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RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

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Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#21
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The US constitution, Article 1 section 8 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8 states: "The Congress shall have power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes..." Congress has passed such laws, authorizing the President to impose economic sanctions banning trade with countries which pose "any unusual and extraordinary threat, which…

IMHO if your only/main source of news is the western media, you get a very one sided, anti-Russian point of view. Things are really not that black and white, they almost never are in the global politics.

lambda's already replied about the relative trustworthiness of different media sources. However, lambda's earlier post was limited to why a US company can interfere with the contracts of non-US companies. The problem, of course, is that Red Hat can get into legal trouble if it does business, directly or indirectly, with the targeted companies, but Red Hat's independent partners are under a different legal system, and may well get into trouble by breaching their contracts at Red Hat's insistence.

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#22
post #3

It's a bit interesting, as it requests a bunch of Russian IT companies to stop their ongoing projects with another bunch (the sanction list) of Russian companies. It would be obvious that USA companies (and their Russian subsidiaries, if there are any) are limited by the sanctions; however I'm not really seeing what power USA or RedHat should have to restrict those Russian-to-Russian support contracts.

Red Hat partners in very large part re-sell their services:

http://www.europe.redhat.com/partners/benefits.php

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO if your only/main source of news is the western media, you get a very one sided, anti-Russian point of view. Things are really not that black and white, they almost never are in the global politics.

I have read both Western and Russian sources on the conflict. Let's just say that I find the Western sources on the matter much, much more trustworthy. It's very clear that Russia is running a propaganda campaign, which is apparently reasonably effective within Russia but less convincing when you have access to other sources of information. The Russian propaganda campaign was even fairly effective at spreading the ru…

The Russians just need a little Lebensraum. The West has continued its policy of containment even after the fall of the Soviet Union. This can be seen in the aggressive expansion of the EU and of NATO. It is necessary that Russia have scope to influence its neighbors and build partnerships in order for it to be a free and prosperous nation.

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO if your only/main source of news is the western media, you get a very one sided, anti-Russian point of view. Things are really not that black and white, they almost never are in the global politics.

Hmm. Is there actually any doubt that Russia is tacitly providing support to Novorossiya?

[deleted]

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#25
post #20

Ah yes, the well known "topple enemy leaders by restricting their access to Linux tech support" strategy. Gets them every time.

This was a pretty funny comment and I know its ironic, but still it is useful to point out that RedHat has a lot of products, including Middle-ware and cloud solutions that these partners resell for good money. Since Russian business is buying them, it does find them useful and thus sanctions are biting someone. Food for thought - what are the implications for Russian big-business of being forced out of the global cl…

For big business? Nil. Big business doesn't need 3rd party cloud services other than as something to sell to offset their own infrastructure investment.

As to who these sanctions are biting. Sanctions always bite someone, but rarely do they hurt leaders. I think often they can help extend a regime's grip because it plays into propaganda.

Also, if sanctions were imposed generally for dicking about in other countries on dubious pretexts, then nobody would be trading with the UK or US right now. Glass houses and all that.

edit - if you want to influence Russia at the moment, either you please Putin, or work out how to get rid of him. Pissing him off won't help. He is a very experienced KGB guy who has oversaw the period of Russia returning from a brink of near dissolution to a state that is at least functioning, and people put up with a lot of crap to have something that functions.

There are parallels with China here in that the insanity of the Mao years can be used to justify putting up with a lack of political freedom today, on the basis that at least the current leaders aren't completely crazy. In Russia, people compare Putin with Yeltsin and think that things could be a lot worse as at least Putin can find his arse with both hands and isn't pissed all the time. Is the political version of New Coke.

To that end, any sanctions that do not actually destabilise Russia are probably counter productive and any that do destabilise Russia are just plain dangerous.

The question we really need to answer quickly is what does Putin actually want. If he is a Napoleon in waiting, we should try and depose him rather than pussyfooting around, whereas if he is merely a bit of a despot but not intent on conquest then it would be better to keep him happy and wait.

The Crimea doesn't really tell us much on that as it is where the Black Sea fleet has been kept since Potemkin's time, and so can be argued as a defensive as much as an offensive move. I am somewhat cheered by Putin's apparent lukewarm views towards the separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, though this could be a complete front.

I was convinced that he was going to try and force and hold a land corridor to the Crimea and the fact that this has not been done (yet) might indicate that Putin is not so much intent on expansion but is just keeping the whole thing warm to keep folk busy, much like China does with North Korea. If that is true, then hopefully he has had a bit of an 'Oh Fuck' moment with the airliner going down.

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#26
post #23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read both Western and Russian sources on the conflict. Let's just say that I find the Western sources on the matter much, much more trustworthy. It's very clear that Russia is running a propaganda campaign, which is apparently reasonably effective within Russia but less convincing when you have access to other sources of information. The Russian propaganda campaign was even fairly effective at spreading the ru…

The Russians just need a little Lebensraum. The West has continued its policy of containment even after the fall of the Soviet Union. This can be seen in the aggressive expansion of the EU and of NATO. It is necessary that Russia have scope to influence its neighbors and build partnerships in order for it to be a free and prosperous nation.

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not. I'm guessing yes but the only thing that gave it aways was the use of the word Lebensraum.

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#27
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO if your only/main source of news is the western media, you get a very one sided, anti-Russian point of view. Things are really not that black and white, they almost never are in the global politics.

I have read both Western and Russian sources on the conflict. Let's just say that I find the Western sources on the matter much, much more trustworthy. It's very clear that Russia is running a propaganda campaign, which is apparently reasonably effective within Russia but less convincing when you have access to other sources of information. The Russian propaganda campaign was even fairly effective at spreading the ru…

Crimea is basically Russian, the vast majority of the population identifies themselves as Russian, 77% of the population only speak Russian. It was "given" to Ukraine after the fall of the USSR and was an autonomous region, it was part of Russia for like 200 years. To me, they had the right to "bring back" and protect people that were of their kind, Ukraine government even wanted to ban the Russian language in Ukraine!

Let me give you an example, in the south of Latin America there's a kind of country people that share a culture of the same origin and are present in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, they are "gaúchos". Lets say tomorrow the north of Brazil takes over and outlaws being gaúcho. Wouldn't the gaúchos in Argentina and Uruguay be right to be against that? Give me a brake. Western corporate media is bullshit factory and propaganda machine, I don't find it trustworthy at all. I'm brasilian, BTW.

Also, nobody talks that US is supporting their side with propaganda, money, arms, "military consultancy" since the start of all this. Apparently a USAID "non-profit" even gave out cakes to people during the revolution, how cute!

From my point of view, the West side is obscuring facts waaaaaay more, but you can't know without really digging(well, that's the whole point, right?)

How about people angry with their government was "the will of people must be respected" 5 months ago, but now people against the new one are "terrorists" and "send the army against them! Here, take some military consultancy". It would funny if it wasn't tragic. Sorry, but it's really easy to expose the USG hypocrisy, turkey anyone?

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most contracts have "through no fault of the undersigned" waivers in them. i.e. acts of god or government are often covered in some way within the contract language, making parties not liable for hurricanes and changes in law that cause contracts to become null. There's probably some kind of responsibility in these kinds of cases, but it's not going to fall under the usual termination of contract terms. And, whatever…

A valid contract can't compel one of the parties to engage in illegal activity, can it?

In international contracts, the activity might be legal under one state but illegal under another. Which law applies? Without some reasonable language to cover it, I guess one could end up with one party to the contract between a rock and a hard place. Their legal entity in one nation bound by a contract in that nation, with their legal entity in the other nation bound by the laws of the land. I don't know the intricacies of all of this, but I suspect things could get ugly without some defined behavior built into the contract in such instances.

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#29
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The US constitution, Article 1 section 8 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8 states: "The Congress shall have power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes..." Congress has passed such laws, authorizing the President to impose economic sanctions banning trade with countries which pose "any unusual and extraordinary threat, which…

IMHO if your only/main source of news is the western media, you get a very one sided, anti-Russian point of view. Things are really not that black and white, they almost never are in the global politics.

Out of curiosity, besides the Russian government-owned media and various crackpot conspiracy theory sites claiming, among other things, that the Jews did it, what news sources are presenting a pro-Russian point of view of this calamity?

Re: RedHat requests Russian partners to suspend projects under U.S. sanctions

#30
post #16

Starting a tech company in the US is looking like a less and less attractive prospect. This is doubly true if the company focuses on security/privacy of its users.

I don't understand all the downvotes since the your comment is spot on. The US market is currently very toxic for security/privacy-related enterprises.
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