If this was purely because of sanctions, this could have been handled much more gracefully. But it's clear from Linus' comments that he just doesn't respect these volunteers because they happen to be from a particular country.
> I'm Finnish. ... Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
If we're suddenly taking history as a criterion, half of the world should ban British developers from touching their projects in any way, for their repeated aggressions and ruinous colonialism. This sort of behaviour is slowly building a soft Great Firewall around the West, and making it seem like China had the right idea all along.
Russia invaded it’s neighbor. These sanctions are one of the consequences.
It sucks for the good-faith programmers in Russia but what would you have the rest of the world do? The Russian state must be sanctioned for its blatant disregard for international norms.
Please don’t just respond with whataboutism. The whataboutism in these threads involves different people in different times. This is happening now.
The problem with this discourse is that what you said is hardly relevant. We have a clear understanding of what is considered moral and ethical behavior and what's not. The subject matter may as well be discrimination as no valid legal reason was given for action taken against a group of people otherwise. To say that a group of people is valid to discriminate against because reasons is also discriminatory in itself. If one wants to claim moral superiority, they have to abide by what is moral, otherwise that would make them a hypocrite. To discriminate against someone who did nothing wrong for you, and in fact was working for your cause, and to do that due to the fact that you can do nothing else for a good cause is both hypocritical and petty.
> The subject matter may as well be discrimination as no valid legal reason was given for action taken against a group of people otherwise.
All decisions are discrimination, and discrimination in general is fine. There are narrow, specific kinds of discrimination that are suspect and need additional justification. OTOH, a perfectly valid reason was offered: legal advice based on international sanctions imposed on Russian entities in response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Now, certainly, there was not public information sufficient to assess the correctness of that decision, and I would not prejudge any claim from any party adversely impacted that chose to challenge it.
But I’d also note that where there is not a contractual relationship or some other binding commitment to way against the potential consequences of sanctions violations, legal advice will likely be “better safe than sorry” in that it is better to cut off relations where there is no commitment more broadly than sanctions might require rather than to err on the other side, too. Acting in such advice mag still be a reasonable and prudent decision.
The legal reasons is the sanctions against Russia for their illegal war of aggression. All of Russia and all who live within its borders are responsible for these actions.
There is something beautiful about how U.S. news outlets were always going on about how Russia is a dictatorship, with rigged elections, where you'll be beaten, arrested or killed for protesting or speaking out--Russians supposedly have no agency. And yet simultaneously, now, Russians apparently must be held accountable for everything their government ever does, because they "voted him in" or "should overthrow Putin".
We can't have it both ways. Either Russia is a functioning democracy (which I don't personally believe exists anywhere but that is another topic), or perhaps the average person does not actually have very much say in such events.
Sanctions are meant to harm innocent people as much as possible, on purpose, with the idea being that it will cause so much unrest that the government either caves to the pressure or the people revolt. While I find that very sick in and of itself, I would at least appreciate it if we were honest about that rather than making contradictory moral statements.
That said, worse yet, almost hilariously, I cannot think of a single time sanctions have ever truly worked in a situation even remotely similar to that of Russia. Just think about countries like North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc -- like it or not, these countries have not toppled as a result of the sanctions. Do they hurt? Yes, of course, but they evidently do not destroy nations the way we believed they would.
Instead, the innocent are hurt, as was the intention, yet the goal never gets achieved. North Korea still has nuclear weapons, and all we've done is force Iran to develop its own industry, such that, ironically, it is now capable of sending weapons to aid Russia.
They have had a century to institute actual democracy. If 70% supported deposing Putin instead of the war it would be difficult for him to retain power or he would have to change tack to retain control and keep his skin intact.
We didn't think of the poor Germans when we burned them alive as part of the effort to stop the Nazis and few argue that the Germans aren't collectively complicit save only for those who actively resisted.
I'm fully willing to hold blameless those who burned weapons and recruitment centers, spoke out publicly against the war within or after fleeing Russia, shot their commander, or surrendered to avoid an unjust fight.
I'm aware those are all extremely risky. I know exactly why someone would want to keep their heads down and I none the less blame them no less than I blame all the good Nazis who didn't believe in the ideology but kept their heads down while Jews burned in ovens and their neighbors rotted in battlefields and economic consequences are the least of what is just and fair.
A million people are dead including many of their own they are complicit.
People who will suffer economically under sanctions or in this case from exclusion but who if the war isn't stopped may suffer explosive dismemberment or see their kids come home in a box.
You can't invoke "international norms" and then in the very next paragraph "but no talking about precedent, that would be whataboutism".
Norms are established through precedents. There are considerable precedents in the 21st century that military invasions DO NOT lead to international sanctions. So this isn't a valid argument, and it's true that that decision was emotional and politically motivated.
It’s a perfectly valid argument. All invasions are generally bad, some worse than others. And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.
The idea that you turn a conversation about fairness for victims into a conversation about fairness for bullies means you don’t actually care about victims.
If you want perfect fairness for bullies, not victims, then you don’t actually care about victims at all.
This whataboutism is a circular argument where any brazen invasion can be justified by some previous perceived slight. Because someone somewhere got away with something, now anything is permissible.
There has never been an "unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia". More than 130K people were killed and 4 million displaced (mainly by Serb troops) and people begged for an intervention, which came to late (think about Sarajevo, Srebrenica).
What they actually see is a despondent and divided West with no stomach for a fight, ripe to gleefully exploit open values and norms for their own gain.
It's clear from the last decade or so that there is much to gain from portraying oneself as a victim, to appeal to supposed liberal values, all to mask what is really a commitment to naked Realism and
Tribalism, the true principle that consistently binds the "global south" together. They do not care for colonialism, oppression or "bullying", it's only wrong that it should happen to them. Otherwise they're quite glad to brutally suppress their own internal separatist movements or opposition. That is what the "average" person thinks.
You can convince a few useful idiots in universities to act against their own interests, but people elsewhere aren't stupid to see what one's intentions really are.
Don't you think there's a chance that that narrative of "murderous autocrats" was manufactured post hoc to rationalize NATO's aggression?
Otherwise it's a mighty coincidence that the West only "intervenes" in places that are simultaneously relevant to Western geopolitical-economic interests and just happen to have a "murderous autocrat" begging to be toppled.
So convenient that the bloc which dominates the global media landscape is always narratively-justified in its murder campaigns. Nothing fishy there!
> they see a complicated proxy war where the bigger bully is forcing an institutionally-weak nation to degrade or destroy an enemy state
This is so, so ridiculous take of the war that I refuse to believe there are any significant number of people outside of Russia believing this. NATO/US is forcing Russia to destroy Ukraine, really now? They really are forced to wage an expansionist, genocidal war against a small neighbour?
This is arguing that we have not sanctioned murderous evil actions in the past therefore we must not do so now or ever after. It's a pretty bad argument.
When the word "whataboutism" is used, you know it's the one rejection of a valid argument or analogy that helps clarify the argument. The ones that can't deal with that coined the therm "whataboutism".
Israel has invaded its neighbour. U.S. invaded lots of nations and still bombs multiple nations continually. But no consequences for the same. Whataboutism is necessary since the NATO/Western block juggernaut always raps others on the knuckles but always gets away scot-free when it concerns their own military actions. The sanctimonious hypocrisy is utterly sickening to those in the East and South.
Russia is an Empire of Evil and Murder. Even Russian rulers hold their own people in contempt and have no use for them except as slaves. 800 years of their history proves it.
I know this will get flagged and I'll get called a Russian despite being an American from flyover country: Yes, one definitely can tenably make that argument.
The Monroe Doctrine, ironically, was precipitated by negotiations with Russia[1] and is almost identical in its aims for the Western Hemisphere as Putin's nominal arguments against NATO expansion eastward, namely the assertion that the Western Hemisphere was closed to European colonization and settlement.
Is this Putin talking about NATO expansion? 'Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.' No, it's Dwight Eisenhower talking about communism in Indochina in 1954. The maxims "Principiis obsta" and "Finem respice" apply universally.
The Monroe Doctrine and Domino Theory were both framed as defensive policies that were then used for protectionist and geopolitical justifications for foreign wars of aggression against neighbors and neutral independent countries. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya didn't even have the protection of these broader geopolitical aims, just naked warmongering and profiteering (Osama Bin Laden was Saudi).
The necessity for narratives of moral exceptionalism to maintain a permanently jingoist state is to be expected, but it'd be healthier for the intelligentsia to privately admit that fact rather than hiding behind moral exceptionalism even in their personal lives. The West wants to permanently de-fang and colonize Russia for obvious reasons--geopoltical hegemony and market intrusion. These reasons create a perennial playbook everyone else has played by for thousands of years. And I'm sure when NATO does inevitably fail to a novel power, the remnants will play by the same rules Monroe and Putin played by, sed Carthago delenda est.[3]
Russia's nuclear arsenal made and makes the idea of conquering Russia by force absolutely impossible to contemplate. The US and others pursued the objectives of military strength, normalized relations with Russia, and decreasing its influence with its neighbors and proxies.
The goals are obvious, open, and benign. Everyone wants a Russia that is stable, economically entwined with limited influence on their neighbors beyond economic ties. No tendrils of malevolent influence or proxies.
The only way this devolves into actual force is Russia making war on its neighbors which gives others permission and reason to wage proxy war with Russia and reason to cut its economic ties.
Only Russia could possibly have destabilized this situation. Only Russia could have been stupid enough to believe this would be a profitable adventure and only Russia can solve this by fucking off to their own country after which they can negotiate a return to stability.
Once this misadventure is over once again nobody will invade Russia because nobody wants to initiate nuclear Armageddon. The only real risk to this return to stability is again Russia. It's possible that should it continue long enough its impoverishment, diminishment of internal perception of strength and military power, and anger at at the regime responsible for sending so many Russians to die should cause internal splintering.
If you want to talk about "Domino theory" let us imagine a three foot tall domino surrounded by normal size dominos with Putin standing next to it kicking the giant domino for no reason. Russia was always safe from everyone but Russia.
Your argument that Russia is solely responsible for destabilizing the region mirrors a familiar rhetorical pattern seen throughout history, where weaker powers are trapped in a Kafka trap[1]. Any resistance or reaction by the weaker side justifies further aggression from the stronger power, leading to their gradual erosion and disappearance through salami slicing tactics[2]. Whether through territorial encroachment or strategic isolation, the larger power frames its actions as purely defensive while the weaker party’s responses are cast as irrational or self-destructive.
For historical examples, you can look at Carthage under the Romans prior to the Third Punic War, the Saxons under the Normans after Hastings, or the Native Americans under the United States. There are others.
For contemporary examples, you can look at the Palestinians under the Israelis (or the Israelis not-quite-under the Arab world) or even the Ukrainians themselves under the Russians!
In each of these struggles, the dominant hegemon and its allies want a dominated rival that is "stable, economically entwined with limited influence on their neighbors beyond economic ties. No tendrils of malevolent influence or proxies." Which is to say, totally compliant with their controller and inert as a geopolitical force as they are salami sliced at will.
Russia's response to NATO's expansion is a contemporary example of this. Much like other weaker states in history facing incremental encroachment, Russia is blamed for destabilizing the region, while the more powerful actors continue policies that provoke and escalate the situation. The expectation that the weaker side alone should de-escalate or withdraw ignores the external pressures that limit their autonomy and drive their actions.
These narratives are almost always self-serving
and oversimplify the situation by placing full responsibility on the weaker party, masking the larger power dynamics at play. Throughout history, dominant states have used this framing to justify the gradual weakening and containment of their adversaries, presenting their own expansionist or aggressive strategies as benign or defensive while shifting the blame onto those they are dismantling.
All I'm saying is these narratives of "I'm purely defensively containing you so I can eliminate you" are ubiquitous throughout history, but the best of those in the dominant position still understood that it was an ignoble lie even as they struggled against and were dragged along by them. The world would likely be healthier if we emulated them rather than those that always claim that their enemies are historically unlrecedented and uniquely Very Bad Persons[3].
This is a very US centric take. NATO isn't expanding to increase US power over Russia. Independent, self-determined countries seek to join NATO to bolster their defense against the local aggressive neighbour. This should be very clear when you consider how NATO has expanded: not by US invitation to join them, but rather by Russian neighbours seeking an alliance to finally rid themselves of the threat.
> Russia's response to NATO's expansion is a contemporary example of this
So this is what you got backwards. Just consider latest members, Finland and Sweden. Neither had any immediate plans to join before the war, but the bitter truth is that no neighbour of Russia is safe without an alliance providing a decisive military superiority.
>not by US invitation to join them, but rather by Russian neighbours seeking an alliance to finally rid themselves of the threat.
How would one differentiate between "Russian neighbours seeking an alliance" and "Russian neighbours seeking an alliance because they were promised something in return"?
And even in this case: why would Russia care about the reasons? From russian point of view there was a promise: NATO won't grow any further east. The promise was broken.
Had NATO refused adding new members to its ranks - there would be no problem.
I agree it is a US-centric take, but I disagree that the expansion of NATO is not principally about expanding American power.
John Bolton, in 1994, said about the UN:
“There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along.'[1]
I think you could replace the UN with NATO and wouldn't lose much nuance. John Bolton, like Victoria Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan, have been determining foreign policy in American administrations for the last thirty years, from the collapse of the USSR to its resurgence as Putin's revanchist state. The published attitudes of Nuland, Kagan, and Bolton (not including hot mic moments like Nuland's "fuck the EU" tape) towards the EU, the UN, and NATO are almost, if not categorically hostile when it comes at the expense of American hegemony. It's also why the ICC has no real power in the West.
As far as Sweden and Finland go, yes, their flight into NATO's arms was catalyzed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, yes, but this is also perfectly suited to the longterm geopolitical aims of the United States, whether it happened immediately, as it did, or if they were included in a future wave of NATO members. That's the nature of salami slicing tactics. You don't need to move fast, as your opponent doesn't have the capacity to ever stop you.
>Neither had any immediate plans to join before the war, but the bitter truth is that no neighbour of Russia is safe without an alliance providing a decisive military superiority.
I agree entirely! That bitter truth has been known to conservatives in the United States since 1945 and has been routinely mocked by unaligned Europeans and urbane liberals in the United States for decades, culminating in the peak irony in 2012 of Barack Obama making fun of Mitt Romney's claim that Russia was the biggest geopolitical threat to America's interest.[2]
All right, I don't dispute that a larger NATO is in US geopolitical interests. I just disagree with the framing that NATO is expanding vs. countries independently seeking to join.
It may sound like a minor difference, but that plays to the Russian narrative of US violating their sphere of influence. In this imperialistic worldview smaller countries have no agency and are just pawns of larger powers. This is at the core of the current war too -- Russia desperately trying to prevent Ukraine from following the path of westward alignment that it has independently chosen.
The fact that you need to dial back to 1823 to make some kind of moral equivalence argument between the two powers should be telling you something. And then we have this:
The West wants to permanently de-fang and colonize Russia for obvious reasons -- geopolitical hegemony and market intrusion.
Which in your view is the basic reason we have the war in Ukraine right now, is what I'm hearing.
"The US did something bad, therefore if Russia also does something bad (even if not really comparable) then it's just the fundamental realities of IR, and in fact the US basically made them do it" is how your thesis currently reads.
This is more of a you problem than a me problem. Perhaps you should try not to reduce arguments to less than 200 characters, but I suspect it's uncontrollable due to longterm Twitter usage given your particular patois.
As long as I am summarizing your thesis accurately, I see no problem at all.
As it happens, I haven't intentionally read anything on Twitter for well over a decade. But if it is helpful for you to simply assume that, should anyone care to question your deep, penetrating analysis of recent human history and its impact on current events today; and even worse, fail to appreciate your enthusiasm for run-on paragraphs full of ungrounded abstractions and broken analogies, peppered with fancy latin idioms (for style I guess); and all in the service of watering down, and therewith attempting to "explain" actual, real and incredibly blatant neocolonial aggression happening today -- why gosh, it must be because they're an analphabetic, Twitter-addled idiot, that's all -- then I suppose that this is a "valid" strategy for you.
>[...] peppered with fancy latin idioms (for style I guess) [...]
I honestly don't think you understand the thesis or have the historical understanding to do so. This accusation of using Latin for rhetorical purposes is an admission of this. You could've asked yourself "Do I understand the significance of Carthago delenda est in this context? Could I ask for clarification?" No, you just made a sophistic jibe, twice.
There's no substance to the rest of your rant, so I'll kindly request for you to read and use Paul Graham's How to Disagree[1].
You could've asked yourself "Do I understand the significance of Carthago delenda est in this context? Could I ask for clarification?"
And if you prefer to believe that if people don't buy into your hand-wavy, faux-erudite arguments, then it must be because they're simply too dumb to understand the intended import of Carthago delenda est -- then that may provide you with an additional layer of comfort.
I honestly don't think you understand the thesis or have the historical understanding to do so.
The precious irony here is that this very sentence is an overt instance of the second class on Paul's list of argument styles to avoid, in the very article you cite (and attempt to chide others for not having read) -- the venerable ad hominem attack. (The other sentence quoted above was essentially a variant of this attack, if in a slightly roundabout fashion).
>I understand that historical references can definitely add depth to a conversation, but if they aren’t framed well or contextualized, they come off as pretentious. I don't think you did a good job contextualizing your references, so it comes off to me as pseudo-intellectual and apologetic for the Russians. Comparing an active warzone to historical trivia also seems inappropriate for reasons I don't quite understand. I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, can you clarify what you meant by Carthago delenda est?
Sure, I'd be happy to clarify! In the ancient Mediterranean, Rome and Carthage were the two dominant powers. The phrase Carthago delenda est, meaning "Carthage must be destroyed," was used by Roman statesman Cato the Elder to stress the need for Carthage’s complete elimination in the leadup to the Third (and final) Punic War, even though Carthage wasn’t an active threat at that point. Rome imposed strict limits on Carthage’s military actions, and despite Carthage adhering to these treaties, Rome still found a pretext to accuse them of aggression after a conflict with a neighboring kingdom. Ultimately, Rome used this as justification to invade, destroy the city, and remove Carthage as a competitor entirely.
In invoking this reference, I’m suggesting that geopolitical dynamics often follow a similar logic—where powerful nations might frame another power as a threat, even if that threat is not imminent, in order to justify aggressive actions. I’m not apologizing for Russian actions, but pointing out that the motivations behind international conflicts often follow the same patterns throughout history: framing one power as an existential threat to justify intervention or destruction, whether or not the threat is real.
When we start framing the people of entire nations as irredeemable enemies even in our own private thoughts, it becomes easier to rationalize extreme actions that we would otherwise question (such as flippantly fracturing the global FOSS community). My point isn’t to excuse Russia’s actions but to highlight how these narratives can be manipulated, often leading to outcomes that are far more destructive than if people kept things in perspective.
Cute, except you're both deflecting and hallucinating of course, as no one ever had an issue with that catchphrase you keep dropping, or its import. The issue here was and still is this bizarre axiom - your famous 17 words:
The West wants to permanently de-fang and colonize Russia for obvious reasons -- geopolitical hegemony and market intrusion.
That you've chosen to adopt, and on the basis of sweet, pure faith it seems.
I think we have to look at the intentions of NATO. Has it ever been to take over and enslave another nation like Putin’s? I’m not talking about colonial Europe or America, I’m talking about the last 70-80 years, roughly the average lifetime of a human. Now look at the history of Russia in that time frame, aggression after aggression, belligerence the whole time with its neighbors.
You missed the point, he didn't mention history in general, but specifically "Finnish history".
In this respect it's not about British colonialism but more about about Russian imperialism / Stalinism (see Russo-Finnish war 1939).
Did he just now realized that history? For over 30 years accepting contributions from the "enemy"? Then when the history is employed, how about he as a Finn bans also Swedish contributors?
The correlation of the historical anti-Finnish aggression with present aggression and direct new threats against Finland is fairly recent, and Linus isn't pointing to his awareness of the historical and present national context as a reason for the action but as a recent why it is silly to expect him to be lax about the legal advice that is the reason for the actions.
Did you just realized that Torvald is not racist or anti-russian at all?
He didn't block any russian maintainers until today (more than 2 years after russia turning genocidal imperial again).
Linus is acting based on his country's historical grievances, it only makes sense that other projects make decisions based on their own maintainers' grievances - if we approve of this as a good way of making decisions in open source. That's my point.
And even with Linux, it's not Linus' personal project anymore, hasn't been for decades - it's a global project with developers from many countries with their own views and biases. Being BDFL doesn't mean that your geopolitical agenda becomes the whole project's. Or at least, it wasn't so blatantly put on display previously that that was the case.
A high profile project like Linux doing this will have long term repercussions for how open source operates globally.
That's quite a misrepresentation of his statements.
"I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression..." is certainly not about grievance. As a matter of fact, the russian aggression is real and not about finish historical grievances.
Open source is fostering collaborative environments, while russia as a state is destroying them deliberately. How does that fit together?
The article is a snapshot of the discussion that's still happening on the mailing list.
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.
>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.
Oh boy, everyone who disagrees with me works for the Kremlin.
> Treasury, in consultation with the Department of State, has issued a new determination under Executive Order (E.O.) 14071, which prohibits the supply to any person in the Russian Federation of (1) IT consultancy and design services; and (2) IT support services and cloud-based services for enterprise management software and design and manufacturing software. The determination will take effect on September 12, 2024.
Alternatively we can continue like normal because not much of value will be lost. Git is inherently decentralized. If A requires work by C they can pull it directly or B can pull from C and A from B.
There is no inherent issue with C's contributions coming in by way of B especially if B vetted and examined said contributions personally.
Not a great answer since I was saying your claim specifically didn't apply to him, i.e. one person. Look at the logic of this conversation, a paraphrased version of the actual one we had:
---
Submission: Jack the firefighter says x
You: All people who say x must be crazy or being paid
Me: In this case Jack's claims likely have merit
You: So anyone that says x is paid? Where's my check?
Sigh. I didn't misunderstand anything, I specifically said in this particular instance his claims might be valid, in contrast to your outright dismissal of them.
What a frustrating and pointless discussion because you were so set on misunderstanding something so simple. No wonder your comments are getting flagged.
Russia spends hundreds of millions on propaganda (paid trolls), sabotage, and espionage. There is lot of cases for Article 4 of NATO already. It's better to say sorry than to risk millions of lives.
Yes, you could say that. Did you you miss the part where one country is invading another country in an actual armed conflict? Then a bunch of other people choose one side or the other. They call each other names and they posture and they try to influence support. They use whatever pressure they can.
Linus and his lawyers have clearly chosen one side. You seem to have chosen the other but want to appear as if you haven't for whatever reason.
There are bunch of countries invading others as of now including Russia, US and it's allies. Who do you choose?
If this was about war, he had 2 years to take action. If this was about law he should let everyone know.
This seems more like he is being compelled by government to do something while masking it as his own. Hence the lack of reasoning for his decisions or calling anyone who questions him as Russian actors.
Just to make things clear, Phoronix said they are being "delisted".
No, they have actually been banished, because if you're not a maintainer of some Linux kernel subsystem, Linus Torvalds stops accepting merge requests from you. You need to go through an actual maintainer first.
Communicating clearly that you cannot currently accept contributions from people potentially associated with problematic businesses is an understandable decision. Tone of voice stated following the removal of a list of names of people you used to work with not too long makes this sound like a petty statement if anything.
Say that is true, then to be consistent, why is the MSS (CN) and GRU (RU) not included? Are those countries not also trying to project power, and compromise every system possible?
Am I right to assume that they're not delisting all Russian Linux maintainers, just the ones with some connections to Russian Government?
If that is so, then this is comparable to booting people with nazi connections from western scientific projects in 1930s, i.e. perfectly fine and in fact the only reasonable thing to do.
Again, this is not being done because these people are russian. Claiming ethnicity-based oppression where none exists is a known russotroll dogwhistle, and I think the commenters on this forum should be sophisticated enough to understand that.
> Does being a russian means "some connections to Russian Government"? What is the specific criteria used in this case?
The specific criteria is legal advice received regarding sanctions regimes.
> Does punishment by a nationality means USA is nazi itself?
No, because (1) nationality alone isn't the basis of the action, (2) Linus has specifically noted that the compliance issues were not solely US law, (3) treated people differently based on their nation of nationality and residence (not your own citizens by national ancestry) is not, even approximately, sufficient to be described as “nazi”.
> What about that public hatred against a Russian nationality expressed by Torvalds? Is it OK to use a nazi hatred for decisions in USA?
Torvald’s expressed that it was irrational to expect him to backtrack and violate the rules on behalf of people connected to the Russian state while it is conducting aggression given the history involved, which is... well, beyond a stretch to call that a “nazi” attitude.
But nice job trolling on behalf of Russia and calling everything hostile to the interests of the Putin regime “nazi”.
1. Specific reason has not been disclosed. Why these people but not others.
2. If not USA law then what? What is the state selective criteria to honor their dictate? "Good" states are entitled to dictate, all others are ignored. Is this the way how LF works?
3. Torvalds said his decision is based on the past war where Finns were on the Hitler's side. Still so pathetic about that loss.
> Am I right to assume that they've not delisting all Russian Linux maintainers, just the ones with some connections to Russian Government?
AFAICT, it is ones employed by sanctioned entities (which presumably is because of those entities connections to the regime, but the direct impetus for the Linux action is compliance with the sanctions regime, not an assessment of regime connections by anyone involved with Linux.)
A complete betrayal of the spirit of open source and the Internet. It's sad that we are living in a world like this. People just pour hate and bias to others and disguise it with some high-sounding excuses. The bright future which envisioned by people in the 2000s will never come and we humanity will fxxk up eventually.
Part of this is not about how politics affects open source world. It's about lack of open discussion and transparency. Certainly it'd be wrong for linus to call the opponents "trolls" from Russia.
And if anyone thinks a Finn of all people would buy any BS or sad tears from their "annoying" neighbour (to put it mildly) you need to read up on some history
Of course in the end it sucks for a lot of people that has nothing to do with it.
His personal feelings aside, see this comment [0] for the possible legal impetus.
If this is in-fact applicable to Linux kernel dev, then this may occur in other projects as well.
> In that case that effectively makes Linux a NATO-adjacent project
I would argue that being forced to include some specific maintainer would make that possibly more true than being forced to exclude. Hmm, does that make sense to anyone else?
Additionally, if I understand the situation, the users who are being discussed can still contribute, just not as official maintainers?
Pro Useful Idiot: Most people in my country want this war
Con Useful Idiot: This person (foreign assassin or whatever) wanted to kill {insert politician}, shows that we need this war and eradicate the enemy.
There is a book, but I forgot the title, it's about White/Grey/Black Propaganda, it's quite old, but it's considered the basic book for propaganda in new media (at that time flyers/radio/newspapers).
Many people must realise that we are close to the ww3 and that russians really pay a lot to attack what ever is possible to attack. Linus just protect us all.
> If you haven't heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by "news", I don't mean Russian
state-sponsored spam.
> As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
Russia is the reason that Finland still has compulsory military service.
Finland is also the only European country bordering Russia (excluding Norway and its small border w Russia) to escape being a Soviet Socialist Republic after WW II. Sure, they allied with Nazi Germany to accomplish that, but they joined the allies against Germany eventually.
The Soviet Army occupied Poland in 1939, got pushed back by German attacks, re-entered and occupied Poland in 1944, and then Soviet Army kept presence in Poland until 1993.
Is this being done as a sanction against Russia or because it is feared that the Russian government would get some rogue developers to submit code to the kernel that enables attacks?
Individual Russian programmers are not responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, so I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
I was trying to find the reason of their removal in the email conversation, but I couldn't have done it. The only statement was provided was something like "the reasons are clear". But it's not clear whether they were removed because of their association with sanctioned companies or just because of their country.
> Individual Russian programmers are not responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, so I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
True, but individual Russian programmers are not free of Putin's influence, and could be compelled to do undesirable things.
The day after the invasion of Ukraine, my employer locked out all contractors we employed who resided in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. They got their access back once they relocated to a non-combatant country, which most of them did in short order. That probably also saved many of their lives, since it meant they escaped the draft.
> Treating employees like slaves, and boasting that you “help” their stupid asses is so charming. Oh my dear cork hat! Oh my dear plantation!
Are you, like, completely ignorant of what's going on in the world?
The day after the invasion one of them, totally unprompted, basically apologized on behalf of his country in our standup and said he opposed the war (they still had access to Office 365 throughout).
Ah! Finally the spies have been freed from Putin influence by being relocated to a safer country, no matter that if someone is truly as brainwashed as you say changing countries is pointless. Fucking hypocrisy
> Ah! Finally the spies have been freed from Putin influence by being relocated to a safer country, no matter that if someone is truly as brainwashed as you say changing countries is pointless. Fucking hypocrisy
WTF, man? I actually worked with a few of those folks. I don't think they were spies, but the policy was understandable, given the context. It dealt with risks that were practical to mitigate on such short notice when there was a lot of uncertainty, but didn't mitigate all risks. Nothing's perfect.
> I would be reluctant to punish them for Putin's crime and to deprive Linux of their contributions.
They can still contribute to Linux - being removed as a maintainer doesn't mean you can't fork Linux. If they have downstream changes they want to contribute to everyone upstream, there is nothing here preventing them from doing it the same way everyone else does.
As if a normal person would bother lol. If I was discriminated this way just because of my country of birth, I'd stop engaging with such an organization at all.
Most people working on the Linux kernel are being paid by their employers to do so. This creates roadblocks for those companies. The days of the kernel being developed by a majority of idealistic developers is long gone.
There are no words for such a stupid move. But it is consistent with the decline of Western "civilization". Volunteers in freedom projects are not passports.
Banning Russian users (IP blacklisting) is a pastime for anyone that ran any kind of service in the late 90s and early 2000s. This isn't as controversial as it's made out to be.
Open source communities are similar to communism in that they are practices of an ideal state (Utopia; Republic). It takes a philosopher king to rule behind the good. But it is hard to have a ruler with the qualities of a philosopher king.
There is a term for open source software: BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). At Wikepedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life ), Linus is included. But the virtue of being benevolent is too difficult to ensure and maintain.
That's a wrong conflation. Some successful open source communities and projects are set up with a BDFL, but not all or even many (see your own link). In fact, they are rather special, which is why they garner so much attention .
This shows that Linux is/ will become just as bad as Windows or some other proprietary software. Linus really needs to step down. Open Source exists so it can be available to everyone, regardless to anything let alone silly politics. Linus is clearly a very xenophobic man (evident by his posts) and has no place to decide anymore.
Just another reason not to use Linux. I've gone to bat so many times for Linus but time and time again he proves that Benevolent Dictators for Life on tech projects are a bad idea for modern times.
Sure, you’re paid trolls and I’m Finnish so Russians can fuck off in the first place is “explaining the issue ably to the public”.
However, this is less deranged than many of his frankly embarrassing public rants on other people’s code he didn’t like, I’ll give him that. Maybe that “ably” is relative.
Nearly 1 million Russians left Russia because they didn't want to end as ghouls in an imperial war, that's demonizing AND killing people because of their home nation.
I just put your "demonizing people because of their home nation" into perspective, dude. Staying in russia as a kernel maintainer and playing the political ignorant is just lost.
Is it irrational to not accept the work of individuals who work for sanctioned orgs, in a country which claims to have no borders, and threatens to attack the West with nuclear weapons every couple months?
> Sometimes you need a hit in the head to understand the reality.
You have made a lot of assumptions my friend. I personally have issues with all authoritarian countries, including the ones you mentioned.
> End the stage performance, please. We all know it's all about money and power.
You are ridiculously incorrect. For me, it is about freedom, democracy, and the right to continue breathing. I currently live a few hundred km from the war in Europe. Russian state media threatens to invade my country of residence every month or so.
Every time I go to the grocery store, I see Ukrainian refugee mothers and their children trying to survive. It is real here, not some theoretical far-away thing that my edgelord friends and I get to pontificate about online.
You're saying that everyone who has e-mail ending in “@yahoo.com” works at Yahoo. The rest of the post shows the same level of understanding of the world us.
Obviously you haven't thought that blocking participants for reasons you've mentioned should start with Linus Torvalds, currently a US citizen. Maybe later he can present some papers or something to guarantee that he's not involved...
Sure, just as soon as the EU sanctions the US or Israel.
Reread what he said- legal reasons (sanctions) caused a number of people to be removed from the MAINTAINERS list because they work for Russian companies that fall under sanctions.
Someone realized (or was reminded) of the sanctions, and they did their due diligence to remove them as required by Finnish and/or EU law.
This doesn't mean they can't submit code- just that they have to go through other maintainers and have their code audited, just like basically everyone else. It doesn't mean their code is removed, or that attribution is removed. It just means they can no longer act as maintainers.
As for Torvald's comment about aggression? Someone was asking him to break sanctions and restore these people to MAINTAINERS, and his response was basically "Why would I stick my neck out to try to take a stand against sanctions for a country whose policies and politics are abhorrent to myself and my country?"
As for why Linus doesn't want to engage? Why should he engage with new accounts coming out of the woodwork that aren't contributors, maintainers, or involved in Linux at all? He has better things to do, like work on Linux, especially since he just lost a large number of maintainers that reduce the load on him.
No sooner than he moves to Russia, I suppose. So while I am surprised, because I did have a higher opinion of him too, these are pointless questions. Pointing fingers won't help for sure.
> I'm Finnish. ... Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
If we're suddenly taking history as a criterion, half of the world should ban British developers from touching their projects in any way, for their repeated aggressions and ruinous colonialism. This sort of behaviour is slowly building a soft Great Firewall around the West, and making it seem like China had the right idea all along.