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Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

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Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#141

Post by darksaints »

Can we please get a fraction of the resources currently put into Linux kernel development and start developing a robust userland ecosystem for SeL4?

Microkernels in general already mitigate the possible damage that could be done by rogue code in large monolithic kernels. A formally verified microkernel like SeL4 is an even better guarantee. And performance concerns of microkernels are practically solved at this point.

These sorts of nation-state sponsored malicious code practices could be made mostly irrelevant. We just need a little momentum to get us there.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#142

Post by v1ne »

The email thread continues. Linus later responded with:

>No, but I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to go into the details that I - and other maintainers - were told by lawyers. >I'm also not going to start discussing legal issues with random internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them.

Which I find pretty concerning statements, quite a disservice to the community. It's a global community, and here the maintainers take some action without explanation. They don't even have a communiqué at hand to tell people what this action is, why it was taken, and which alternatives were considered but rejected. This is the bare minimum that I expect of the maintainers of a piece of software that is very critical to many millions of systems worldwide. Counting on the goodwill of users is not acceptable for an operating system that underpins the security of people's computers.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#145

Post by thayne »

Suppafly wrote: post #140
thayne wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do sanctions ever actually work as intended? To this casual bystander it seems like they usually hurt innocent citizens far more than the leaders of the usually authoritarion regime that it targets.

>To this casual bystander it seems like they usually hurt innocent citizens far more than the leaders of the usually authoritarion regime that it targets. That's kinda the point. The common folk put pressure on their leaders to correct their behavior.

That assumes the common folk can put pressure on their leaders, which is usually not the case for countries targeted by sanctions from the US, which usually have autocratic or otherwise authoritarian governments.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#147

Post by codr7 »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #8
codr7 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wait ... Western countries killing in Russia? What?! As part of the Cold War, sure, but that's the nature spying; we do it, they do it, everybody does it. Seems like you're implying armed forces level killing in Russia, though. Care to explain that?

[flagged]

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#148

Post by cresynthesis »

matrix2003 wrote: post #19
TZubiri wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s pretty evident at this point that any Russian citizen in Russia or with family in Russia can be coerced, and it’s also pretty clear that Putin specifically does not have good intentions. There are lots of good people there. It’s too bad there is a crazy person at the helm.

if you believe Russian government would coerce its own citizens, why do you not believe they would coerce foreigners? they have a world class intelligence agency that routinely assassinates regime enemies in foreign countries after all, so why should it be any harder for them?

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#149

Post by codr7 »

rvnx wrote: post #54
Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the Russians banish western developers from working on Russian projects.

It's already the case, if you are living in a country officially listed as "hostile to Russia" (or "enemy") it's very difficult to business there. That's why McDonald's left for example.

And again, the same goes for the US.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#150

Post by instig007 »

thayne wrote: post #82
fuoqi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a blatant BS rationalization... The commit literally talks about "compliance". This is nothing more than an easy alternative to navigating the obscure sanctioning regime. It's like self-censorship, people/companies do this because of the fear that their activity may fall under sanctions, even though it highly likely does not. If your system relies on people being in "a free country with rights and ethics", then…

> people/companies do this because of the fear that their activity may fall under sanctions, even though it highly likely does not. People/companies do this because lawyers tell them that there is a risk that the activity may violate sanctions. And yes the lawyers are probably overly conservative, but that's because there often isn't a way to know for sure whether something is actually a violation until you end up in…

> And yes the lawyers are probably overly conservative, but that's because there often isn't a way to know for sure whether something is actually a violation until you end up in the courtroom.

You've outlined a justification based on a kafkaesque stockholm syndrome vibe. The system doesn't work as well as it's being advertised, does it?

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