As a finn, I understand that there are probably legal reasons for doing this.
I just wish they would be transparent and share those reasons with us. The Linux kernel is certainly not the only free software project that is impacted, if this comes straight from EU/US sanctions. Maintainers of other projects have a lot of interest in what is happening.
Transparency is also important because if EU/US policy/sanctions are causing issues for free software projects, then that discussion needs to be public, so that there is a chance to amend the policies if necessary.
Politics should not be on FOSS development.
The F in FOSS stands for politics
That is hardcore wishful thinking, the nature by which critical digital infrastructure is developed and maintained is of keen importance to political systems everywhere. This situation was inevitable with the ongoing escalation of war
That’s why the “should be” I guess, though that’s not to say there aren’t idiots (right in this thread too) actually shilling for this.
If current open source licenses still have flaws like this, we’re gonna need new ones.
It has to be there, because politics is connected with lawmaking, and open source software is dependent on laws.
A lot of people like to say that politics isn’t in their life or that they keep politics out of their life, but the reality is that’s just not true. The rules that govern society affect you, always, either with or without your input, either with or without your acknowledgment.
You’re probably trying to say that we should keep pointless politicking out of open source software, and I agree, but that’s going to come down to personal definitions of pointlessness.
The legal reasons was because the Linux Foundation is based in the USA and the targeted devs worked for companies explicitly sanctioned by the USA. Linus said he knew and trusted the devs he was forced to delist.
The Linux Foundation needs to relocate to some stable neutral country like Switzerland.
Switzerland is controlled by the US
Suggest a country then
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."
Peska perkele right up your asses, Russian trolls.
???
We couped Ukraine in 2014 and their CIA, the SBU is committing acts of terrorism against Russia on at least a bi-weekly basis. Also, they’ve killed and continue to kill tens of thousands of civilians in the independent republics, for some reason.The idea that Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason is absolutely brain dead
How’s that Kool aid taste? You’re not even worth debating, it’s clear you’re a lost cause. Keep believing this, and let the rage build inside you.
remindme! 20 years, when mainstream media finally admits it because it doesn’t matter anymore.
Oh wait, they already admitted it.
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- NYT, 2024: U.N. Court to Rule on Whether Ukraine Committed Genocide
Reason: Russian bot
Reason: bot
The only bots here are the alt accounts downvoting coolusername.
- IT Pro: Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective, [UK Information Commissioner’s Office] claims
- Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia
- Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets
- Washington Post: FEC fines DNC, Clinton for violating rules in funding Steele dossier
- Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters
- Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election
- Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork
- Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
- MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes
- Jeff Gerth at Columbia Journalism Review on Russiagate: Editor’s Note | Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four
- Matt Taibbi: WMD, Part II: CIA “Cooked The Intelligence” To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016
- Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away
they’ve killed and continue to kill tens of thousands of civilians in the independent republics
Even if I assume the truth of that statement, do you not care about the deaths of Ukrainian civilians?
We couped Ukraine in 2014
My understanding is that Ukraine’s parliament (Rada) removed Yanukovych from his position as president. That seems fair to me. Many countries, including the US, have legal processes for removing their leaders.
the comments on the article started off pretty good but pretty quickly devolved into a cancerous combination of NAFO and Hasbara.
Shit like this is why I use the most generic yankee cowboy aliases online.
Hm i never coded a line in my life, but i always wondered so honest question to the experts here: is it realistic that someone codes security back doors so hidden in other bad or wrong documented code, that nobody recognizes it in OSS community? I mean code is getting more complicated and specialized, dont you need more and more human resources (more than one person and hopefully not all with a bad intention) to check over that code? If im correct you shouldnt let more code into your software than the community is able to check an validate several times… Doesnt mean it has to be russians that need to be excluded idk
Yes, not only is it realistic, it has actually happened. It’s easier to write code than understand it. Even when reviewing code, you miss more or less obvious issues. Not to mention intentional vulnerabilities that can be sneaked in over multiple commits and time span long enough to make reviewers forget the larger context.
Interesting answers, thanks!
This might not be super useful if you don’t write code but I always found the contest submissions fun to read and try to figure out for the https://www.underhanded-c.org/ contest.
They break down and explain the runner up and finalist for each year and how the attack works. It’s usually something very subtle that most people wouldn’t catch.
There will be a million security issues across all OSS. Some of it will be intentional; if so definitely don’t expect it to be a “findable” back door. It will be a set of vulnerabilities across several projects, that when combined allow the perpetrators privilege-escalations or a known path through a security system. Removing “Russians” from contribution doesn’t actually stop that, everyone can use a VPN and work as an American or whatever, but it does send a signal.
Some old folk are reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States
Ah, the Crypto Wars…
Lolz. Please… continue. Don’t leave us all in the lurch to explain your crazy ideas to yourself. Share with the group!
No, you’re linking to a conspiracy theory in Wikipedia.
What? No: I am a graybeard, and I lived through those software embargoes.
sir this is a public fora, people speak as they wish?
better reasoning comment up:
https://thebrainbin.org/m/linux@lemmy.ml/t/348217/Phoronix-Linus-Torvalds-Comments-On-The-Russian-Linux-Maintainers-Being/comment/3467412#entry-comment-3467412
The security issue is very likely scenario. If you’re in Russia, you can go to jail at any moment on totally bogus charges. It is very easy for FSB to pressure some random kernel maintainer into adding hard to detect backdoor into their code, it will be XZ situation all over again.
This actually makes common sense.
Freeze peach doesn’t mean you can call people "fag"s. By using that word you’re 1. insulting those who express their gender as they wish 2. calling us names
Also, my point is that there is precedent for laws to geopolitcally restrict open source. I agree that there is a real security issue.
I’m a soy boy
sir this is a public fora, people speak as they wish?
As you know, they do not.
Oh, did I get whooshed by a meme? :(
so are we okay with banning development time donated to foss because of nationality?
are these people found to support heinous shit or is this just wartime shenanigans?
Dude is Finnish, from his own mouth, it’s just normal racism against an aggressive imperial, like how people hate the us
Edit: like how people from lemmy.ml hate Americans, if that wasn’t clear
finland has pretty bad climate-change-exploitation-fucking-over-the-third-world dealings in my country, despite enforcing seemingly very good stuff inside their own borders so meh, id argue they aint close to the victims they make out to be. some would argue that as a consequence for having a strong socialist influence.
i have mixed feelings about them as a country, but i recognize there are plenty of good (and even well known good) people on there because of the aforementioned good stuff, linus included. for different but not that dissimilar reasons i think contemporary russian citizens should not be blanket banned from helping everyone out.
finland has pretty bad, climate-change-exploitation-fucking-over-the-third-world dealings in my country
Which country is that, and what dealings?
brazil, and they do some shady stuff in the amazon. mainly fuck you extrativism.
Can you find any links where one can read about this?
If Finland is wasting tax payer money to something shady, it should be brought to the local media.
heres one i found with a quick google.
this one is about southeast/northeast brazil, but the finnish are involved in aggressive extractivism in northwest brazil (amazon rainforest) too, and i think its even worse over there. you will dig up pretty horrible things if you do some research on it. about most of the western 1st world countries tbh.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Karelian_concentration_camps
As if Finish people had any moral ground here
Sure nice of Russia to look after only the breeding stock. Seems some things never change.
yeah i aint putting my ass on the line for that country, thats for sure.
It’s “for any county” to me. Nationalism is a cancer
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Lemmy was built by communists. you would be better served by going back to Reddit.
are the tankies in the room with us right now
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Banning Israeli contributers too?
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It’s not about punishing Russia, is admit preventing vulnerability to a country that has an ongoing effort to compromise infosec.
Not at all saying Israel doesn’t suck balls right now.
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They would never!
ALL of them? Not at once. Usually.
The west is sanctioning Russia because their daddy US tells them to. Similarly they don’t sanction Israel because of daddy.
Unironically I would support it
I would never. The idea that any person should be disbarred from contributing to FOSS due to the actions of their government, is incredibly exclusionary. Linus is acting as much like a toddler as daddy USA is.
The funny thing is the Baltoids actually believe this will be good for Linux. They genuinely have no idea what they have done.
Everyone who disagrees with me is a paid russian troll of course. Nobody would oppose blacklisting people based on nothing but their nationality unless they were getting paid for it.
That’s true, as he said just use your brain, Russia is under sanctions he literally said that, so Russian troll is a actually very accuracy
“The imperial core is sanctioning Russia therefore you are a Russian troll.” Impeccable logic.
I guess it’s difficult to otherwise explain the position you have? It’s not like people face criminal charges in Russia just for speaking against it. It’s easy to see how the state would want to introduce backdoors to most western systems.
It’s extremely sad that a lot of good Russians get swooped in this. But even abroad their lives are in danger to fight the state.
I think you’re making up a world in your head. Who are these “lots” of “good” Russians who are abroad and whose lives are in realistically danger of state assassination? Not that it has never happened, but you’re blowing things out of proportion. Probably Russia does it at a scale roughly similar to the US.
Very nice link that not only does not have a list of names but also fairly explicitly explains that it is not talking about Americans killing Americans.
I am not going to spend more than 30 seconds on it but here is the first list of “lots” of Russians that are believed to have been assassinated by their own government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_in_2022–2024
Despite your personal attacks, the trivially discoverable facts are not on your side.
I used Wikipedia since you apparently find it credible.
My favourite “suicide” of a notable Russian in the last couple of years was the one that had a suicide note signed by “illegible signature” ( what it actually said ). I guess the FSB did not totally understand the instructions.
Indeed A LOT of falling out of windows. Quite a bit of poisoning as well. These are the successful ones. How about that time they poisoned the entire Ukrainian peace team including the owner of the Chelsea Football Club?
I think you’re making up a world in your head.
My friend, they poisoned people in the UK with a fucking nerve agent. They are so brazen and open about people being killed for not doing that the Kremlin tells them.
They have purposely made a meme out of the “suspiciously fell from window” thing, because they want people to know exactly what happens and why.
Nerve agents compared to drone strikes look humane and civilized.
Disagree. Chemical warfare is an entirely different beast.
We’re talking about poisoning a single person not a gas cloud. Poisoning a single person vs drone striking a wedding.
they poisoned people in the UK with a fucking nerve agent.
Yes, they did. How often is that happening? Proportion.
We’re not talking about taking out former spies in foreign, sovereign nations you dolt. I used that as an example to show just how brazen and open they are about this stuff. Using such a dangerous method, on foreign soil, is basically unheard of.
If you actually want to talk about frequency, we should be looking at the defenestration cases…
This shit is happening so frequently that there are several wiki pages dedicated to listing them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_in_2022
Scroll down to “see also” for a long list of related articles about the Russian government assassinating citizens and low-level bureaucrats.
Assuming you actually give a shit
EDIT: apparently Lemmy markdown doesn’t like the link. For anyone who can’t figure out why it’s not working, or for some weird reason thinks I would make up a wiki page with a title that specific:
Suspicious deaths of notable Russians in 2022–2024
And, again, after checking out the main article, take a look at the “see also” section.
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.
In any case, the defenestrations I’ve heard of have been within Russia, not outside it.
Using such a dangerous method, on foreign soil, is basically unheard of.
Not unheard of. US drone strikes on US citizens is a no-less dangerous a method.
It’s almost as if the markdown on Lemmy changed the text of the link so it’s not valid.
And you couldn’t take the 3 second to fix it, and then actually learn something.
Well done.
You also seem confused about what we are even talking about. We are referring to software developers WITHIN RUSSIA. So the risk of defenestration is very real. Again, to repeat myself, I only brought up Russia using chemical warfare on foreign soil as an example to show how open and brazen they are.
I edited the original comment with a fixed link if you actually care
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Aren’t the removed commiters with direct access to the kernel? It’s not like it’s some rando that makes pull requests.
We’re gonna start seeing large open source communities start to break into smaller ones because of sanctions from now aren’t we?
They’ll fight over fonts meanwhile WordPress is on fire and where are the forks?
Or a name
This sets such a bad precedent…
Arguably, ITAR set the precedent in the 1990’s during the crypto wars. USians used to have to travel to Canada to work on cryptographic code in OpenBSD because their commits couldn’t legally be exported.
The bad precedent was starting a war
Yeah I’m sure the maintainers are in talks with Putin directly
Maybe not Putin personally, but it’s an autocracy. If/when the Russian government comes knocking on their door and tells them that they need to do x, y, and z with the kernel, otherwise they will mysteriously fall from a high window (an extremely credible threat these days), what do you think they’ll do? What do you think you would do?
Sucks for the majority of Russian developers that want to participate in the FOSS community, but I get it. It is a national security issue.
This is kind of how sanctions are meant to work. We could have a discussion about whether or not sanctions should be used as it is sort of a form of collective punishment, but that’s a separate argument.
They want regular Russians to “feel it,” so that there is more pressure from the populace to get them to stop doing the shit they were sanctioned over. Obviously, in an autocracy, it’s much easier to just ignore and suppress dissent. But, generally, the idea is to make everybody feel the consequences for invading a sovereign nation.
If/when the Russian government comes knocking on their door and tells them that they need to do x, y, and z with the kernel
CIA could do that too.
Ah yes. The Finnish CIA.
They have one?
Any moderator want to actually let me know why my comment was removed, or…?
Is pointing out the dangers of working in an autocratic nation against the rules?
I can see the comment dude.
This article gives a good discussion about a potential coming East/West political split in the world of FOSS.
https://thenewstack.io/avoiding-a-geopolitical-open-source-apocalypse/
One of the worst news I’ve read lately.
Why aren’t Israeli maintainers removed? Oh because linux is basically owned by IBM now.
The linux kernel isn’t free anymore. It’s open source, but not free.
Based Linus as always
