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Goodbye from a Linux Community Volunteer

225 points by ajb 2y ago

ein0p 2y ago
[flagged]
- coldtea 2y ago
  Those casualties are not the cause of the day from western governments (rather the opposite) so they don't matter /s
  - ein0p 2y ago
    “It’s ok when we do it”? I thought at least the FOSS community was above hypocrisy. Apparently not. And I get why there might be legal reasons (as tenuous as they may be) to not allow folks to be paid, but this particular dude was working for free.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      If it was just legal reasons it would be totally understanable. Can't go against the law - but you can voice your reservations against it. Instead Linus is celebrating this.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- exe34 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ein0p 2y ago
    I get them from the UN and from watching the entire Gaza Strip get flattened with people inside, financed by my taxes. Where do you get your numbers?
    - exe34 2y ago
      where does the UN get their numbers? every bbc article that quotes the UN reluctantly adds (later on in the article) "according to the health in authority in Gaza", which means hamas. I think hamas has achieved in practice something the Christians can only claim in faith - transmogrification. a hamas soldier transmogrifies into an innocent civilian upon death. even Sinwar would have been a UN teacher if his body hadn't been identifiable - he even carried a stolen UN teacher's passport.
- guytv 2y ago
  Sanctioning individuals who aid a criminal government serves two purposes: 1) it applies pressure on that government and 2) ensures that we don’t indirectly support its crimes. However, sanctioning an entire population — citizens who are already suffering under a leader who disregards their wellbeing — achieves little and seems more like an act of revenge than a strategic measure.
shiroiushi 2y ago
This is pretty sad to see, but this post was full of a lot of acronyms that might only make sense to people active in this space, so it was a bit difficult to read. Among others, what are NTB and DW here?
- l1k 2y ago
  NTB = Non-Transparent Bridge DW = DesignWare
keepamovin 2y ago
This is a nice (and sad) goodbye email from Serge(y). It's moving to see all this time and work, what it meant to the person, and also to imagine what the contributions made mean to so many people who use the software. :`( The situation is sad for individual contributors indeed. The overall backdrop does seem in line with sanctions requirements for ITAR, OFAC etc.
- alkyon 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - keepamovin 2y ago
    I know you must have really strong feelings about it and may have even personally suffered, that is terrible and sad too! In war time a lot of companies supply the country. The war is obviously no fault of his. But the leap to persecution is actually a more war-like attitude that is where we lose some of our humanity and decency, so it’s better to skip it.
    - alkyon 2y ago
      "Supply the country" is misrepresentation. He's not a baker. Microprocessors manufacrured by Baikal Electronics were used by military (however defective they were). I don't think it's persecution what Linus did, it is a necessity
      - keepamovin 2y ago
        By leap to persecution I was referring to your comment about him. But I guess Linus' words count too. Anyway, I feel sorry for you that you think that way. When abusing people based on their country becomes a necessity, we are not far from war.
        Veen 2y ago
        We are not far from war because Russia invaded Europe. This developer works for a company supplying materiel to the Russian military.
skeptrune 2y ago
Other related posts [flagged] Getting Called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41929585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41929585 - Oct 23 2024 (24 comments) [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923749 - Oct 23 2024 (1 comment) Re: [PATCH] Revert "MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to compliance" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41928532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41928532 - Oct 23 2024 (3 comments) Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 - Oct 23 2024 (35 comments)
sampo 2y ago
Some context: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838
sharas- 2y ago
alas
xgstation 2y ago
Linus Torvalds said > 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. The concerning part to me is that kernel development will not only be based on technical discussion anymore (or maybe it never was): why would a revert patch or not has anything to do with nationalities or personal's political and hisotrical view. Bias towards either side to accept/reject technical contributions for such large project is only going to be harmful for the project regardless of open-source or not.
- nicman23 2y ago
  you get that the revert patch was for non code?
  - xgstation 2y ago
    By technical, it means decision is to be made objectively through logical reasoning following certain rules. It is a patch at the end and should follow kernel development process. However, the reason for that patch removing Russian maintainers until now is still not made fully transparent by either GKH or Linus. Instead, calling it "I am Finish" and "Russian aggression" has nothing to do with the patch itself and is not constructive discussion. Even we trace down to the road, none of the maintainers today has done that aggression to Finland. If the reasoning of rejecting the revert patch is "Compliance issues based on our lawyers suggestsion" etc. then just say it.
    - jeroenhd 2y ago
      If the Russian invasion was the cause for this removal, it's rather late. The invasion started back in 2014 and strengthened two years ago. There probably also wouldn't be any lawyers involved. My guess is that some secretive agency got in contact with the Linux team. Whether this is about infiltration of kernel development or an attempt to stop Russia from powering its war machines by Linux I'm not so sure, but I don't know about any laws that would require this specific process. As for "none of the maintainers today has done that aggression": they haven't _yet_, but they can be made to by their government if that's what Putin wants. Countries bordering Russia are on edge, and, as has been proven in Georgia and Ukraine, rightfully so. The current anti Russian sentiment isn't a consequence of any historic events as much as it is an anticipation of a Russian invasion in future. I would much prefer knowing why exactly removing Russian contributors would be legally required, but given the secrecy surrounding it, I don't think there's much public information around it.
npn 2y ago
[flagged]
- globalnode 2y ago
  i think one of the hardest parts of writing an o/s would be drivers for the h/w
Garvi 2y ago
What a sad day for open source. I expected better from Linus Torvalds. I know writing more will just get this post removed.
- gn4d 2y ago
  Be brave, what is the point of open discussion if you are too afraid to speak your mind? If you get banned or your post removed, so be it. Why self-censor? You are doing a disservice to yourself.
yapyap 2y ago
sad
idiocrat 2y ago
This reminds of the Anti-German sentiment during WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment "The Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens, counting approximately 480,000 of them. The Committee of Internment of Alien Enemies recommended sending them to internment camps, though the idea was opposed by the War Department and the Attorney General. More than 4,000 German aliens were imprisoned in 1917–1918. The allegations included spying for Germany and endorsing the German war effort. When the United States entered the war in 1917, some German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Propaganda posters and newspaper commentary fed the growing fear. In Wisconsin, a Lutheran minister faced suspicion for hosting Germans in his home, while a language professor was tarred and feathered for having a German name and teaching the language. The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One person was killed by a mob; in Collinsville, Illinois, German-born Robert Prager was dragged from jail as a suspected spy and lynched. Some aliens were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty."
- idiocrat 2y ago
  And then the next paragraph of the wikipeida: "In Chicago, Frederick Stock was forced to step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by German composer Wagner with French composer Berlioz. After xenophobic Providence Journal editor John R. Rathom falsely accused Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Karl Muck of refusing to play The Star-Spangled Banner and triggered a trial by media in October 1917, Muck and 29 of the orchestra's musicians were arrested and interned in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, until well after the Armistice. "
  - krick 2y ago
    And of course notorious renaming hamburgers to "liberty steaks" in some restaurants in the timeframe between WWI and WWII.
- oneshtein 2y ago
indulona 2y ago
This is good. "West" and " Global South" need separate so there can be more competition and innovation in the world. I had no Idea linux got so political since it is not my OS, though recent wokenization of Debian should have made it clear OSS is screwed, but something good will come out of something bad.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
fuoqi 2y ago
I don't think many Western developers understand how much damage Linus just single-handedly dealt to the accumulated respect and trust towards the Linux Foundation leadership. If you think that the Russian IT community will think "damn, this evil Putin, we need to overthrow him", think again after taking a look at these discussions (in Russian) [1][2]. And many developers from other countries (especially from China) certainly have started to think "hm, we may be next" and act accordingly because of that, e.g. by not actively participating in the Linux development in the first place. They could've handled it MUCH better, most people understand that the removal by itself is understandable (properly navigating the current regime of sanctions is extremely hard and it's better for an US-based organization to be conservative, doubly so with people from the directly sanctioned companies like Baikal Electronics), but lack of transparency, sneakiness, and the extremely aggressive, unnecessary and dehumanizing remarks from Linus just the situation from unfortunate bad to extreme worse. [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...
- _w1tm 2y ago
  > the extremely aggressive, unnecessary and dehumanizing remarks from Linus Linus being Linus. I thought he had gotten some comms training but it’s hard to change when you’ve spent most of your career communicating very directly.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    Linus and the Linux foundation breaking their own COC: >In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, _ethnicity_, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, _nationality_, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
kragen 2y ago
I wonder if we'll see persistent Russian and Chinese forks of the Linux kernel to address this problem? Large parts of the kernel are written by Russian and Chinese people, and the US's sanctions regime against the PRC is nearly as aggressive as that against Russia. The GPL guarantees they can still merge in code from Linus, as long as he doesn't intentionally make it incompatible, and probably a lot of contributors will want to get their code into Linus's tree and also the Russian and/or Chinese tree, which could lead to pushback on deliberate compatibility breakage.
- xtracto 2y ago
  I was just looking at the Ubuntu work on the OEM kernel release. Apparently it is maintained by someone from China. It will be a bummer if that work stops.
  - kragen 2y ago
    Probably not until after PRC troops land in Taiwan.
llm_trw 2y ago
[flagged]
- tivert 2y ago
  > The kernel has a gray hair problem. > No one in the West wants to do volunteer work any more because it pays a lot more to work at Evil Corp and wave some flags around during the appropriate month. I thought most of the kernel "volunteers" were actually working for some "Evil Corp" or another that was paying them to "volunteer" in some way related to the company's business.
- Conscat 2y ago
  I'm confused why you insinuate that "flag waving" in June has anything to do with this topic. You frame it as though that is something developers tolerate because they are paid to, in contrast to how developers behave in volunteer work (demonstrably untrue).
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    I wasn't talking about you personally. I was talking about the type of human who is shown in this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g We need to be very clear that they are human, and not a reptile wearing human skin and using human words to get to eat human babies.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  It's not only about work for Evil Corp being better. It's also about "how the fuck do I even start?"
- sampo 2y ago
  > No one in the West wants to do volunteer work any more because it pays a lot more to work at Evil Corp This post is about an engineer in the East, who apparently works for a company called Baikal Electronics. "BAIKAL ELECTRONICS JSC is a Russian electronics company that manufactures semiconductors and computer processors. Baikal Electronics JSC produces computer processors for the Russian military." https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-defense-industrial-base-and-human-rights-abusers-fact-sheet/ https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-... Do you somehow think these companies in the East are less Evil than Silicon Valley companies?
anal_reactor 2y ago
Some decisions are difficult and no matter what you do, it's going to be bad.
Symbiote 2y ago
This developer worked for Baikal Electronics (from the Google snippet of his GitHub page, and earlier emails from him to the Linux kernel lists — showing his work was for that company). That company received very significant subsidy from the Russian state. They produced CPUs for the Russian military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-defense-industrial-base-and-human-rights-abusers-fact-sheet/ https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-...
- whatshisface 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - doikor 2y ago
    US or EU are not sanctioning Amazon, US Department of Defense or US.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      Please read the guidelines and abstain from insults. I am commenting on Linus' communication on this issue that has been exactly how I described.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rossant 2y ago
Is it plausible that some three letter agencies are involved in this decision?
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Sanctions fall under the State Department and OFAC which is under the Treasury.
- Yizahi 2y ago
  Yes, it's called KGB (or FSB after renaming).
fuoqi 2y ago
It look like the Biden's Executive Order 14071 may be behind the ban. See this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ec5jrpLVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ec5jrpLVk (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41933079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41933079). If true, then potential consequences may be much farther than just the Linux kernel and can affect the wider open source development.
- secondary_op 2y ago
  exactly, Linus and et. al. are just being a cowards to admit this and point finger to their own government.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    Linus put this into the title of the patch, but Russians are turning blind eye on this connection between agressive war against Ukraine, NATO, and West in general started by Russia and the patch.
misiek08 2y ago
So we’ve got into politics in software. Good lord (spaghetti one, of course)! I thought we already have problem with quality diving in IT, because of all those newcomers wanting money and laziness only. Sad to see we learned nothing from hundreds of years of wars and occupations. Glad someone mentioned Poland and India. Millions killed by USA joining every war to just sell weapons to both sides of conflict - will be funny too when many people stop dreaming and see this is the truth. Edit: of course I’m waiting for all this flagging and downvotes, because I’ve spoken badly about The Greatest Nation Ever.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Politics in open source is not new. I think one person in this thread has quoted a CoC. They did not always exist... :-) What is new is hackers speaking in favor of nationalist boundaries, after having spent the 90s in opposition to things like cryptographic export controls.
DeathArrow 2y ago
I wouldn't wonder if, at some point, developers from Russia, China and other BRICS countries will fork the Linux kernel. That way they can still can do the changes they need. If BSD were forked, I can't see a practical reason why Linux can't be forked.
- Gud 2y ago
  There are already many patch sets for the Linux kernel which I suspect is realistically what would happen. What I don’t get is why individuals in sanctioned countries can’t submit their patches still?
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > I wouldn't wonder if, at some point, developers from Russia, China and other BRICS countries will fork the Linux kernel. BRICS doesn't have a lot of real commonality of interests, but in the much more closely aligned RINK (Russia-Iran-North Korea) axis, there already is a forked Linux kernel underlying North Korea's Red Star OS (which also uses forks of Western software outside the kernel as part of the distro.)
tpkee 2y ago
What is the point of open source if it doesn’t protect individuals from the control of corps and non-democratic countries? What’s the damn point of open source if law enforcers can just hijack the project? I don’t care about the Russians shenanigans but I’m dumbfounded by the lack of transparency, the obvious racism, from Linus.
- bigfatkitten 2y ago
  You don't get to operate in a legal vacuum just because you're writing software.
  - tpkee 2y ago
    Then what is the point of free software? By existing within the law mechanism it is on itself pointless: it is free labor companies tolerate because it suits their interests and it is for now allowed because we don’t live in a dictatorship, but it is easily hijackable and, as Linus proves, there is not even a need to actually write malicious code. I wonder what would you think projects like signal, but the FOSS community too, should do if the “chat control” law actually passed in Europe. EDIT: if, as you say it doesn’t exist in a legal vacuum, then FOSS is worthless and, I reiterate, just free labor for corporations
    - Arainach 2y ago
      The point is software which is free for anyone to inspect and build upon. That's it. It doesn't have to have geopolitical significance, and geopolitical events don't change the overall benefits.
      - tpkee 2y ago
        FOSS is inherently political, it stands for softwares both free, per your definition, and free as in people’s freedom. If now any political entity large enough to pull its weight can hijack an entire project, then FOSS is pointless and the people contributing to these projects are just doing some good ol’ work for free, with no benefits for nobody but corporations. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html
BSDobelix 2y ago
Why is that submission so harshly suppressed? Honest question.
- luckycones 2y ago
  It seems like a pretty lame rug sweep attempt. I understand that the moderation burden of these kind of threads is high and not every moderation action needs to be public. But for something of this significance it is disappointing that there hasn't even been any communication ( that I have seen) and imo is not in the spirit of hackernews.
  - pvg 2y ago
    Users flag stuff. There are lots of topics that tend not to have sane discussions (or simply don't fit HN) and people regularly flag these without any need for 'lame rug sweep attempts'. But if you're concerned about that you can always email the mods and ask.
    - BSDobelix 2y ago
      It's not flagged, it got pretty fast to 120 upvotes witch is normally a top page 1 submission. But it was in the lower page 2, 10 minutes later page 4, so yes it is definitely a 'lame rug sweep attempt', all the "Maintainer removed" submissions in fact are suppressed, so i ask why is this? Is it not a: [1] "What to Submit: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - SSLy 2y ago
        it is flagged now
        BSDobelix 2y ago
        That one is not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41934219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41934219 Page 1 with 27 points ;) EDIT: 2 minutes later away from page 1 and completely flagged with removed title
tessierashpool9 2y ago
what's up with the flaggings here? this as well as the linus one are totally valid topics.
sumosudo 2y ago
We could definitely use this talent on the BSD's
sumosudo 2y ago
Sanctions have effectively improved the situation for Russia and the World outside the G7, so I reckon this new round of sanction elevators is going to be a huge detriment to the West and frankly Russia will be better off realising that the West is self-destructing
- jubalfh 2y ago
  yes, yes.
- Paradigma11 2y ago
  Everything runs great in a war economy till it doesn't.
jpeeler 2y ago
I find it strange that I haven't seen it written anywhere that suspects the entire commit message was probably drafted by legal. Sort of like a warrant canary where the message is in what's not said, they may have been recommended (just theorizing) to keep the commit brief and not be specific.
- oytis 2y ago
  Linus explicitly commented later that lawyers told them to do that, and refused to provide details of what exactly they said.
sd1010 2y ago
They only removed him from the maintainer list, he can still continue to contribute normally (and he even says he will probably continue to contribute in the future commercially). People are making drama out of nothing.
Gentil 2y ago
It's interesting to note that Linux Foundation is not even mentioned anywhere in the discussions. It is all Linus Torvalds for people apparently. Linux Foundation and their corporate lawyers should be the ones who recommended this right? Moreover, I am interested if this effects FreeBSD which is not run by corporates like Linux Foundation but is still US. And what about OpenBSD which is Canadian?
- grundrausch3n 2y ago
  To be fair, I would personally welcome for these Foundations to move to more neutral countries. RISC V foundation moved to Switzerland because of the shenanigans concerning China. I would trust the Swiss government more to keep the spirit of Open Source/Free Software up than the US one. Because the code is thought still owned by the devs, I do not know how much difference that would make.
  - d_milivojevic 2y ago
    Switzerland's neutrality is long gone, they also sanction Russia.
jubalfh 2y ago
“oh dear, how sad, nevermind.”
megous 2y ago
What can be inferred from the list[1] of removed people's names and email addresses and the discussion so far, incl. lack of presence of removed people/companies on sanctions list (except for one), is: 0) this happened out of nowhere several years into sanctions 1) so some busybody probably reported Semin recently (the only person with non-.ru email address on the list) for past involvement with Baikal Electronics (on sanctions since 2022-09-15) - reported to LinuxFoundation or to authorities 2) LF lawyered up and out of abundance of caution removed all .ru email domain users from MAINTAINERS, since lawyers probably tell them this covers them for now, without having to deep dive into every apparently Russia associated developer 3) mailing list shitshow after top handlers of this situation went all contemptuous to concerned mailing list contributors, who all saw very obvious targetting of all .ru and .ru email holders only without reason (OFAC list is public, and they're not there) [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/2024101835-tiptop-blip-09ed@gregkh/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/2024101835-tiptop-blip-09ed@greg...
ysofunny 2y ago
of course this story is flagged by this point clearly on line with CERN also getting rid of russians.
einhverfr 2y ago
This is a shot across the bow of pretty much anyone working on the Linux kernel from outside the G7. Living in Southeast Asia, I will certainly be having plenty of conversations as to whether *BSDs are likely to be better bets for countries in the Global South. The problem is that everyone outside the G7 lives under the constant threat of ever-expanding US sanctions. Successful open source projects will likely find ways to avoid being told who they can or cannot have contribute to them.
einhverfr 2y ago
A second thought is that open source software rose up in the era when we were trying to build a great interconnected world of business, communications, and more. Now that there is an effort to tear that apart, it isn't at all surprising that open source software can be caught in the crossfire. I think this is the tip of the iceberg and one reason I plan try to focus work on projects which are set up in a way which doesn't enable a single country to say who can or cannot be a part of it.

225 points by ajb 2y ago

ein0p 2y ago

[flagged]

coldtea 2y ago
Those casualties are not the cause of the day from western governments (rather the opposite) so they don't matter /s
- ein0p 2y ago
  “It’s ok when we do it”? I thought at least the FOSS community was above hypocrisy. Apparently not. And I get why there might be legal reasons (as tenuous as they may be) to not allow folks to be paid, but this particular dude was working for free.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    If it was just legal reasons it would be totally understanable. Can't go against the law - but you can voice your reservations against it. Instead Linus is celebrating this.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
exe34 2y ago
[flagged]
- ein0p 2y ago
  I get them from the UN and from watching the entire Gaza Strip get flattened with people inside, financed by my taxes. Where do you get your numbers?
  - exe34 2y ago
    where does the UN get their numbers? every bbc article that quotes the UN reluctantly adds (later on in the article) "according to the health in authority in Gaza", which means hamas. I think hamas has achieved in practice something the Christians can only claim in faith - transmogrification. a hamas soldier transmogrifies into an innocent civilian upon death. even Sinwar would have been a UN teacher if his body hadn't been identifiable - he even carried a stolen UN teacher's passport.
guytv 2y ago
Sanctioning individuals who aid a criminal government serves two purposes: 1) it applies pressure on that government and 2) ensures that we don’t indirectly support its crimes. However, sanctioning an entire population — citizens who are already suffering under a leader who disregards their wellbeing — achieves little and seems more like an act of revenge than a strategic measure.

shiroiushi 2y ago

This is pretty sad to see, but this post was full of a lot of acronyms that might only make sense to people active in this space, so it was a bit difficult to read. Among others, what are NTB and DW here?

l1k 2y ago
NTB = Non-Transparent Bridge DW = DesignWare

keepamovin 2y ago

This is a nice (and sad) goodbye email from Serge(y). It's moving to see all this time and work, what it meant to the person, and also to imagine what the contributions made mean to so many people who use the software. :`( The situation is sad for individual contributors indeed. The overall backdrop does seem in line with sanctions requirements for ITAR, OFAC etc.

alkyon 2y ago
[flagged]
- keepamovin 2y ago
  I know you must have really strong feelings about it and may have even personally suffered, that is terrible and sad too! In war time a lot of companies supply the country. The war is obviously no fault of his. But the leap to persecution is actually a more war-like attitude that is where we lose some of our humanity and decency, so it’s better to skip it.
  - alkyon 2y ago
    "Supply the country" is misrepresentation. He's not a baker. Microprocessors manufacrured by Baikal Electronics were used by military (however defective they were). I don't think it's persecution what Linus did, it is a necessity
    - keepamovin 2y ago
      By leap to persecution I was referring to your comment about him. But I guess Linus' words count too. Anyway, I feel sorry for you that you think that way. When abusing people based on their country becomes a necessity, we are not far from war.
      - Veen 2y ago
        We are not far from war because Russia invaded Europe. This developer works for a company supplying materiel to the Russian military.

skeptrune 2y ago

Other related posts [flagged] Getting Called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41929585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41929585 - Oct 23 2024 (24 comments) [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923749 - Oct 23 2024 (1 comment) Re: [PATCH] Revert "MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to compliance" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41928532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41928532 - Oct 23 2024 (3 comments) Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 - Oct 23 2024 (35 comments)

sampo 2y ago

Some context: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838

sharas- 2y ago

alas

xgstation 2y ago

Linus Torvalds said > 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. The concerning part to me is that kernel development will not only be based on technical discussion anymore (or maybe it never was): why would a revert patch or not has anything to do with nationalities or personal's political and hisotrical view. Bias towards either side to accept/reject technical contributions for such large project is only going to be harmful for the project regardless of open-source or not.

nicman23 2y ago
you get that the revert patch was for non code?
- xgstation 2y ago
  By technical, it means decision is to be made objectively through logical reasoning following certain rules. It is a patch at the end and should follow kernel development process. However, the reason for that patch removing Russian maintainers until now is still not made fully transparent by either GKH or Linus. Instead, calling it "I am Finish" and "Russian aggression" has nothing to do with the patch itself and is not constructive discussion. Even we trace down to the road, none of the maintainers today has done that aggression to Finland. If the reasoning of rejecting the revert patch is "Compliance issues based on our lawyers suggestsion" etc. then just say it.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    If the Russian invasion was the cause for this removal, it's rather late. The invasion started back in 2014 and strengthened two years ago. There probably also wouldn't be any lawyers involved. My guess is that some secretive agency got in contact with the Linux team. Whether this is about infiltration of kernel development or an attempt to stop Russia from powering its war machines by Linux I'm not so sure, but I don't know about any laws that would require this specific process. As for "none of the maintainers today has done that aggression": they haven't _yet_, but they can be made to by their government if that's what Putin wants. Countries bordering Russia are on edge, and, as has been proven in Georgia and Ukraine, rightfully so. The current anti Russian sentiment isn't a consequence of any historic events as much as it is an anticipation of a Russian invasion in future. I would much prefer knowing why exactly removing Russian contributors would be legally required, but given the secrecy surrounding it, I don't think there's much public information around it.

npn 2y ago

[flagged]

globalnode 2y ago
i think one of the hardest parts of writing an o/s would be drivers for the h/w

Garvi 2y ago

What a sad day for open source. I expected better from Linus Torvalds. I know writing more will just get this post removed.

gn4d 2y ago
Be brave, what is the point of open discussion if you are too afraid to speak your mind? If you get banned or your post removed, so be it. Why self-censor? You are doing a disservice to yourself.

yapyap 2y ago

sad

idiocrat 2y ago

This reminds of the Anti-German sentiment during WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment "The Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens, counting approximately 480,000 of them. The Committee of Internment of Alien Enemies recommended sending them to internment camps, though the idea was opposed by the War Department and the Attorney General. More than 4,000 German aliens were imprisoned in 1917–1918. The allegations included spying for Germany and endorsing the German war effort. When the United States entered the war in 1917, some German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Propaganda posters and newspaper commentary fed the growing fear. In Wisconsin, a Lutheran minister faced suspicion for hosting Germans in his home, while a language professor was tarred and feathered for having a German name and teaching the language. The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One person was killed by a mob; in Collinsville, Illinois, German-born Robert Prager was dragged from jail as a suspected spy and lynched. Some aliens were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty."

idiocrat 2y ago
And then the next paragraph of the wikipeida: "In Chicago, Frederick Stock was forced to step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by German composer Wagner with French composer Berlioz. After xenophobic Providence Journal editor John R. Rathom falsely accused Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Karl Muck of refusing to play The Star-Spangled Banner and triggered a trial by media in October 1917, Muck and 29 of the orchestra's musicians were arrested and interned in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, until well after the Armistice. "
- krick 2y ago
  And of course notorious renaming hamburgers to "liberty steaks" in some restaurants in the timeframe between WWI and WWII.
oneshtein 2y ago

indulona 2y ago

This is good. "West" and " Global South" need separate so there can be more competition and innovation in the world. I had no Idea linux got so political since it is not my OS, though recent wokenization of Debian should have made it clear OSS is screwed, but something good will come out of something bad.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

fuoqi 2y ago

I don't think many Western developers understand how much damage Linus just single-handedly dealt to the accumulated respect and trust towards the Linux Foundation leadership. If you think that the Russian IT community will think "damn, this evil Putin, we need to overthrow him", think again after taking a look at these discussions (in Russian) [1][2]. And many developers from other countries (especially from China) certainly have started to think "hm, we may be next" and act accordingly because of that, e.g. by not actively participating in the Linux development in the first place. They could've handled it MUCH better, most people understand that the removal by itself is understandable (properly navigating the current regime of sanctions is extremely hard and it's better for an US-based organization to be conservative, doubly so with people from the directly sanctioned companies like Baikal Electronics), but lack of transparency, sneakiness, and the extremely aggressive, unnecessary and dehumanizing remarks from Linus just the situation from unfortunate bad to extreme worse. [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...

_w1tm 2y ago
> the extremely aggressive, unnecessary and dehumanizing remarks from Linus Linus being Linus. I thought he had gotten some comms training but it’s hard to change when you’ve spent most of your career communicating very directly.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Linus and the Linux foundation breaking their own COC: >In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, _ethnicity_, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, _nationality_, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago

kragen 2y ago

I wonder if we'll see persistent Russian and Chinese forks of the Linux kernel to address this problem? Large parts of the kernel are written by Russian and Chinese people, and the US's sanctions regime against the PRC is nearly as aggressive as that against Russia. The GPL guarantees they can still merge in code from Linus, as long as he doesn't intentionally make it incompatible, and probably a lot of contributors will want to get their code into Linus's tree and also the Russian and/or Chinese tree, which could lead to pushback on deliberate compatibility breakage.

xtracto 2y ago
I was just looking at the Ubuntu work on the OEM kernel release. Apparently it is maintained by someone from China. It will be a bummer if that work stops.
- kragen 2y ago
  Probably not until after PRC troops land in Taiwan.

llm_trw 2y ago

[flagged]

tivert 2y ago
> The kernel has a gray hair problem. > No one in the West wants to do volunteer work any more because it pays a lot more to work at Evil Corp and wave some flags around during the appropriate month. I thought most of the kernel "volunteers" were actually working for some "Evil Corp" or another that was paying them to "volunteer" in some way related to the company's business.
Conscat 2y ago
I'm confused why you insinuate that "flag waving" in June has anything to do with this topic. You frame it as though that is something developers tolerate because they are paid to, in contrast to how developers behave in volunteer work (demonstrably untrue).
- llm_trw 2y ago
  I wasn't talking about you personally. I was talking about the type of human who is shown in this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g We need to be very clear that they are human, and not a reptile wearing human skin and using human words to get to eat human babies.
anal_reactor 2y ago
It's not only about work for Evil Corp being better. It's also about "how the fuck do I even start?"
sampo 2y ago
> No one in the West wants to do volunteer work any more because it pays a lot more to work at Evil Corp This post is about an engineer in the East, who apparently works for a company called Baikal Electronics. "BAIKAL ELECTRONICS JSC is a Russian electronics company that manufactures semiconductors and computer processors. Baikal Electronics JSC produces computer processors for the Russian military." https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-defense-industrial-base-and-human-rights-abusers-fact-sheet/ https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-... Do you somehow think these companies in the East are less Evil than Silicon Valley companies?

anal_reactor 2y ago

Some decisions are difficult and no matter what you do, it's going to be bad.

Symbiote 2y ago

This developer worked for Baikal Electronics (from the Google snippet of his GitHub page, and earlier emails from him to the Linux kernel lists — showing his work was for that company). That company received very significant subsidy from the Russian state. They produced CPUs for the Russian military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-defense-industrial-base-and-human-rights-abusers-fact-sheet/ https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-...

whatshisface 2y ago
[flagged]
- doikor 2y ago
  US or EU are not sanctioning Amazon, US Department of Defense or US.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mytailorisrich 2y ago
[flagged]
- ffsm8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Please read the guidelines and abstain from insults. I am commenting on Linus' communication on this issue that has been exactly how I described.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rossant 2y ago

Is it plausible that some three letter agencies are involved in this decision?

whatshisface 2y ago
Sanctions fall under the State Department and OFAC which is under the Treasury.
Yizahi 2y ago
Yes, it's called KGB (or FSB after renaming).

fuoqi 2y ago

It look like the Biden's Executive Order 14071 may be behind the ban. See this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ec5jrpLVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ec5jrpLVk (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41933079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41933079). If true, then potential consequences may be much farther than just the Linux kernel and can affect the wider open source development.

secondary_op 2y ago
exactly, Linus and et. al. are just being a cowards to admit this and point finger to their own government.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Linus put this into the title of the patch, but Russians are turning blind eye on this connection between agressive war against Ukraine, NATO, and West in general started by Russia and the patch.

misiek08 2y ago

So we’ve got into politics in software. Good lord (spaghetti one, of course)! I thought we already have problem with quality diving in IT, because of all those newcomers wanting money and laziness only. Sad to see we learned nothing from hundreds of years of wars and occupations. Glad someone mentioned Poland and India. Millions killed by USA joining every war to just sell weapons to both sides of conflict - will be funny too when many people stop dreaming and see this is the truth. Edit: of course I’m waiting for all this flagging and downvotes, because I’ve spoken badly about The Greatest Nation Ever.

whatshisface 2y ago
Politics in open source is not new. I think one person in this thread has quoted a CoC. They did not always exist... :-) What is new is hackers speaking in favor of nationalist boundaries, after having spent the 90s in opposition to things like cryptographic export controls.

DeathArrow 2y ago

I wouldn't wonder if, at some point, developers from Russia, China and other BRICS countries will fork the Linux kernel. That way they can still can do the changes they need. If BSD were forked, I can't see a practical reason why Linux can't be forked.

Gud 2y ago
There are already many patch sets for the Linux kernel which I suspect is realistically what would happen. What I don’t get is why individuals in sanctioned countries can’t submit their patches still?
dragonwriter 2y ago
> I wouldn't wonder if, at some point, developers from Russia, China and other BRICS countries will fork the Linux kernel. BRICS doesn't have a lot of real commonality of interests, but in the much more closely aligned RINK (Russia-Iran-North Korea) axis, there already is a forked Linux kernel underlying North Korea's Red Star OS (which also uses forks of Western software outside the kernel as part of the distro.)

tpkee 2y ago

What is the point of open source if it doesn’t protect individuals from the control of corps and non-democratic countries? What’s the damn point of open source if law enforcers can just hijack the project? I don’t care about the Russians shenanigans but I’m dumbfounded by the lack of transparency, the obvious racism, from Linus.

bigfatkitten 2y ago
You don't get to operate in a legal vacuum just because you're writing software.
- tpkee 2y ago
  Then what is the point of free software? By existing within the law mechanism it is on itself pointless: it is free labor companies tolerate because it suits their interests and it is for now allowed because we don’t live in a dictatorship, but it is easily hijackable and, as Linus proves, there is not even a need to actually write malicious code. I wonder what would you think projects like signal, but the FOSS community too, should do if the “chat control” law actually passed in Europe. EDIT: if, as you say it doesn’t exist in a legal vacuum, then FOSS is worthless and, I reiterate, just free labor for corporations
  - Arainach 2y ago
    The point is software which is free for anyone to inspect and build upon. That's it. It doesn't have to have geopolitical significance, and geopolitical events don't change the overall benefits.
    - tpkee 2y ago
      FOSS is inherently political, it stands for softwares both free, per your definition, and free as in people’s freedom. If now any political entity large enough to pull its weight can hijack an entire project, then FOSS is pointless and the people contributing to these projects are just doing some good ol’ work for free, with no benefits for nobody but corporations. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html

BSDobelix 2y ago

Why is that submission so harshly suppressed? Honest question.

luckycones 2y ago
It seems like a pretty lame rug sweep attempt. I understand that the moderation burden of these kind of threads is high and not every moderation action needs to be public. But for something of this significance it is disappointing that there hasn't even been any communication ( that I have seen) and imo is not in the spirit of hackernews.
- pvg 2y ago
  Users flag stuff. There are lots of topics that tend not to have sane discussions (or simply don't fit HN) and people regularly flag these without any need for 'lame rug sweep attempts'. But if you're concerned about that you can always email the mods and ask.
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    It's not flagged, it got pretty fast to 120 upvotes witch is normally a top page 1 submission. But it was in the lower page 2, 10 minutes later page 4, so yes it is definitely a 'lame rug sweep attempt', all the "Maintainer removed" submissions in fact are suppressed, so i ask why is this? Is it not a: [1] "What to Submit: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - SSLy 2y ago
      it is flagged now
      - BSDobelix 2y ago
        That one is not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41934219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41934219 Page 1 with 27 points ;) EDIT: 2 minutes later away from page 1 and completely flagged with removed title

tessierashpool9 2y ago

what's up with the flaggings here? this as well as the linus one are totally valid topics.

sumosudo 2y ago

We could definitely use this talent on the BSD's

sumosudo 2y ago

Sanctions have effectively improved the situation for Russia and the World outside the G7, so I reckon this new round of sanction elevators is going to be a huge detriment to the West and frankly Russia will be better off realising that the West is self-destructing

jubalfh 2y ago
yes, yes.
Paradigma11 2y ago
Everything runs great in a war economy till it doesn't.

jpeeler 2y ago

I find it strange that I haven't seen it written anywhere that suspects the entire commit message was probably drafted by legal. Sort of like a warrant canary where the message is in what's not said, they may have been recommended (just theorizing) to keep the commit brief and not be specific.

oytis 2y ago
Linus explicitly commented later that lawyers told them to do that, and refused to provide details of what exactly they said.

sd1010 2y ago

They only removed him from the maintainer list, he can still continue to contribute normally (and he even says he will probably continue to contribute in the future commercially). People are making drama out of nothing.

Gentil 2y ago

It's interesting to note that Linux Foundation is not even mentioned anywhere in the discussions. It is all Linus Torvalds for people apparently. Linux Foundation and their corporate lawyers should be the ones who recommended this right? Moreover, I am interested if this effects FreeBSD which is not run by corporates like Linux Foundation but is still US. And what about OpenBSD which is Canadian?

grundrausch3n 2y ago
To be fair, I would personally welcome for these Foundations to move to more neutral countries. RISC V foundation moved to Switzerland because of the shenanigans concerning China. I would trust the Swiss government more to keep the spirit of Open Source/Free Software up than the US one. Because the code is thought still owned by the devs, I do not know how much difference that would make.
- d_milivojevic 2y ago
  Switzerland's neutrality is long gone, they also sanction Russia.

jubalfh 2y ago

“oh dear, how sad, nevermind.”

megous 2y ago

What can be inferred from the list[1] of removed people's names and email addresses and the discussion so far, incl. lack of presence of removed people/companies on sanctions list (except for one), is: 0) this happened out of nowhere several years into sanctions 1) so some busybody probably reported Semin recently (the only person with non-.ru email address on the list) for past involvement with Baikal Electronics (on sanctions since 2022-09-15) - reported to LinuxFoundation or to authorities 2) LF lawyered up and out of abundance of caution removed all .ru email domain users from MAINTAINERS, since lawyers probably tell them this covers them for now, without having to deep dive into every apparently Russia associated developer 3) mailing list shitshow after top handlers of this situation went all contemptuous to concerned mailing list contributors, who all saw very obvious targetting of all .ru and .ru email holders only without reason (OFAC list is public, and they're not there) [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/2024101835-tiptop-blip-09ed@gregkh/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/2024101835-tiptop-blip-09ed@greg...

ysofunny 2y ago

of course this story is flagged by this point clearly on line with CERN also getting rid of russians.

einhverfr 2y ago

This is a shot across the bow of pretty much anyone working on the Linux kernel from outside the G7. Living in Southeast Asia, I will certainly be having plenty of conversations as to whether *BSDs are likely to be better bets for countries in the Global South. The problem is that everyone outside the G7 lives under the constant threat of ever-expanding US sanctions. Successful open source projects will likely find ways to avoid being told who they can or cannot have contribute to them.

einhverfr 2y ago

A second thought is that open source software rose up in the era when we were trying to build a great interconnected world of business, communications, and more. Now that there is an effort to tear that apart, it isn't at all surprising that open source software can be caught in the crossfire. I think this is the tip of the iceberg and one reason I plan try to focus work on projects which are set up in a way which doesn't enable a single country to say who can or cannot be a part of it.