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Getting Called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds

79 points by yuriko 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838
rational_indian 2y ago
Can't read on mobile. Why do these people still use hard line breaks?
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  You could try your browser's Reader View functionality. The page works fine enough, at least in Firefox mobile, after choosing Reader View.
mr_toad 2y ago
> referring to the existence of said law or NDA itself seems to be the minimum for transparency If it’s being done under the aegis of national security then they might not be allowed to discuss it.
doe_eyes 2y ago
I think Linus has short temper and there are examples of his remarks that are borderline toxic (or cross the line), but this really isn't one of them. The situation is pretty clear and calmly explained by Linus in the quoted messages. They removed contributors from Russia. The main reason is that they were told by a lawyer that they need to do this due to international sanctions. The secondary reason appears to be that Linus is not a fan of what Russia is doing, and is OK with sending a message. They made a call and were immediately swarmed by people trying to argue geopolitics, law, personal responsibility, transparency, and so on - many of whom aren't regular kernel contributors. Linus responded that he's not going to argue, and I can't blame him: it's a software project, not a discussion club. Sometimes, maintainers make the call and you suck it up, leave, or fork it. This is just that.
- gtsop 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - IntelMiner 2y ago
    The point is to put soft pressure on a nation across a wide series of avenues to (ideally) enact the desired change Would you rather we went and ripped the fiber cables out and completely disconnected Russia from the rest of the global internet?
    - gtsop 2y ago
      In what way is that a compliance reason? On what earth are you putting pressure by removing kudos from a list?
      - serf 2y ago
        you don't see why having the privileges revoked creates pressure? Well, let me chart it out simply : If you have something you like taken from you, but the captor is deaf to your complaints, you'll complain elsewhere. The concept here being : If the US state department/BIS/whoever won't consider your plight, maybe your own government will -- and given enough complaints perhaps it will direct their foreign policy to be more in-line with how the rest of the world would like them to play; thus allowing sanctions to be lightened or dropped. This is essentially the goal behind all sanctioning that isn't directly involved in economic/agricultural/military loss. The risk , of course, being that it prompts a schism entirely and promotes independence in the sanctioned state, similar to how mcdonalds vs. vkusno & tochka worked out so far.
        fuoqi 2y ago
        In good faith I will just assume that you are incredibly naive. Go read discussions in the Russian IT communities [1] [2]. The overwhelming reaction is not "let's go overthrow Putin!", but strong negative reaction, loss of respect, and alienation towards Linus, even across those who explicitly against the war and Putin. [1]: https://habr.com/ru/news/852962/comments/ https://habr.com/ru/news/852962/comments/ [2]: https://www.linux.org.ru/news/linux-general/17766938/page3#comments https://www.linux.org.ru/news/linux-general/17766938/page3#c...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fuoqi 2y ago
Such hardworking Russian bots, wow. They wrote WHOLE 20+ emails in several hours! Linus just dehumanized everyone who dares to disagree with the change and/or ask about why it was done on the 3rd year of the war (an increasingly common way of dealing with opponents, unfortunately). No one even tries to explain why this "compliance" selectively applies to ru emails (oh, look the maintainer has graduated from the Moscow State University! He is surely a Putin agent!), but not to Huawei ones. And how reverting the change became equivalent to "supporting Russian aggression" I simply can not comprehend. Today he has dealt a huge damage to the Linux reputation among non-Western developers. Do not act surprised when, for example, Chinese developers and organizations will start behave accordingly.
- bakugo 2y ago
  Preaching "racism and xenophobia bad" and then proudly talking about how much you hate everyone of a specific nationality is unfortunately par for the course for modern armchair political activists like Linus. If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. I want to say I hope he steps down at some point and lets someone more sane manage the project because his tantrums are clearly starting to have serious negative effects on it, but I know better than to not assume whoever would replace him would be even worse.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  Linus explicitly calls out in his email: > And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren't troll farm accounts - the "various compliance requirements" are not just a US thing.
  - akimbostrawman 2y ago
    directly followed by a painfully ironic and arrogant: >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. Seems like he himself isn't up to date or he would have done this 2 to 9 years ago.
legitster 2y ago
If I understand correctly, this blogger wasn't a maintainer or directly involved, he's just personally upset on behalf of anyone whose feelings were hurt by being accused of being a Russian bot? Or have been "riled up by them"?
- fuoqi 2y ago
  No, he is a direct participant in the cited discussion.
  - lostmsu 2y ago
    He is a random blogger with an email and a liar though. He claimed Linus called him "paid actor", but Linus did not.
    - amiga386 2y ago
      Linus said of anyone who disagreed with his approach and wanted to have dialogue (such as this guy) that they are "random internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them." That's multiple levels of insinuation and weasel words but does allege that this guy is a "paid actor"... any anyone else who disagrees with Linus. He doesn't even acknowledge random internet people that have been riled up not by "paid actors" but by his own boneheaded approach to this issue, and are directing their criticism at him in the hopes he and his organisation will do better next time. Linus being Linus.
kaycey2022 2y ago
So Linux is Linus's project and he is subject to Finnish/EU laws. It's not a global project owned by some global "community". When you take this into consideration, these actions are perfectly reasonable. Any open source project will work similarly. Contributors from "non western" countries must realise this and be thankful for the current circumstances, as sad as they are, to bring this fact to light.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  As a European, I'm still kind of confused about what law is being used to remove Russian contributions here. Sanctions against Russia are mostly aimed at either entire trade sectors or at individual powerful Russians to put pressure on the leadership through the corruption already there. It's possible some intelligence agency has identified backdoors placed by the Russian state and they're using this as an excuse to make larger changes without showing their hand, but in that case I'd say Torvalds has already said too much by even responding to these emails. As for Linux itself, I'm not entirely sure where its geographical representation is. Torvalds lives in the USA, as a full citizen, the Linux Foundation that sponsors Linux is American, so going by him as project owner would probably mean the project isn't Finnish. It was started and got some major development back in Finland, though, and most contributions are submitted from countries all over the world. I don't think Finland can make Torvalds do much in terms of kicking out Russian contributions, but the American government could.
johnea 2y ago
"Getting called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds" Sounds like a resume line item to me 8-) At least its more sophisticated than calling someone a "wanking walrus", or saying they should have been aborted. Jokes aside though, this whole situation is very disturbing. One would hope that free software developers would be more aware than to equate the identity and actions of a nation state with the identity of each and every one of it's geographic inhabitants. I'm a US citizen, I massively disagree with a lot of what the US government does, especially WRT warfare which is basically mass murder. I would very much expect that many Russian people feel the same way about their government's actions. From another, completely different argument, when there is conflict, cutting off communications with the conflicting party is counterproductive, e.g. barring Russians from chess tournaments, scientific conferences, etc. Lastly, how effective can this removal of committers even be? If an account is truly a Russian state operative, does LF actually think that actor would be unable to establish a false account from a US location? Maybe the way the whole thing played out was really Linus' personal "Scandinavian angst" about Russian aggression? There is a real history there, and Linus does cite his Finnish heritage in the email. If that's the case, we're back to calling people wanking walrus, and it's just another over emotional outburst from Linus, which would be a less concerning cause than the systematic elimination of Russian contributors by the LF organization.
- sd1010 2y ago
  Nonbody removed any contributors. They just took away maintainer status from some people (rights to commit direcly to the kernel repo). They are still allowed to contribute via the normal process.
- me_me_me 2y ago
  > From another, completely different argument, when there is conflict, cutting off communications with the conflicting party is counterproductive, e.g. barring Russians from chess tournaments, scientific conferences, etc. Communication and taking part in international events are two different things. Ambassadors should talk, but when you started a hot war of aggression there is no space for inclusion of athletes etc in international events. In this particular case, there were already many Ukrainian athletes that were killed on the frontlines while Russian ones are to be allowed to compete and promote their flag... I dont think so.

79 points by yuriko 2y ago

Related: Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838

rational_indian 2y ago

Can't read on mobile. Why do these people still use hard line breaks?

hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
You could try your browser's Reader View functionality. The page works fine enough, at least in Firefox mobile, after choosing Reader View.

mr_toad 2y ago

> referring to the existence of said law or NDA itself seems to be the minimum for transparency If it’s being done under the aegis of national security then they might not be allowed to discuss it.

doe_eyes 2y ago

I think Linus has short temper and there are examples of his remarks that are borderline toxic (or cross the line), but this really isn't one of them. The situation is pretty clear and calmly explained by Linus in the quoted messages. They removed contributors from Russia. The main reason is that they were told by a lawyer that they need to do this due to international sanctions. The secondary reason appears to be that Linus is not a fan of what Russia is doing, and is OK with sending a message. They made a call and were immediately swarmed by people trying to argue geopolitics, law, personal responsibility, transparency, and so on - many of whom aren't regular kernel contributors. Linus responded that he's not going to argue, and I can't blame him: it's a software project, not a discussion club. Sometimes, maintainers make the call and you suck it up, leave, or fork it. This is just that.

gtsop 2y ago
[flagged]
- IntelMiner 2y ago
  The point is to put soft pressure on a nation across a wide series of avenues to (ideally) enact the desired change Would you rather we went and ripped the fiber cables out and completely disconnected Russia from the rest of the global internet?
  - gtsop 2y ago
    In what way is that a compliance reason? On what earth are you putting pressure by removing kudos from a list?
    - serf 2y ago
      you don't see why having the privileges revoked creates pressure? Well, let me chart it out simply : If you have something you like taken from you, but the captor is deaf to your complaints, you'll complain elsewhere. The concept here being : If the US state department/BIS/whoever won't consider your plight, maybe your own government will -- and given enough complaints perhaps it will direct their foreign policy to be more in-line with how the rest of the world would like them to play; thus allowing sanctions to be lightened or dropped. This is essentially the goal behind all sanctioning that isn't directly involved in economic/agricultural/military loss. The risk , of course, being that it prompts a schism entirely and promotes independence in the sanctioned state, similar to how mcdonalds vs. vkusno & tochka worked out so far.
      - fuoqi 2y ago
        In good faith I will just assume that you are incredibly naive. Go read discussions in the Russian IT communities [1] [2]. The overwhelming reaction is not "let's go overthrow Putin!", but strong negative reaction, loss of respect, and alienation towards Linus, even across those who explicitly against the war and Putin. [1]: https://habr.com/ru/news/852962/comments/ https://habr.com/ru/news/852962/comments/ [2]: https://www.linux.org.ru/news/linux-general/17766938/page3#comments https://www.linux.org.ru/news/linux-general/17766938/page3#c...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fuoqi 2y ago

Such hardworking Russian bots, wow. They wrote WHOLE 20+ emails in several hours! Linus just dehumanized everyone who dares to disagree with the change and/or ask about why it was done on the 3rd year of the war (an increasingly common way of dealing with opponents, unfortunately). No one even tries to explain why this "compliance" selectively applies to ru emails (oh, look the maintainer has graduated from the Moscow State University! He is surely a Putin agent!), but not to Huawei ones. And how reverting the change became equivalent to "supporting Russian aggression" I simply can not comprehend. Today he has dealt a huge damage to the Linux reputation among non-Western developers. Do not act surprised when, for example, Chinese developers and organizations will start behave accordingly.

bakugo 2y ago
Preaching "racism and xenophobia bad" and then proudly talking about how much you hate everyone of a specific nationality is unfortunately par for the course for modern armchair political activists like Linus. If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. I want to say I hope he steps down at some point and lets someone more sane manage the project because his tantrums are clearly starting to have serious negative effects on it, but I know better than to not assume whoever would replace him would be even worse.
Ferret7446 2y ago
Linus explicitly calls out in his email: > And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren't troll farm accounts - the "various compliance requirements" are not just a US thing.
- akimbostrawman 2y ago
  directly followed by a painfully ironic and arrogant: >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. Seems like he himself isn't up to date or he would have done this 2 to 9 years ago.

legitster 2y ago

If I understand correctly, this blogger wasn't a maintainer or directly involved, he's just personally upset on behalf of anyone whose feelings were hurt by being accused of being a Russian bot? Or have been "riled up by them"?

fuoqi 2y ago
No, he is a direct participant in the cited discussion.
- lostmsu 2y ago
  He is a random blogger with an email and a liar though. He claimed Linus called him "paid actor", but Linus did not.
  - amiga386 2y ago
    Linus said of anyone who disagreed with his approach and wanted to have dialogue (such as this guy) that they are "random internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them." That's multiple levels of insinuation and weasel words but does allege that this guy is a "paid actor"... any anyone else who disagrees with Linus. He doesn't even acknowledge random internet people that have been riled up not by "paid actors" but by his own boneheaded approach to this issue, and are directing their criticism at him in the hopes he and his organisation will do better next time. Linus being Linus.

kaycey2022 2y ago

So Linux is Linus's project and he is subject to Finnish/EU laws. It's not a global project owned by some global "community". When you take this into consideration, these actions are perfectly reasonable. Any open source project will work similarly. Contributors from "non western" countries must realise this and be thankful for the current circumstances, as sad as they are, to bring this fact to light.

jeroenhd 2y ago
As a European, I'm still kind of confused about what law is being used to remove Russian contributions here. Sanctions against Russia are mostly aimed at either entire trade sectors or at individual powerful Russians to put pressure on the leadership through the corruption already there. It's possible some intelligence agency has identified backdoors placed by the Russian state and they're using this as an excuse to make larger changes without showing their hand, but in that case I'd say Torvalds has already said too much by even responding to these emails. As for Linux itself, I'm not entirely sure where its geographical representation is. Torvalds lives in the USA, as a full citizen, the Linux Foundation that sponsors Linux is American, so going by him as project owner would probably mean the project isn't Finnish. It was started and got some major development back in Finland, though, and most contributions are submitted from countries all over the world. I don't think Finland can make Torvalds do much in terms of kicking out Russian contributions, but the American government could.

johnea 2y ago

"Getting called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds" Sounds like a resume line item to me 8-) At least its more sophisticated than calling someone a "wanking walrus", or saying they should have been aborted. Jokes aside though, this whole situation is very disturbing. One would hope that free software developers would be more aware than to equate the identity and actions of a nation state with the identity of each and every one of it's geographic inhabitants. I'm a US citizen, I massively disagree with a lot of what the US government does, especially WRT warfare which is basically mass murder. I would very much expect that many Russian people feel the same way about their government's actions. From another, completely different argument, when there is conflict, cutting off communications with the conflicting party is counterproductive, e.g. barring Russians from chess tournaments, scientific conferences, etc. Lastly, how effective can this removal of committers even be? If an account is truly a Russian state operative, does LF actually think that actor would be unable to establish a false account from a US location? Maybe the way the whole thing played out was really Linus' personal "Scandinavian angst" about Russian aggression? There is a real history there, and Linus does cite his Finnish heritage in the email. If that's the case, we're back to calling people wanking walrus, and it's just another over emotional outburst from Linus, which would be a less concerning cause than the systematic elimination of Russian contributors by the LF organization.

sd1010 2y ago
Nonbody removed any contributors. They just took away maintainer status from some people (rights to commit direcly to the kernel repo). They are still allowed to contribute via the normal process.
me_me_me 2y ago
> From another, completely different argument, when there is conflict, cutting off communications with the conflicting party is counterproductive, e.g. barring Russians from chess tournaments, scientific conferences, etc. Communication and taking part in international events are two different things. Ambassadors should talk, but when you started a hot war of aggression there is no space for inclusion of athletes etc in international events. In this particular case, there were already many Ukrainian athletes that were killed on the frontlines while Russian ones are to be allowed to compete and promote their flag... I dont think so.