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Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

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Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#11

Post by arp242 »

sph wrote: post #6

While I agree that code and science should be separated from politics, isn't this the point of the sanction? AFAIK the Linux Foundation is a US non-profit, and many core kernel developers, such as Linus Torvalds and Greg KH reside in the United States.

> code and science should be separated from politics

I think almost no one agrees that it should be completely separate; there should be some distance, yes, but all these things do exist in the same reality and that can't always just be ignored. Should Linux also accept North-Korean patches for their ICBMs in mainline? Probably not. They can't prevent Linux from being used in them, but they also have no obligation to go our of their way to review, merge, and maintain the code for it.

There is a lot of grey area and you can argue about the specifics of various situations for ages, but there clearly is a point where politics and the intended purpose of patches do matter.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#12

Post by arp242 »

vfclists wrote: post #10
arp242 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baikal is kind of a political project to start with. They were already sanctioned by the Obama admin because they were "associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research". That was rescinded a year later. Now it's back for reasons that should be obvious. You can ignore what's going on in the world…

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

I don't know who the "we" is; you have to ask the person who sent that message. Presumably it's the people responsible for that code.

I explicitly mentioned IBM's involvement in the holocaust. But that's a historical event; not an on-going one. You can trace the genealogy of almost everyone an everything to something evil if you go back far enough.

I think comparing the Russian and US military is a false equivalence. Do I think the US is innocent? No. But it's just not on the same order.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#13

Post by mikebonnell »

vfclists wrote: post #10
arp242 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baikal is kind of a political project to start with. They were already sanctioned by the Obama admin because they were "associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research". That was rescinded a year later. Now it's back for reasons that should be obvious. You can ignore what's going on in the world…

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

Have we made bad decisions in the past, yes.

Should we continue to make those same bad decisions now, no.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#14

Post by hulitu »

vfclists wrote: post #10
arp242 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baikal is kind of a political project to start with. They were already sanctioned by the Obama admin because they were "associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research". That was rescinded a year later. Now it's back for reasons that should be obvious. You can ignore what's going on in the world…

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

The guy looks Polish by name. They (the Polish) are now "very good friends" of Ukranians except when the Ukranians are also gypsies and they hate Russia.

There are a lot of 3 letter agencies submitting patches to the linux kernel ( for ex. NSA). Do they feel "comfortable" accepting patches from those organizations ?

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#15

Post by pphysch »

mikebonnell wrote: post #13
vfclists wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

Have we made bad decisions in the past, yes. Should we continue to make those same bad decisions now, no.

Well, we do.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#16

Post by hulitu »

arp242 wrote: post #12
vfclists wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

I don't know who the "we" is; you have to ask the person who sent that message. Presumably it's the people responsible for that code. I explicitly mentioned IBM's involvement in the holocaust. But that's a historical event; not an on-going one. You can trace the genealogy of almost everyone an everything to something evil if you go back far enough. I think comparing the Russian and US military is a false equivalence.…

> I think comparing the Russian and US military is a false equivalence. Do I think the US is innocent? No. But it's just not on the same order.

Of course. The US killings look almost "human" (Serbia, Irak, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Corea etc). And having other country's people killed just to follow US interest shows a lot of empathy. /s

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#17

Post by pvaldes »

pphysch wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This is not about overthrowing anything. Is about damage control.

Maybe is safer for Linux to refuse to enter in this viper pit of sanctions and politics until waters calm down a little. Specially in the same day that a team of covered Russian agents were caught in Poland planning several boycotts in NATO territory. The mistrust is not totally unreasonable at this moment.

If I understand correctly, the Russian company proposed including a patch for their own hardware, so the Kernel can manage it. Are the CPUs created by this company banned so important for everybody to grant to be supported by the Linux team? Defying the international sanctions against the company could harm the image of the kernel project. What will be this CPUs used for? To help Russians evade the sanctions and keep the war longer? To save lives? To put it in a missile so they kill children faster?

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#18

Post by pphysch »

arp242 wrote: post #12
vfclists wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't any of the major US companies involved with Linux have huge contracts with the DoD? Didn't IBM the current owner of Redhat supply equipment to the Nazis which was used to document and track Jews? By the way who are the "We" in "We don't feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organization."?

I don't know who the "we" is; you have to ask the person who sent that message. Presumably it's the people responsible for that code. I explicitly mentioned IBM's involvement in the holocaust. But that's a historical event; not an on-going one. You can trace the genealogy of almost everyone an everything to something evil if you go back far enough. I think comparing the Russian and US military is a false equivalence.…

Russia has invaded 2 sovereign countries since 2000; USA has invaded at least 4. That's roughly the same order.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#19

Post by pphysch »

pvaldes wrote: post #17
pphysch wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This is not about overthrowing anything. Is about damage control. Maybe is safer for Linux to refuse to enter in this viper pit of sanctions and politics until waters calm down a little. Specially in the same day that a team of covered Russian agents were caught in Poland planning several boycotts in NATO territory. The mistrust is not totally unreasonable at this moment. If I understand correctly, the Russian compan…

If it's about real sanctions, they should say so. They don't even have to be that specific.

Because right now it looks like a Polish/EE guy using geopolitical events as an excuse to bully his national enemies on the internet. It's a politically-correct "f__k off and never come back". Totally unprofessional.

Re: Linux maintainer rejects patches from sanctioned Russian Baikal Electronics

#20

Post by sph »

arp242 wrote: post #11
sph wrote: post #6

While I agree that code and science should be separated from politics, isn't this the point of the sanction? AFAIK the Linux Foundation is a US non-profit, and many core kernel developers, such as Linus Torvalds and Greg KH reside in the United States.

> code and science should be separated from politics I think almost no one agrees that it should be completely separate; there should be some distance, yes, but all these things do exist in the same reality and that can't always just be ignored. Should Linux also accept North-Korean patches for their ICBMs in mainline? Probably not. They can't prevent Linux from being used in them, but they also have no obligation to…

> Should Linux also accept North-Korean patches for their ICBMs in mainline?

While NK is probably not looking to merge their `char/icbm` driver to the mainline tree, what about the NK military fixing a nasty bug in the memory allocator? Should the patch be rejected even if it improves a non-military subsystem, just because of who wrote it?

It's just food-for-thought, personally I do not care one way or the other. As you say, it's all a grey area, and there is not a clear answer, which is where politics and posturing, rather than pragmatism, thrives.

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