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Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

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Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#101

Post by jiggawatts »

123yawaworht456 wrote: post #94
jiggawatts wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fixable too. If the rest of the world drops all packets to or from Russian CIDR blocks, it doesn’t matter how many fibre links they still have lit up. Just a handful of public clouds and major CDNs dropping packets from Russian IPs would cut them off from almost all Internet services directly or indirectly. Good luck browsing web pages with cdnjs and the like just timing out for you! Russia can route to the re…

> If the rest of the world drops all packets to or from Russian CIDR blocks yes, okay, fine, go convince China to do just that

Don’t need to convince everybody, just the majority.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#103

Post by mokoshhydro »

gorbachev wrote: post #97

If 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…

Huawei is under same level of sanctions, but nobody with `xxx@huawei.com` is removed from Maintainers list. So, probably "sanctions" are not the reason.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#104

Post by zhdi »

gorbachev wrote: post #97

If 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…

What about maintainers employed by huawei, they still on that file, any difference here?

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#105

Post by type0 »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #2

Not 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.

> 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

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#106

Post by omgtehlion »

TZubiri wrote: post #6
fancyfredbot wrote: post #2

Not 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.

Probably 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.

If I were a KGB (FSB) agent with a task to undermine US infrastructure with my commits in Linux kernel, using my real russian name and .ru TLD would be the last thing to do.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#107

Post by yeputons »

gorbachev wrote: post #97

If 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…

I think it's more likely that everyone will forget in a few days and we will never know. Maybe there will be few more random bans.

I highly doubt anyone banned will even try to send "sufficient documentation". The wording is as vague and arbitrary as it gets, and the underlying tone sounds to me not like "we have such and such requirements", but like "some Russian-sounding names are banned, but we still have to demonstrate there is a due process".

Reminds me of banks. Banks are fined for not having processes for detecting money laundering. Not money laundering, mind it, just having "inadequate" processes. If such a process flags someone, that someone is blocked and they should provide "sufficient documents", but the bank is not allowed to tell them why or what, that would be "tipping off", which is illegal. And then it all comes down to bank's internal policies (that the bank is not allowed to disclose) or even a personal relationship with a branch manager.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#108

Post by diggan »

yeputons wrote: post #107
gorbachev wrote: post #97

If 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…

I think it's more likely that everyone will forget in a few days and we will never know. Maybe there will be few more random bans. I highly doubt anyone banned will even try to send "sufficient documentation". The wording is as vague and arbitrary as it gets, and the underlying tone sounds to me not like "we have such and such requirements", but like "some Russian-sounding names are banned, but we still have to demon…

> Banks are fined for not having processes for detecting money laundering. Not money laundering, mind it, just having "inadequate" processes. If such a process flags someone, that someone is blocked and they should provide "sufficient documents",

Isn't that how most compliance regulation works? You can't force companies to have a perfect record of preventing something, no matter how you structure things, so instead of trying to do so, you setup something that will at least preventing it somewhat. And then you fine the companies who don't do anything to prevent the issue.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#109

Post by diggan »

nineteen999 wrote: post #77
type0 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux foundation is 501(c)(6) organization based in US.of.A

Completely irrelevant. They are not the owner of the Linux kernel. Linus holds the trademark. The copyright holders are the contributors to the source code. Nobody "owns" it, that's the point, it's an international project.

Linus, who since 2010 is an American citizen. Effectively, the US is probably the country closest to "owning" the Kernel, in that if the US wanted to put an abrupt cease to kernel development, they could, if only for a short period until the project re-organizes. I don't think any other country posses even the ability of doing so.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#110

Post by diggan »

Narretz wrote: post #43
diggan wrote: post #3

Is there any new "compliance requirements" (sanctions I suppose?) that made this happen? Or is a delayed change since the sanctions started?

The latest change would be EU sanctions that disallow export of technology from March 2024: 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.

That 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 EURussia, not sure if that would ultimately enforce the kernel to implement those compliance requirements, unless also agreed and followed by the US.

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