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Phoronix: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted
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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Nobody has stated any actual reason. Based on Linus' comments, Russophobia is the likely answer.
Phobia, by definition, is uncontrollable, irrational, and lasting fear for something. In the current geopolitics situation I'd say that it's not uncontrollable and very much not irrational. Fear, as a fellow Finn, might be a bit strong word, but it's a definetly a concern.
When I first read that I thought that the response is a bit harsh, as Russian (and Soviet Union) individuals have traditionally been a big part of open source community and their achievements on computing are pretty significant, but when you dig a bit deeper on that, a majority of Soviet era things are actually built by Ukrainians in Kyiv (obviously Ukraine as a country wasn't a thing back then).
Also, based on my very limited sight on the matter, Russians are not banned from contributing, but this is more of an statement that anyone working for the government in Russia can't be a part of kernel development team. There's of course legal reasons for that, very much including the trade bans against Russia, but also the moral part of it, which Linus seems to take a stand on.
Personally I've seen individuals at Russia to do quite amazing feats with both hardware and software, but as none of us are in a void without any external infcluence nor affect, I think that, while harsh, the "sanctions" (for a lack of better word) aren't overshooting anything, but they're instead leveling the playing field. Any Joe Anynymous could write a code which compromises the kernel as a whole, but should that Joe live in Russia, it might bring a government backed team which can hide their tracks on a quite a bit different level with their resources than any individual could ever even dream about.
So, while that decision might slow down some implementations and it might include some of the most capable of developers, the fear that one of them might corrupt the whole project isn't unreasonable and, with ongoing sanctions in place (and legal requirements that follow) the core dev team might not even have a choice on this.
In current global environment we're living in, I'd rather have a bit too careful management than one which doesn't take things seriously enough. We already have Canonical and others to break stuff way too often, we don't need malicious government to expand on that with nefarious purposes which could compromise a shit on of stuff on a very fundamental level if left unattended.
Russophobia is the fear or hatred of Russia or people from Russia. Etymology is not semantics, as anyone should already know.
This is simply false. Soviet contributions spanned a large array of ethnicitied and nationalities and Ukraine was a minority in their regard, as were all ethnicities and nationalities.
Though I don't see why your point would matter. Is Russophobia only bad if Russians have made enough contributions to your field of interest?
To my knowledge, nothing at all has been said about working for the Russian government or: this issue. It I'd a blanket exclusion of all Russians from the maintainer list.
Presumably you support much harsher sanctions against all Americans, Brits, Germans, French, and Israelis, then. Are you any of these things? Perhaps you should start advocating for sanctions on yourself.
That is in no way unique to Russia and we already have plenty of examples of US, Israeli, and other Western countries compromising systems and software. Do just a little bit of critical thinking.
I mean fuck Russia, but if these people aint regime whores for Putin I don't get the angle here...
If there is no security issue, this seems excessive.
Liberals love collective punishment and have been in a Russophobic bender for decades, with an uptick in recent years. They hate all Russians and repeat racist rhetoric from Ukrainian Nazis.
The ones that are, are.
Only love speech for Banderites, please.
lmao
He just applied Russians’ favorite soviet era saying “those who is not with us is against us”
Who did that? And that is a cartoonish an embarrassing thing for you to say I'd a soviet saying, let alone a popular one.