaining maintainers. This is not a good development.
- type0 2y agoIt's not a geopolitical drama or melodrama, Linux Foundation needs to follow the laws of US where it's located. It's the same as any other American company
- riehwvfbk 2y agoLinux Foundation was never supposed to stifle collaboration in the kernel. They are supposed to be a way to support Linux in a tax-advantaged way, full stop. EFF should start a fork if any part of them still stands for what's in their name.
- walterbell 2y agoWhat percentage of LF budget goes towards Linux?
- account42 2y agoThe EFF is also a US organization subject to the whims of the US government.
- sumanthvepa 2y agoI agree. It's not big deal. The Russian team can just fork the kernel, and manage it under their own legal structures. It's really not that hard. Indeed CentOS was maintained by just one person for many years. It's not a big deal for Linux either, the code in question is mostly for devices that are not sold in the west. So no loss there. That's the beauty of open source, you can say no to contributions for any reason whatsoever, and the contributor can fork your code and continue to develop it as they please.
- 2y ago
- wooque 2y agoIf it is because of national security concerns, will Israelis and Chinese lose kernel maintainership status as well?
- 81726251617 2y ago[dead]
- hulitu 2y ago> If it is because of national security concerns, will Israelis and Chinese lose kernel maintainership status as well? Some of them, yes, some of them, no. /s
- peppertree 2y agoRussian government is cancer but this is pointless. It would be much easier to hide a backdoor in an npm or python package.
- fred_is_fred 2y agoWhich HOPEFULLY don't run at kernel privilege level (but I do know better).
- yencabulator 2y agoIt's an economic sanction not an attack avoidance mechanism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sanctions
- Chengkurt12 2y ago[flagged]
- analognoise 2y ago[flagged]
- gorbachev 2y agoIf you scroll down on the thread linked, someone mentions the reason isn't that the developers are Russian, but because their employers in Russia are sanctioned companies. I don't know if that's accurate, but seems feasible. If so I'm 100% behind it. It'd be nice to know the exact reasoning for this, rather than just see a commit without any context of why they're being removed. I'm pretty sure we'll know in due time.
- mokoshhydro 2y agoHuawei is under same level of sanctions, but nobody with `xxx@huawei.com` is removed from Maintainers list. So, probably "sanctions" are not the reason.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Huawei is under same level of sanctions is it? the actual specifics of the sanctions matter, I don't think any of the US sanctions would prevent them from participating in kernel programming.
- walterbell 2y agoWould you happen to know which specific sanctions text relates to kernel programming?
- Suppafly 2y agoI don't but with Huawei, the situation is mostly that we don't want to import their technology or give them our technology. With Russia, we basically prohibit all business in general with the entire country.
- wiseowise 2y agoSpying and invading are different things. Huawei can’t be under same level of sanctions by definition.
- zhdi 2y ago
- dissarion 2y ago[flagged]
- Timber-6539 2y agoMy initial reaction reading the thread was just to shake my head. What's the point of open source?
- krick 2y agoI guess that's it. Open source is a fantasy that started coming to an end about 15 years ago. We lived in a fantasy world in 90s-00s, where there were no governments, no corporations and almost no people that make you shake your head. It was so easy (and of course silly, in the hindsight) to believe, that the internet is some another world, where earthly matters do not concern us. And everything was just about improving this world for ourselves. It's not like people often agree to work for free otherwise. Working for free is incompatible with capitalism, and we learn to believe that nothing else is truly possible in the real world. It's not like "open source" doesn't have a point in that imperfect world with governments, corporations and 8B people, that the internet seemed disconnected from for a while, it just doesn't have place. It simply almost doesn't happen there. So, now the real world has slowly catched up to that fantasy world of ours. The winter has really come.
- chingfeng 2y ago[dead]
- Terr_ 2y agoMy worry is less about big projects being inclusive and multinational, and more about whether there are clear guidelines and specific reasons given when people are kicked off or otherwise demoted. Nobody likes being at the mercy of a system that feels capricious.
- darksaints 2y agoCan we please get a fraction of the resources currently put into Linux kernel development and start developing a robust userland ecosystem for SeL4? Microkernels in general already mitigate the possible damage that could be done by rogue code in large monolithic kernels. A formally verified microkernel like SeL4 is an even better guarantee. And performance concerns of microkernels are practically solved at this point. These sorts of nation-state sponsored malicious code practices could be made mostly irrelevant. We just need a little momentum to get us there.
- v1ne 2y agoThe email thread continues. 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. Which I find pretty concerning statements, quite a disservice to the community. It's a global community, and here the maintainers take some action without explanation. They don't even have a communiqué at hand to tell people what this action is, why it was taken, and which alternatives were considered but rejected. This is the bare minimum that I expect of the maintainers of a piece of software that is very critical to many millions of systems worldwide. Counting on the goodwill of users is not acceptable for an operating system that underpins the security of people's computers.
- riehwvfbk 2y ago[flagged]
- TiredOfLife 2y agoIf it walks, talks, and looks like a duck it's probably a duck.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoDoes this also apply to brainwashed zombies?
- Fifnmar101 2y agoHas Nazi become a symbol rather than a concept to you? Is it true that 'Nazi = US enemies'? Do you agree that Israel are playing Nazi's deeds?
- Wytwwww 2y agoNazi might be too strong? Don't think they used that word though? Russia is an objectively fascist (not technically "nazi" of course) state, though. It literally ticks almost all the boxes.
- leoh 2y agohttps://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6e90b675cf942e50c70e8394dfb5862975c3b3b2 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6e90b675cf942e50c70...
- yeputons 2y agoFor those confused: GitHub has comments for commits, and some are piling up for this particular Linux kernel mirror.
- worstspotgain 2y agoApparently (quelle surprise) Linus is getting swarmed by Russian trolls like a US swing-state voter. From https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Russian-Devs https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Russian-Devs 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.
- immibis 2y agoThat's fine, but we would like to see the orders he received and the evidence. This patch is outrageous because of the lack of transparency, not the patch itself if there's a good reason for it. Linus and Greg appear to be not only not posting a reason, but trying to keep the reason secret.
- colejohnson66 2y agoIt's pretty obvious that it's due to sanctions, but they don't want to say it.
- immibis 2y agoBut if that's the case, why don't they?
- colejohnson66 2y agoLawyers. https://lore.kernel.org/all/7ee74c1b5b589619a13c6318c9fbd0d6ac7c334a.camel@HansenPartnership.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/7ee74c1b5b589619a13c6318c9fbd0d6...
- rat_on_the_run 2y agoI really wish that we have an operating system that's not controlled by a U.S. person.
- 0x142857 2y agoWelcome to using a Chinese OS lol
- zhdi 2y agoSo what, now you can directly watched by CCP?
- 4bpp 2y agoWhy should this be a problem for anyone outside of China? It's only when the same people can read your messages and send dudes with guns to your doorstep if they don't like what they see that things actually get dangerous.
- fragmede 2y agoFBI makes arrests over alleged secret Chinese 'police stations' in New York https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65305415.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65305415.amp
- 4bpp 2y agoThat's interesting, but these seem like they are just a slightly more structured form of the ways in which the CCP has been known to keep track of their own nationals abroad for many years. Not only is there no evidence or reason to expect that they would interact with people who are not PRC nationals, they presumably don't have guns and certainly have no actual policing powers either. If these "Chinese police stations" were to dispatch someone to my door, I could just call the actual police to have them removed. Meanwhile, I doubt I could call the "Chinese police stations" to protect me from the police of the country I live in, if they were to act upon a friendly request from the US like the Swedes and British did with Assange or the New Zealanders did with Kim Dotcom.
- comonoid 2y agoThe new chapter in the McCarthyan witch hunt.
- silverliver 2y agoThis was a very bad move by the Linux foundation. They should get new lawyers. Linux development should probably be moved outside of wartime/unstable jurisdictions like the US.
- mlindner 2y agoHave to say that a lot of hacker news contributors really show their colors around events like this. This is a completely good thing to do and well past due.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- surfer2 2y agoIt is wrong - plain and simple. It is no different to racism. As for Linus comments, it is really surprising how many proper idiots working in IT industry. It was not like that before.. Not long ago, simply reading Linux magazine was considered a terrorism.