Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 314 posts

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#211

Post by rfoo »

immibis wrote: post #201
scoofy wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source means put up or shut up. If you don’t like the institutions, then build it yourself. You can’t cry foul when the group is literally providing you with free software. Open source institutions don’t own anyone anything beyond open software.

And right now Linus is not putting up, is suddenly actively refusing to put up, and we're all very concerned about that. As an open source community leader, putting up consists of leading well, and transparently. It's not just a coding role. He may have inherited the leadership role by being the original coder but he has to keep it by being a worthy leader. I speculate Linus or Greg received the equivalent of a Natio…

That's the first thing came to my mind too.

While a little bit too much of a guess, it's quite possible that whatever three letter agency finally had a high-confidence note on who was behind the XZ backdoor and decided to issue an (blatant) order to kick out all Russian maintainers, because that's how USG usually works.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#212

Post by gizmondo »

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…

It's not accurate. Everyone with .ru email was removed regardless of actual sanctions, including people who currently live and work in US.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#213

Post by yeputons »

gizmondo wrote: post #212
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…

It's not accurate. Everyone with .ru email was removed regardless of actual sanctions, including people who currently live and work in US.

Do you have any example of a removed person with .ru email who lives and works in the US?

I saw some comments on Reddit about people with @gmail.com (I think), but other comments pointed out that these people were not actually removed and were just present on a screenshot.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#214

Post by gizmondo »

yeputons wrote: post #213
gizmondo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not accurate. Everyone with .ru email was removed regardless of actual sanctions, including people who currently live and work in US.

Do you have any example of a removed person with .ru email who lives and works in the US? I saw some comments on Reddit about people with @gmail.com (I think), but other comments pointed out that these people were not actually removed and were just present on a screenshot.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aospan

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#215

Post by yeputons »

Wytwwww wrote: post #156
hulitu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing US based kernel maintainers from positions in which they could conceivably help insert a backdoor into the kernel hopefully removes the incentive for the US government to threaten (or carry out) horrific violence against these individuals and their families. cough xz cough

It would only work if the specific government agency/actor could successfully conceal such actions from the rest of the government agencies, courts, media etc. etc. No such safety checks exist in Russia or other pseudo-fascist states. If the Russian government is blackmailing you your are certainly screwed. In US.. well it depends but you could quite easily bring down the people doing this to you with yourself if you…

> In US.. well it depends but you could quite easily bring down the people doing this to you with yourself

I personally don't see much difference between "going down" and "going down together with other people". At least for myself and my family. I'm screwed anyway.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#216

Post by yeputons »

gizmondo wrote: post #214
yeputons wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any example of a removed person with .ru email who lives and works in the US? I saw some comments on Reddit about people with @gmail.com (I think), but other comments pointed out that these people were not actually removed and were just present on a screenshot.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aospan

That's a good example. Thank you.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#218

Post by protomolecule »

scoofy wrote: post #180
v1ne wrote: post #142

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…

Open source means put up or shut up. If you don’t like the institutions, then build it yourself. You can’t cry foul when the group is literally providing you with free software. Open source institutions don’t own anyone anything beyond open software.

>the group is literally providing you with free software

It's not their software. Linux kernel is written by thousands of people from all around the world.

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#219

Post by protomolecule »

type0 wrote: post #72
snvzz wrote: post #69

Not a good idea for Linux to get involved in geopolitical drama. Any self-respecting maintainer will not come back after this. Linux might have a lot of developers, but has a hard time finding and retaining maintainers. This is not a good development.

It's not a geopolitical drama or melodrama, Linux Foundation needs to follow the laws of US where it's located. It's the same as any other American company

[flagged]

Re: Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

#220

Post by protomolecule »

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.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN