"Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.
It’s entirely clear why the change was done, it’s not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to “grass root” it by Russian troll factories isn’t going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts - the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.
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."
fuck yes. fuck russia. fuck russians.
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."
Man, it’s like you spend centuries brutalizing all your neighbors, if not outright conquering them and enforcing holocausts, and this is the thanks you get!
Putin:
Russian culture is so underappreciated 🥺
No, it is appreciated. Just not in the way you want it to be.
So, basically it’s enough to say “Fuck Russia, Fuck Russians” here and it gains you massive support.
Seriously?
First, how does this fuck Russia the state?
Second, what everyday Russians have to do with it? What justifies sneaking in hate messages to a diverse ethnic group with no single ideology?
Saying “Fuck Russians” is about the same as “Fuck Jews” because Israel has done bad things. This is not okay.
Russia has said they are going to do asymetrical warfare with the west. So why should we not prepare for what they claim they will do? Russians arent owed anything by us. Not a seat at the table, not a chance to contribute to open source software, not to be listened to. Not rights beyond their borders. It doesnt matter if they are nice. Its not our job and not realistic to expend time and resources to take each individual russian’s personal measure and apply sanctions onesey twosey on the bad ones. If they dont like it they should take it up with their motherland and get it sorted. I think we should immediately shut down all visas of any kind with Russia. The fact that the US is still allowing them to vacation here is absurd.
No one’s owed anything, but it’s in the collective interest to unite - without borders.
Russia is growing reliant on Linux, and it is heavily unlikely they’ll poison their own waters. Now Russian state and companies will just fork it for their needs, leaving mainline kernel worse off.
Russians are a diverse set of people, many of whom (especially relatively young IT crowd) are super not cool with what Russia is doing and have 0 intention to do anything murky in its interest.
And I’m growing tired of people imagining Russians can just come out on the street and end this for good, but somehow don’t want to or something. Any coordination of people is broken and de facto outlawed. Protesters are jailed within about a minute of protesting. People are scared for their families.
All this also ignores the fact that other world forces can have every intention to backdoor and hurt Linux as well, yet Russia in particular is the scapegoat. Linus just made sure Linux is now part of the proclaimed “West”, even though it was never attacked or forced to pick any sides whatsoever, and even Russia the state held absolutely nothing against it.
As per visas - not only would US lose out on a lot of talented folks that could benefit it (and not Russia, mind you!), it’s also too big of a political center. There was an occasion when the US didn’t want to allow in Russian diplomats that were heading for the United Nations HQ. Is that alright in your eyes?
But like you say, they can just fork it. So let them do that. What’s the problem? Everything else is kind of out of context.
The problem is mainline Linux will now not receive collaboration efforts from Russians, which will influence the speed and course of its development.
Not saying Linux is gonna stall without Russians, but they do have a measurable impact on open-source development and introduce a lot of exotic things into the kernel, which allows it to be used with more devices and accelerates development of alternative technologies.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
Besides, seeing other contributors removed for seemingly nothing but their nationality might disincentivise developers in other countries, too.
Just factually wrong. Russian maintainers were removed from their positions. They are still allowed to contribute, but they’ll have to get a non-Russian maintainer to sign off on it. This removes “FSB coerces Russian maintainer into signing off on malware” as an attack vector, while having the minimum possible impact on Russian contributors whose code will be checked for correctness like anyone else’s.
The fact that the US is still allowing them to vacation here is absurd.
According to your logic every american is scum because of government politics.
You are right. I think other countries should sanction US travelers for our governments bad actions, yes. It would wake people the eff up.
First, how does this fuck Russia the state?
It makes it more difficult for Russia to put backdoors into western IT infrastructure
With respect to screwing the state, it diminishes the nation’s standing in the world. Tech companies under the government are unable to compete with other tech companies when it comes to promises of supporting Linux properly.
By itself it’s not much but add the sum total of sanctions and you hopefully inflict an obvious contrast in prosperity available through global trade for a well behaved nation versus losing access to all those markets through misbehavior.
If the world doesn’t want to step in with direct force, this is about the only sort of potentially effective measure available. Without force nor economic measures, you are left with shaking your head is disapproval.
Going too far, on the other hand, accelerates the formation of alternative alliances, BRICS being the most prominent, and growth of authoritarian axis.
And on a different angle, Linux always adhered to truly collaborative open source policy, and I’m concerned more about what this decision means to that rather than Russia. If we start excluding maintainers based on nationality, not only we’ll be left without many great people supporting essential programs, we’ll be left with a political division in a sphere where collaboration means everything. Seeing other people being kicked out of something so big (and, for all I’ve heard, even the attributions removed) is not a great motivating tool to invest your time and effort into something that can so easily be taken away from you.
The West tried for years to coddle and include Russia after the USSR collapsed, and look where it got them: a Russian invasion of Georgia and Ukraine, being blanketed with disinformation and having their elections interfered with to install far-right pro-Russians, and living under the constant fear that Russia could turn off their energy supply.
Fuck Russia; it needs to be cut off through every practicable avenue.
Well, if your state is breaching international law, deporting children, using artillery to reduce cities to ashes, sending hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to their death and allying itself with fucking north korea to “denazify” a country while swinging its nuclear dick around…
then maybe it’s time to leave the country or accept that people with a russian mail address are persona non grata in the rest of the world. It’s not their first war of aggression, and enough is enough.
fuck russia. fuck russians.
and fuck hospital- and refugee camp bombing zionists btw. (not all jews are zionists!)
At the very least, a strong majority of russians are supporters of genocidal imperialism, however a solid argument could be made that it’s more like an overwhelming majority.
This holds true across all demographic segments; income, education, age, region, rural vs urban. You may have a situation where the support for genocidal imperialism is a mere majority (e.g. younger cohorts), while others approach an almost absolute majority (older cohorts), but the majority always holds no matter how you slice and dice it.
This is backed by almost all quantitative and qualitative research conducted over past ~35 years. I can share a pretty funny anecdote about how an allegedly opposition minded russian (who gets quoted in the NYT) had to twist his own quantitative findings to present a better picture of russian society.
Even recent qualitative research run by opposition minded russian researchers shows a damning picture among of even allegedly moderate russians (in russian, I can share it).
A strong majority of everyday russian support the extermination of Ukrainian culture and sending everyone who disagrees to a torture camp. And this is not limited to Ukraine, they have a similar attitude to all nations that freed themselves from cancer that was the USSR.
Unfortunately many are ignorant of the nature of russian society or prefer to reject difficult information (it’s just social media hate).
Torvalds is a Finn and he understand these things and he doesn’t have the liberty of shying away from reality.
When compare “Fuck Russians” to “Fuck Jews”; what exactly are you referring to? Russian as in the ethnicity or Russian as in the nationality. This is actually a pretty important point.
I wonder what your sources are, yes.
Talking to many, many Russians on the ground, I certainly don’t see the picture you’re presenting. The absolute majority of Russian youth I know is anti-war and anti-Putin, with only a few exceptions; among older generations there is more support for Putin, but it often boils down to “who else can keep Russia from crumbling in these trying times?” - a flawed argument, but again, not coming from bloodlust or an appetite for war. Maintaining of the war is seen by them as more of a necessity, and victory as a condition to save the country from collapse.
Even the government tries to veil it into “we’re against the Nazi regime of Ukraine, not against Ukrainians”, because Ukrainians are absolutely seen as brotherly people, and the fact they die is tragic to most. The blatant “let’s kill Ukrainian pigs” position is seen as cringe at best, and is likely to call a punch in the face.
Fair point on ethnicity vs nationality, thanks, and I’d like to explore it. Whenever the matter of Russians comes up, people rarely make the distinction. For example, when I commented on ethnic Russians getting more access to their own culture in Latvia thanks to EU intervention and acceptance of Russians as an ethnic minority, people made little distinction between ethnic Russians (including kindergarten kids who just happened to be born to two Russians) and Russian soldiers on the battlefield, ready to conquer the country.
But here, really, it doesn’t alter my point. We shouldn’t say “fuck all Israelis” either, because they too are a diverse group of people with vastly different views - some of them are straight up Arabs, and among the Israeli Jews, opinions on the war vary strongly.
The last two russians that I still speak to are genuinely anti-putin and support Ukraine. Does that mean this is true of all russians or does that mean there something about who I choose to speak to bringing about such a result?
You claim they are “anti-war” and yet you talk about " war is seen by them as more of a necessity". You are either anti-war or you’re not. A strong majority (if not an overwhelming majority) are pro war. You’re defacto whitewashing russian genocidal imperialism.
When it comes down to it, the majority of russians support extermination of Ukrainian culture, language and identity (and torturing everyone who doesn’t agree).
The brotherly people bla bla is just an example of russian supremacists’ thinking. This “brotherly people” pitch clearly does not include self-determination or the right to develop your own culture (and getting rid of settler colonialism). It fails if you bring up something like reparations (even among allegedly liberal minded russians). The “brotherly people” pitch is a ruse for the ignorant and naive.
Don’t fucking lie about “the fact they [Ukrainians] die is tragic to most”. This is really fucking low on your part. The majority of the country (at any reasonable level of sociological segmentation) openly supports genocidal imperialism against Ukraine and other countries. A small minority might be somewhat ambivalent but generally sees it as a fair sacrifice for their comfort.
It’s funny that you bring up russian colonial settlers in Latvia. Even with access to free media, democratic institutions, economic growth, among russians in Latvia support for Russian/Ukrainian victory roughly evenly split (although majority claim to not know which country they support). The Latvian most definitely should be very careful
I’ve never lived in Israel/Palestine and I don’t speak Arabic or Hebrew.
I have lived in Russia for over a decade (I can tell some funny, almost absurdist, encounters with russian racism) and I speak fluent russian. It is reasonable to claim that an overwhelming majority of russians are genocidal imperialists.
And I am not saying they would openly admit to it. But if you know how to ask questions (in russian) in a subtle way, you can see that their worldview is supremacist and aligns with the extermination of the culture of neighbouring nations and forcing them to be become subservient to the russian national identity.
Random selection of lesser know research:
-https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680221108328 -https://meduza.io/feature/2024/06/25/a-kogda-uzhe-pobeda-to-nasha-budet -https://www.jiia.or.jp/en/column/2022/09/russia-fy2022-01.html
The second URL is in russian. A fascinating read. You should send to one of your anti-war younger russians.
You can easily do a web search confirming from multiple research groups that a strong majority of russians support the invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of its culture. I shared some lesser known research that provides counter arguments to the usual low effort russian whitewashing with respect to sociological research.
No, I’ve put “war as a necessity” group separate from “anti-war”.
Through the virtue of being Russo-Ukrainian (and currently residing in Russia) I constantly speak to people of very wide backgrounds, and I listen to conversations around.
There are people who are generally speaking of exterminating Ukraine, putting Z signs on the vehicles etc., but there aren’t that many of them.
There are some that want to restore “Slavic world”, and many more that talk about “saving Russia”, which is certainly imperialist and serving Putin’s agenda, but not aimed at exterminating Ukrainians per se (and having close Ukrainian roots and many relatives under rocket strikes, I am very sensitive to the narrative of destroying culture or people, my culture and my people, so I notice when it happens).
And there is a majority of people I know, people that are opposed to war, some mildly and mostly out of care for their families, some strongly and coming from something more. Most of them have something to lose, and even those who previously protested now can’t risk that, because regime got way more brutal. They literally don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do while my close ones are in danger.
Colonial settlers? Latvian Russians are the kids and grandkids of those who moved there back when this was seen as yet another region. These people never chose to be born in Latvia, but so is their home, and they happen to be Russians. People of any ethnicity in any country should have access to their culture; this is one of the basic rights everyone should have. No exceptions.
As you can guess from previous paragraphs, I speak Russian fluently as well, только при этом я здесь живу по сей день и могу оценить, как дела обстоят на самом деле и что думают обычные люди. Местами в регионах это совпадает с зарисовками, опубликованными Медузой, но в целом я вижу больше разговоров и об украинцах, хотя очень часто исподтишка, невзначай, как вот про “украинских ребят” из той же зарисовки. It’s hard to openly protest and voice open dissent, though.
On the sources: 1.Clearly states that the only relevant result is that Russians do indeed hide their dissent, and estimates may be wrong even when asking indirectly, and are certainly skewed with direct answers. 2.Quite an interesting read, though there’s mainly one true and important takeaway: many Russians, especially in the small regions that have always lived a slow life, face inability to protest it openly, end up growing frustrated and escape long discussions of the war. This is commonly known as “getting tired” of it, but there is a deeper level to it. 3.Sources info from article 1 and misinterprets it.
The problem is, the research you provided only confirms that there is an issue of hiding true opinions, without definitively stating wide support. A list method employed not only doesn’t guarantee honest answers (just makes them more likely), it also has plenty of inaccuracies of its own, as it brings about many contentious things people could agree or disagree on.
There’s one thing we have in common - we want this war to end. You, probably for overall peace in the world, me, because my close ones are in danger, hiding from mobilization, living with intermittent electricity, not knowing what tomorrow is gonna bring, and also for global peace, of course. But seeing how it unfolds in Russia, how russophobia channels and feeds into Russian nationalism - something that can easily be weaponized - I really don’t think this is the answer. Russians the people are truly in the hard spot right now, they don’t need someone to tell them to go figure this out, and if there is a way to support any anti-war effort inside Russia, this will go a much longer way than animosity and rejection based on where they happen to be.
And I don’t buy your claim that everyone is “anti-war” and a small minority believes that “war is a necessity”. Your anecdotal experience is not really relevant when we have qualitative, quantitative research and reality (that russian have been directly occupying three nations since the USSR broke up - is this not fucking imperialism).
There are people who are generally speaking of exterminating Ukraine, putting Z signs on the vehicles etc., but there aren’t that many of them.
As I wrote earlier, it’s not only an issue with those who openly express their genocidal imperialism (and there are tens of millions of such adults). It’s also those who doesn’t see a big problem or think it’s a fair sacrifice that works for them. Such people are just as bad and their actions lead to the same outcomes.
“but not aimed at exterminating Ukrainians per se”.
This is just white-washing russian genocidal intent. Your “restore the slavic world” fellows know full well that russia is doing everything possible to exterminate Ukrainian culture (not to mention torturing tens of thousands of civilians and terrorizing millions). They all know it and they all support it.
And there is a majority of people I know, people that are opposed to war. Most of them have something to lose, and even those who previously protested now can’t risk that, because regime got way more brutal. They literally don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do while my close ones are in danger.
The overwhelming majority supported the annexation of Crimea (80-85%), the occupation of Donbass and the full scale invasion. Same with the 2008 invasion of Georgia. And yet you bring the people you know?
For Latvia to be their home, they would need to learn Latvian language and be part of Latvian culture as opposed to supporting Putin and imperialism more broadly. You can’t call a place your home when your loyalties lie to a regime that wants to destroy the country you allegedly call home.
What an interesting interpretation of the first paper. It pretty clearly states that preference falsification is at around 10% with support for the full scale invasion going from 75% (direct polling) to 65% (list experiment).
“the research you provided only confirms that there is an issue of hiding true opinions, without definitively stating wide support.”
This is complete bullshit that directly contradicts the findings of the paper. The authors even explicitly state that due to their methodology they believe that the true level of support is higher than 65% even when accounting for preference falsification.
List experiments have issues, any methodology does. But when multiple quantitative methodologies and qualitative research show the same findings, you can’t just bring up “plenty of inaccuracies of its own”.
Did we read the same paper? It’s a pretty damning picture of even those who are not aggressively pro-imperialist genocide. I don’t see what getting tired or not getting has to do with anything. They still support the russian army (that send cruise missiles into children’s cancer hospitals) and in principle they are OK with killings and destruction as long as it benefits them.
There’s one thing we have in common - we want this war to end. You, probably for overall peace in the world, me, because my close ones are in danger, and also for global peace, of course. But seeing how it unfolds in Russia, how russophobia channels and feeds into Russian nationalism - something that can easily be weaponized - I really don’t think this is the answer. Russians the people are truly in the hard spot right now, and if we can influence them in a friendly way, we should, because animosity clearly doesn’t help.
This is great example of supremacist russian thinking. It perfect aligns with notion that a strong majority of russians are genocidal imperialist (while not necessarily open stating this).
Let me translate:
“We want to keep 20% of Ukraine [and attack again later], because of “world peace”, we all want “world peace”, right?”
“Show respect to us russians, this is nothing. If you don’t show us respect we will fuck you up!”
“Russians the people are truly in the hard spot right now” - Typical russian victimhood. They are always the victims in any situation!
“and if we can influence them in a friendly way, we should, because animosity clearly doesn’t help” - There is not a single example in recent history of russians doing any type of good faith actions in the geopolitical sphere. On the contrary, a recognition that a strong majority of russians are genocidal imperialists, that they do not believe in human rights (beyond using the concept for manipulation and lies) and they support authoritarianism (in their own country, but in others too) is the only way forward.
Authors clearly stated that the result can be inaccurate and some percentage of Russians may not answer honestly even under such conditions, and in conclusions, they only ended up confirming some people do seemingly hide their true opinions (although the extent of it may vary as the studied group was not representative of entire Russian population and was taken from Toloka, a place attracting specific demographic not fully representative of general Russian population).
It sure is important to know Latvian language, but for that they already have Latvian language tests for those coming into Latvian citizenship. They can, however, hold any culture they want, while respecting Latvian law and basic customs. Same applies to anyone anywhere, including any minorities of Russia or Ukraine. In any case, trying to erase Russian identity is not the answer, which is obvious to legislators outside the country.
Did I say anything about borders? You literally made this up. When I say I want peace, honestly, I don’t give a single damn where the border will be - where it is now, or where it has originally been, or anything in between. I want for two countries, both of which are my homes, mind you, to stop putting their men in the meat grinder. And I know plenty of people on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian frontline share my sentiment.
But attacking Russians on the Internet and excluding them from everywhere further radicalizes them, leaves them bitter to the outside world, which can lead them to believe y’all really are the enemies to fight against. By alienating Russians, such people just feed into Putin’s narrative that the world is full of hostiles. This has nothing to do with victimhood or imperialism - this is basic human psychology, and it would work exactly the same anywhere else.
I strongly wish Russian aggression would stop, I care for it with all my heart. Again, my close ones are in fear of an attack as we speak. But I also happen to see the perspective of everyday Russians - something that most of those judging never get to see or even consider, naively thinking that they are the “punishers” for incorrect behavior, and that more of that will lead to a “child” getting to learn good behavior. No - slowly, but surely you simply raise bitterness and become an enemy. And they won’t get themselves to blame, and they will march with their wraith. Not on you. On my people. My grandmother. My uncle. My brother. His wife. I could just never talk about those things, present myself as a Ukrainian (after all, I am one) and go about my life, but too much is at stake for me to stay silent when y’all are doing the stupidest shit you can.
So what you are saying is we should nuke Russia because they are all cartoonishly evil fanatics of genocide.
I never said cartoonishly evil.
The term I used was “genocidal imperialist”. Supporting extermination of Ukrainiain culture, language and identity with the goal of territorial expansion. A belief in ethno-national hierarchy system that sees certain ethnicities/nationalities as inferior and not having the right to self-determination.
Such beliefs have a strong majority support among the russian population (if not overwhelming majority support).
I guess cartoons for adults then. What’s your solution? To me it sounds like dehumanising propaganda that push for indiscriminate extermination…
For you these are cartoons for adults. For those who have deal with russian imperialism, it’s reality.
A tangent of sorts; do you think you would be able to guess the number genocides conducted by the russians since just in the last 100 years? Without doing a web search.
You might be able to count the big ones, but I am curious what do you think your chance of guessing correctly would be?
Note: I don’t know the exact number (I can name a list of course). I am just curious what you think about this thought experiment.
To get to a solution, you need to at least recognize the problem. Things like not engaging in historical revisionism. Not rejecting any and all research findings unless they paint russian society in a way that reflects how you want the world to be.
No I don’t think I would. Other than my ignorance about the facts themselves, there’s the issue that I don’t have a precise definition of genocide in mind.
I’d probably have the best chance by saying 0 and hoping the definition of Genocide is so narrow it doesn’t really apply to shit.
And I’d give me a 30% chance.
Tangent asides, I am under no impression that the Russian Oligarchy now, the Zar before, the URRS in between, has excerted power in oppressive way just like any other country has done and stopped doing only in the face of new ways to accrue power.
And because in all those instances, from China, to the USA, to all of Europe, through history, people were pushed and pulled into believing all sort of crazy stuff, such as “the others” being inferior, evil, a threat or all of the above, I doesn’t really tell me much that the polupation that is subjected to a long lasting propaganda apparatus is affected by such propaganda.
I go as far as doubting I would be able to see past it if myself I was born in that situation.
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Yes. Fuck Russia and fuck Russians. Slava Ukraini!
Our countries welcome Ukrainian refugees.
I am friends with Russians in my country.
Russiana living here sneak benefits by saying they are Ukrainians.
The majority of Russians living here voted for Putin polls have shown.
Some Russians denounce our media and only watch Russian state TV.
So if they can’t adapt after beeing here for decades I tend to believe that the Russian common sense differs immensly from ours. And therefore I agree with this propaganda: Fuck Russia.
They talk about eachother on the highest level but Russian citizens - here or in Russia - do not form loud critique. If my Brother was jailed for critique I would apread the word in my circles who would spread the word… WE IN THE WEST WOULD MAKE US HEARD.
Russians benefiting from the lower prices just agree with their government and apparently do not care about their country killing innocent people.
So fuck Russians as well.
- Obviously not every Russian is stupid or bad. But if they want to get out of their war, they have to speak up. This is exactly what they demand from other countries with inner conflicts.
The advice would be relevant a bit ealier, around the Bolotnaya protests.
But now protesting in Russia is nothing short of suicidal. You won’t make yourself heard - much quicker, you’ll be jailed. Police is constantly on duty near main protest venues, and they act brutal. And this fear mentality permeates many even as they leave, afraid they’ll have to return some day.
Right now, it seems like the only thing that would help is a full-scale revolution, but people are passivized enough through decades of oppression that organizing them is near impossible. Everyone is scared as hell to be the one who comes on the street, finds out they are alone and next moment they are taken to police and jailed for years.
Even under those conditions, people did come out to anti-war protests, especially in 2022. Result? Brutal suppression and mass incarceration. So, I hope you can see where this comes from.
Very saddening.
Given that Russians where the ones who openly shared lists of serial keys online, I wonder why no attacks onto the black velvet around their information system is not attacked then.
Thinking aloud here…
Propaganda goes both ways
It’s just people can’t do anything to stop Russia or at least help Ukraine. Although the latter is possible, but it’d require some effort. Writing and upvoting “fuck Russia” on social media is easy and that makes them feel better.
You feel good typing all that schlock out?
You have no arguments and you are angry because of that. No, I don’t feel anything in particular about it. Maybe you do, you wrote an aggressive comment, you “defended” yourself, you must be very proud!
Triggered 🤡
Are you… proud that you write nonsense that triggers people? Is that what provides you with a sense of pride and accomplishment? Are you trying to humiliate me for your behavior? That’s fucked up, mate.
The important thing is that you feel superior to everyone. that’s all that matters.
I think it’s pretty reasonable and okay for Palestinians to yell “Fuck Jews” IMHO
I wouldn’t want them to go genociding back, but breaking ties in collaboration would be very fair and reasonable
No. Not fuck Russians as a blanket policy. The Russian government is full of corrupt and evil bastards, but it’s certain that most Russians are the same as most other citizens; They just want to go about their business.
I’m in favor of blocking the Russian accounts, they’re probably mostly state actors. The ones that aren’t actively sabotaging the codebase are unfortunate causalities, but it’s better than the alternative.
Most russians support the genocide. Fuck russians.
Citation needed.
It’s not difficult to find if you try just a little bit.
Most Russians don’t have easy access to non-state propaganda media outlets. If they only have false information, they can’t be expected to form an educated opinion.
If you haven’t seen it, I recommend taking a look at a recent post from the NYT Magazine about a Russian defector. They also made a 5 part podcast miniseries told from his perspective. NYT recently put old podcast episodes behind the paywall, not sure how to access them elsewhere, but I’ll include a link to reference if you want to look it up.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html
This is actually completely false.
Until very recently, both Youtube and telegram have been available censorship free. Almost every russian was able to access “non-state propaganda media outlets” in under ~10 seconds on their smartphones.
NYT times is bad source on russia. They routinely whitewash russian crimes. They often leverage russian opposition sources without any critical analysis.
YouTube and Telegram are not sources of authoritative or factual information either, if anything they are even less reliable. YouTube alone is probably filled with more hours of misinformation than all news media on the planet.
The fact you’re even suggesting them as some sort of alternative to get reliable info shows you don’t intend to have a real discussion.
You are either ignorant or you have an agenda (or perhaps you don’t want to consider that you were wrong).
You were able to access authoritative russian-langauge “non-state propaganda media outlets” on YT at least as far back as the early 2010s.
TV Rain , a generally well regarding Russian opposition channel opened their YT account on Apr 13, 2010, with the oldest listed video being with some of the first clips appearing in May 2010.
DW on Russian (DW на русском) also started their YT channel in 2010 with clips appearing in the same year.
Telegram did longer to get authoritative sources, but you can get BBC on it. And I am willing to be you good money that the BBC Russian service YT account appeared closer to 2010.
I am sorry but you are wrong and you don’t understand what you are talking about.
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I’m really sad about this. There is a lot of computer science talent in Russia, and I’m very very upset that It Has Come To This.
But it very clearly has.
If it makes you feel any better, experience (and a bit of intuition) tells me that this isn’t permanent. Though, it is probably only going to end after their government stops fucking up (or collapses… again…). It might be a while :/
I think it wouldn’t be bad to have the Russian devs back once the war is over, bar any other circumstances.
fuck russians? fuck the Russian government and the people who support it, not all the russians.
“fuck the overwhelming majority of russians” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“fuck the overwhelming minority of Russians, mostly the rich elite, but not the ones oppressed by their government”
This.
I have no problem with Russians, but I do have a problem with the Russian government, and that makes me suspect Russians due to the chance of the Russian government using its leverage to get them to do what they want. So I understand the move, but I’m saddened that FOSS gets sucked into international politics.
FOSS is inherently political, though, and an international collaboration like Linux is inherently internationally political. Allowing big corporations to influence the direction of the codebase? That’s political. Allowing the free usage and distribution of the software to anybody for any purpose not otherwise afforded by existing copyright law? That’s political. Collaborating with contributors from almost every country on Earth? That’s political. Being headquartered in the United States? Again political. Creating a hierarchy with Linus Torvalds at the top? The definition of politics.
It feels like people only start screaming “that’s politics though!” whenever it becomes political in a way that’s controversial to them – without recognizing how completely pervasive politics are in every single aspect of our lives. The fact we’re even talking on Lemmy right now is political – in all likelihood, we both decided that Reddit’s system of governance was unfair and thought a federated system was somehow more ideal, in this case a platform created by outspoken authcoms. That’s even disregarding the Internet which Lemmy sits on top of, including net neutrality, freedom of speech, the infrastructure connecting different jurisdictions, the way it came about through organizations like DARPA, CERN, the IEEE, and ICANN, etc.
It seems though that Linus didn’t make this decision for political reasons, but instead because he doesn’t want to get in trouble with the US government. He indicated that he was advised by lawyers to do this:
I’m not going to go into the details that I - and other maintainers - were told by lawyers.
but instead because he doesn’t want to get in trouble with the US government
I agree that that’s why he made the decision, but you understand how that’s political, right?
He probably isn’t too bothered by the sanctions given his comments about his Finnish nationality being a reason why he opposes Russian aggression. But still, it seems at the moment he’s just trying to follow the law.
I agree, and I mean to say that following the law is a political statement in the same way that him standing up and protesting by not following the law would be a political statement. We’re all political actors; it’s just that the amount of power we have to enact political change varies.
Fair points. I guess I happen to think Linus’s action is fair since I think the sanctioned companies are thought to be supporting Russia’s invasion in some way.
You should approach the same fuck first approach to Israel and the us with what they are doing in Gaza and Lebanon while you are at it. That would show your adherence to standard behaviour in the light of current genocides going on.
Sure Russia is bad so fuck Russia but do you have the balls or boobs to say fuck Israel ?
Uhh…what are we talking about again?
Moving goal posts!
Whataboutism 😂
Wow they really ran out of shit to say huh?
Not much left at the bottom of that barrel but some world salad with Russian dressing.
Yes, fuck Israel and fuck Russia. Not sure why I’m responding to this dumb bait, but here we are. It’s not a straw man argument when both countries are run by literal human feces
It’s even funnier when we realize Russia is possibly the reason there even is an Israel-Palestine conflict.
Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920. While a large majority emigrated to the United States, some turned to Zionism. In 1882, members of Bilu and Hovevei Zion made what came to be known the First Aliyah to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Tsarist government sporadically encouraged Jewish emigration. In 1890, it approved the establishment of “The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine”[51] (known as the “Odessa Committee” headed by Leon Pinsker) dedicated to practical aspects in establishing agricultural Jewish settlements in Palestine.
So they encouraged and supported those settlements.
And I’m pretty sure they indirectly triggered the ongoing conflict, where hamas attacked israel in 2023 october.
You should approach the same fuck first approach to Israel
Why should they do that in the comments section under a post about Russia?
If you think caring about one tragedy means ignoring another, that’s a ‘you’ problem.
People who actually care about human suffering don’t play the ‘whataboutism’ game—because it’s not a contest, it’s a crisis. Your deflection isn’t advocacy; it’s just lazy, performative outrage disguised as moral high ground.
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Those were words, yes.
How the fuck you were able to mash them together like that is beyond me.
GPTs are degrading
fuck russians.
this is racism and bigotry
“Russian” is not an ethnicity to claim racism against.
Hostility toward someone nationality is racism to me. If it’s not it sill equally bad.
That’s not how words work. Ordinary Russians don’t deserve blanket animosity or praise, yes. However, one can claim disliking Russians wholesale is bigotry, not racism. Words have definitions even if you pretend they don’t so you can virtue signal on the internet.
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He didn’t expel all Russians, just the ones working for sanctioned Russian companies.
I think given the current political situation this is the right call. No one knows what the Russian government might compel otherwise innocent devs to do.
That said, we (and I mean society, not any particular individual) should be mindful that we don’t slip into bigotry.
Linus is from Finland. Finns barely tolerate Russians under usual circumstances. These are not usual circumstances.
True he could have banned them long ago, it’s his project in the end, but he didn’t, he only did it after the sanctions
It is genuine xenophobia. I like in Poland, and its like you’re either a homophobe, or a xenophobe- with pretty limited inbetween. (And there are plenty of people who are both)
And Russians are peaceophobes? 😆
Ah, yes. Russia. A paragon of moral societal standards and behavior.
If he did that that would have been genuine discrimination. If he has to do it now because of sanctions, then ok fine. But otherwise I don’t want to see an open source project treating people differently based on where they were born.
Come on lemmy, how is this pro-racism comment upvoted so many times? Please, think.
“Russian” is not a race.
Sound like they are racists to me
I mean, that’s like calling a Native American racist for disliking European (white) Americans. Like sure, technically, but aren’t there some underlying issues at play that make the feeling more justified.
Technically America belongs to Native Americans and the occupation of their soil is still going but you don’t hear racists tantrums against europeans. Perhaps you should study Native American culture i believe you can get something from it.
I think many racists do in fact say Native Americans are throwing racist tantrums when they work towards gaining even the most basic of human rights.
Absolutely based as fuck as usual.
Save your sanity and do Settings -> Blocks -> Block instance -> lemmy.ml
Also perhaps block me if you strongly disagree with the above.
That instance’s mods blocked me this morning lol.
The amount of people simping for Russia in that other thread is insane. Apparently calling Ukraine a country of Nazis is fine, but saying Russia is a dictatorship is not lmao.
If you see a tankie or pro Russia comment, 99% of the time it’s a lemmy.ml poster
Hexgears and of course lemmygrad.ml are of the same kind
😄exactly! Phu, the brain gymnastics that those people are capable of is mind bending 🤣
Yeah, but most instances already defederated from them.
Can we see where someone is hosting a Lemmy (domain, insnace, thing?)
I guess, you got to check IP and see what country it belongs to, but if they use a VPS or VPN or both, you can’t really know where the person who manages the instance lives / operates.
Sometimes it is posted on the instance front page or about page.
Well I doubt it’s Mali.
https://check-host.net/ip-info?host=lemmy.ml
France. Maybe. It’s mostly guesswork, but gives the same location for hexbear.net.
It’s mostly cosplay commies rather than actual Russians.
Yea I figured it’s just a bunch of middle class kids who have the privilege of being online and complain. Also fuck Hexbear…all my homies hate Hexbear.
This topic has nothing to do with being “pro-Russian” instead its being pro-individualist and pro-open source
I’m pro open source, which is why I don’t want the Russian government interfering with it for their own geopolitical bullshit.
I agree, but people aren’t their government. Discriminating based on nationality is xenophobia.
Did you miss the fact that it’s not a blanket ban on Russians? If you work for a sanctioned company, then I’m sorry but you are out. Missed the chance to jump ship in the last twenty years of Putin turning Russia into a dictatorship? Well, I hope you like being sent to your death. Sad times, but let’s not pretend that this is discrimination.
From what I saw in the executive order it wasn’t limited to just sanctioned companies. Linus and other maintainers haven’t come out with which specific sanction they’re talking about so its just speculation
Banning contributions from sanctioned russian companies is not xenophobia. Pipe down.
I heard Russia is full of Nazis, and if that level of hearsay is fine for staging a multi year invasion and destroying a thousand years of history it’s just FINE for segregating bad-actors and persona non grata.
Can’t deal with it? Move to a less shitty company not sanctioned by scumbags. Or even a less tribal country 🤷
I heard Russia is full of Nazis, and if that level of hearsay is fine for staging a multi year invasion and destroying a thousand years of history it’s just FINE for segregating bad-actors and persona non grata.
Linux maintainers aren’t invading Ukraine
Can we really be sure?
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yep I got banned from there for simply stating that ukraine has a right to defend themselves after Modi called for “peace”. Apparently absolute pacifism is only required from one side.
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Some of us are actually normal
Yeah, when I created my Lemmy account I had to choose an instance before knowing anything about Lemmy yet. And .ml seemed like the default one to choose, given https://join-lemmy.org/ told me it is ran by the devs.
Oh well.
Similar story here tbh.
I see you, hang in there buddy!
Doesn’t help if the admins think you’re not. Which is why I had to relocate a community because of admin content meddling and instance users shitstorming in a waterglass.
I love it here as well 😁
Ee is cool, but your upload limits were crap.
Fair, but most of the time, photos that I post won’t get any better with more pixels anyway 😂
I throw a lot of low effort memes, so I need all the help I can get.
Yesterday I accidentally commented in .ml and mentioned that voting third party in our current voting system is playing with fire to get a worse candidate in office. I was told I must therefore start a grassroots movement for ranked choice voting, because apparently I can’t have an opinion without a movement.
Normally I let a few downvotes get under my skin more than I care to admit, but in this setting it was kind of a badge of honor. Honestly it was kind of “fun” to see what people were saying.
Save your sanity and do Settings -> Blocks -> Block instance -> lemmy.ml
I approve this comment.
Seriously, the hexbears just moved one over to keep getting exposure.
improved my lemmy experience ten fold just blocking that instance.
This is about open-source being open. I’m a very non-tankie, and I think this is bad- though a bit better if its only people working for sanctioned companies.
Go look at the principles of open-source or free software as defined either by the OSI and the FSF and then come back when you find the one that says that Linus needs to violate US sanctions to keep employees of Russian companies in trusted roles within his project.
Also, what does this have to do with being tankie or not? Modern Russia is very openly not communist.
.ml is full of tankies. Also, nothing in open-source principles say that to my knowledge. Am I not allowed to have beliefs not explicitly defined by the OSI?
The OSI’s definition of open-source software is the de facto definition used by most people, and for most of the remaining people that don’t, they (mistakenly, because they define “free” software, not “open-source”) defer to the FSF’s defintion of free software.
So yes, you should be explicitly noting that what you define as “open” has nothing at all to do with the far-and-away most widely used definition(s) of “open-source”.
Yes, and I said I want open-source to be open. As in not just open-source, but also open to all. That is my personal moral value, and I advocate for that. What the OSI supports has nothing to do with that.
I want a lot of things too, but what I want most of all is to live in a society governed by the rule of law. There are no absolute rights - limiting the freedoms of people who are complicit in crimes or enable them is how we protect the rights of everyone else. Simple as.
Limiting the freedoms of innocent people who happen to live in a country doesn’t protect the rights of others.
This is about open-source being open.
tell that to the mods of !worldnews@lemmy.ml who ban you for disagreeing with them.
I hope people do not do that and take into account this campaign against lemmy.ml. I am aware of the accusations against the admins of this instance, but I practically never see here this kind of brigading, campaigning against whole instances like lemmy.world. Sure, I myself did make a bad comment or two about lemmy.world out of >800 comments, but that’s normal. I think the fair thing to do, is to respond in the same scale (i. e. blocking specific users) instead of going all ballistic with instance blocks.
I’d also like an option to just block/hide the instance part of user names. I don’t like what this bit of information is doing to discussions in Lemmy.
You could also just move instances if you don’t want to be blocked. Hexbear, and ML are hot spots for the worst kind of people.
I don’t like what this bit of information is doing to discussions in Lemmy.
Cool. That’s fine that you don’t like it. However people have a right to not see what they don’t want to see. If they decide that means it’s lemmy.ml, then that’s their right.
Just like I have a right to not peer with lemmy.ml if I didn’t want to.
Hell I have a hard block on ALL Russian and Chinese IP addresses. Not because I have something against the people. But I just don’t want to deal with the headache of accepting traffic from those countries.
Just because some (or even a majority) of the people on lemmy.ml are fine to interact with doesn’t mean that there isn’t contention from other users and admins on that instance.
I think the fair thing to do, is to respond in the same scale (i. e. blocking specific users) instead of going all ballistic with instance blocks.
it’s not just random users, the mods of larger communities like !worldnews@lemmy.ml will delete your comments and ban you simply for disagreeing with them.
I would encourage that, but if your instance doesn’t defederate them you may have to go a bit farther since you’ll still get replies from lemmy.ml users, as users are not blocked as part of this functionality. And that is by design, it’s not meant to act as a replacement or alternative to defederation, it’s meant to act as an alternative to blocking all communities on an instance.
The central project of open-source community closes doors to people based on nationality, and everyone is cheering…
Why? You seriously miss the implications of breaking the very basic principles of open source? You are ready to forgive literally anything if it is claimed to target Russia or Russians in any way?
For those of you who say about backdoors:
- US is known to create the most complicated spy networks with myriads of backdoors. Where are the bans of the US maintainers?
- Israel is a literal powerhouse of state-sanctioned spying software - Pegasus, as well as many less renowned programs, was created here. Any bans, anyone?
- China is known for invasive software. Maybe ban them all too?
The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code. Threat actors can be anywhere - and Russia is not some unique threat location, nor was it banned with that justification - just “compliance requirements”.
This is politics permeating the sacred place we all had. This is a giant threat to the community, and the way Linus framed it in his message is even more terrifying. This was never meant to happen.
The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code.
Which is the job of maintainers. Which now aren’t Russian, any more. To the best of my knowledge the kernel is still accepting code from Russian citizens, ultimately not having Russians in maintainer roles isn’t going to stop the FSB from infiltrating the kernel but it certainly does make it harder.
This also isn’t in any way a judgement on the removed people, it’s just that it so happens that if you’re a Russian citizen you’re quite vulnerable to wrench attacks. You could even say that the kernel org is protecting them from being used like that.
“Protective restrictions” is a code for discrimination. Or would you argue that not allowing, idk, women to vote is a good measure for protecting them against being violently coerced to vote one way or another?
(this is a random example, just a small mark so I wouldn’t be eaten alive)
Torvalds responses make clear he has spent too much time with the wrong people. Calling everyone paid actors is such an embarrassment to his own intelligence. When the linux kernel starts falling behind because of a lack of competent maintainers after banning any country that NATO isnt friends with, we will know that this is where it started and that people cheered.
Yeah, arguing that everyone disagreeing is a paid Russian troll is a cherry on top.
So you think Russian trolls wouldn’t want to spin this narrative? By virtue of what? Honor?
No, I just say that writing down any disagreement to the evil intentions of someone in power is extremely counterproductive.
There is plenty of people who are in sincere disagreement over this decision, and Linus just tries to silence them. This ain’t alright and leads to direct abuse of power.
This is literally a chapter of an authoritarian playbook.
I’m actually shocked by how people are acting about this.
You see, it’s actually a really bad thing to ban devs from an open source project based on nationality over all else. “Oh, but they are state actors!!!” How do you know? Because they are Russian?
Exactly! Being Russian doesn’t mean having any political affiliation.
Moreover, even Russia the state is adopting Linux and is greatly disinterested in messing it up. If anything, this could really be the attack on Linux-reliant Russian infrastructure, but even then it most likely will be a reason for a fork, no more, no less.
OK, this is bs.
They’re not banning devs, they’re banning maintainers.
Russians can submit as many patches as they like for review, they just can’t sign off on their commits themselves.
Seems pretty fair to me.
I’m actually shocked
I’m not. Ever since the war, every single closet xenophobe of the west has been taking full advantage of finally having an acceptable group of subhumans to hate. If any of this surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention.
It seems they’re not being removed because they’re Russian, but instead because they work for specific companies who are subject to US sanctions:
breaking the very basic principles of open source?
No, the basic principles of open source are either the four freedoms (if you agree w/ Stallman) or the OSI open source definition. Here are Stallman’s four freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Russians still have these freedoms WRT the Linux kernel. They can still run, study, and redistribute modified versions of the Linux kernel. There’s no violation here.
And the OSI definition is similar (and longer, so I won’t repeat it here).
No part of the definitions of open source or free software obligate a maintainer to work with anyone else, the only obligations are to the legal freedom of the code. Russians can still use, modify, and redistribute the software, they just aren’t allowed to have maintainer positions within the Linux foundation. They can still submit code, and it’s up to the maintainers if they choose to look at that code.
That said, I’m sad that it has come to this. I hate the idea of international politics interfering w/ FOSS, but I still maintain that it’s 100% fine for Linus Torvalds (and his legal counsel) to make this call. So I agree with the core of your argument, that politics interfering w/ FOSS is bad, but I disagree that it violates any part of the basic concept of FOSS, FOSS maintainers should always be able to decide who they work with, and the rest of the community gets to decide if they’re okay with that or if they’d rather follow someone else’s fork.
Fair on your part, I might’ve gone too far with my argument.
I was talking more about collaborative nature and what happens to it when the major open-surce project decides to gatekeep based on something highly arbitrary.
Linux is long past a simple hobby project, and it should be managed responsibly and with respect to the people that make this all happen.
Sure, the roots of FOSS came from collaboration, with people sharing code between universities and whatnot. But the process has always been “here are my changes, take them if you like.” So even the term “collaboration” is a bit of a stretch, since it was almost always a bunch of solo efforts and people would pull in the changes they like. The idea of any kind of structure to FOSS development was added later to help organize it, but the foundation was always someone working on a thing and then advertising those changes for others to pull, if they wanted.
A collaborative project would work something like Python where a core team decides which features to add (i.e. PEPs), and people on the dev team or the community at large would develop those features, and any development that’s not part of those approved features tend to be rejected until it goes through the review process.
Linux isn’t particularly collaborative in that sense, it’s more like the old-school FOSS development process where individual developers would build a thing, use it themselves, and then submit their changes for upstream consideration. I worked on a team where we maintained our own kernel patches separate from upstream for years before trying to submit them upstream, and every time we’d upgrade the kernel, we’d have to reapply the patches, occasionally fixing some things that had changed. The network of maintainers is largely a convenience for working in this more chaotic model, where maintainers are responsible for reviewing and passing along changes for a certain area of the kernel, they don’t actually guide development in any meaningful way.
So the main change here is that Russian contributors can still contribute, they just aren’t trusted as inner-circle reviewers. It’s still collaborative in the same sense that it has always been, there’s just a bit more scrutiny over which reviews to trust.
in today’s political landscape: genocide is acceptable and ignorable; progressives are dirty commies that you should ignore at all costs; and being russian is enough to get you kicked out of contributions to FOSS and all this comes from people who call themselves “liberal”.
A lemmy.ml user criticising others for supposedly believing genocide is acceptable. Remarkable.
Russia is committing a genocide in Ukraine.
Some sanctioned Russian companies can no longer have maintainers in the kernel. Boo fucking hoo.
And kicked out of all FOSS contributions? Why are you lying? Russians can still contribute.
Open source IP laws operate under the jurisdiction of the citizen’s country. What kind of principles do you think open source represents? Because if it’s about free movement of information and global collaboration, I’m pretty sure that pirates are the group that better represents those values
Arrrgh!
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True, but it seems like they were mostly united by just having Russian e-mail domains. Some also worked on support for Baikal CPUs, but they are essentially a failed product now.
Also, the personal response of Linus is a clear F*** you to Russians in particular, so he kinda cleared this out, at least on the level of “I don’t give a damn about Russians whatsoever, they’re evil”
Yeah well getting invaded by a country twice in living memory will do that to you.
Germany’s like: “uh-oh”
Germany is repentant of their past.
Russia wants to return to it.
Russia, or Putin?
Both.
Russians can still contribute code, don’t bundle those together just to have something to list. You are correct about pegasus, but this is about kernel and rights to commit without review.
The comment right above you is fantasising about how America will have to disarm russia and execute the army and install a puppet government. It’s not that people don’t care about America, it’s that they cheer for it’s crimes.
To directly quote Linus:
Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.
It’s entirely clear why the change was done, it’s not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to “grass root” it by Russian troll factories isn’t going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts - the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.
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.
Linus really pouring on that “white death” energy.
Linus is xenophobic pos. It’s clear as day now.
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Good cleanup on the security vulnerabilities!
Honestly, that’s the main thing I was thinking.
Anyone wanting to put vulnerabilities into Linux is probably capable of not looking like they are in Russia…
It’s a statement: Russia as the only country on the world is not allowed to participate to the biggest human collaboration in existence which runs 90% of all computers due to bad state actions.
They should fucking speak up to Putin not Torvalds.
Did u speak to Bush when us invaded Iraq and afganistan?
How is this keeping to open source philosophies in any way?
“No, you can’t work on this, you’re Russian.”
I don’t support the Russian Government or its actions in any way, but these devs are probably not part of it. They maintain drivers for fucking ASUS hardware.
Because there are both US and EU laws preventing code from countries deemed a threat. Torvalds is paid by the Ameircan Linux Foundation, which has to work under US law and he himself is an EU citizen. Also a lot of other developers are from those countries and if they do not comply, they could get into some pretty bad legal trouble.
So it pretty much boils down to kick out the Russians or kick out all US and EU citizens and well we see Linus choice.
risc-v saw this coming a while ago and moved to Switzerland to avoid it.
Switzerland is being routinely strong-armed these days.
😯🤔 maybe I should look that up, where exactly 😂would be fun to work on RISC-V
You can work on RISC-V wherever you are, just post your patches publicly so anyone can get them, regardless of their jurisdiction.
Yea, just checked their job board, most is remote anyway 😂
And it’s also FOSS, so there’s nothing stopping you from working on it w/o officially working for them.
It’s not that hard of a choice either ofc, given one is essentially required.
That’s the start, of course. One could always play good cop, bad cop: “I have to do this to comply with the law, sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.” What Linus has done here is play bad cop, bad cop: “the law says I have to obey sanctions, and by the way I support the sanctions and this move anyway.”
He didn’t banned the Russians when the war started, he could, and probably wanted, but didn’t so what’s your point?
Do you also know Finland is next to russia and it does not have to be US influence for someone like Linus to know Russian gov can pressure developers? This change removes code commit not the contribution rights.
This has nothing to do with open source. If Russians want to work on the Linux kernel, they’re absolutely free to do so, because the source code is free and open source. What they are being restricted from is getting their changes submitted to the normal Linux foundation trees. FOSS doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have the maintainer of a project look at your patches, it means you can use the software however you want.
And yeah, it makes me sad that Russian kernel maintainers are being excluded. That doesn’t mean it’s a violation of open source philosophies (a maintainer can exclude anyone they want for any reason), it just means it’s an unfortunate policy due to international sanctions.
Russians aren’t restricted from getting their changes submitted, they just can’t be maintainers. This means that they need another maintainer to approve their changes, just like if you or me were to submit a change. A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what actually happened.
I actually just emailed RMS about this and I’m genuinely curious what he says. If anyone else is interested, I’ll ask if he’s fine with me sharing some of the response.
Just what we need. The opinions of someone who thinks having sex with children is a good thing.
He never said that. I agree he was more skeptical than I’d like, but he eventually was informed and apologized.
You are mistaken:
“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
RMS on June 28th, 2003
"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "
RMS on June 5th, 2006
"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
None of those say it is good. I disagree with him, he also disagrees with him and apologized for saying that. But that is very different from saying its good. I don’t think alcohol is good, I also don’t think it should be illegal.
None of those say it is good
Huh?
He said it’s a shame that paedophilia is outlawed and that it was narrow-mindedness that made it so.
He said it’s untrue that having sex with children harms them.
And yeah, he later apologised and said he doesn’t believe it anymore… 2 days after his job became on the line.
Ask yourself this:
A man has been publicly championing raping children for decades. Publicly. He firmly believes he should have the right to fuck children.
News media hears about this, and now his job seems untenable.
All of a sudden, the man claimed changed his mind, that he’s completely reversed his opinion (that he held for decades and publicly shouted to the world). In just 2 days, he’s gone from thinking it’s a tragedy that you can’t fuck children, to thinking fucking a child is bad.
Do you believe him? Or do you think he’s just saying anything he can to try to keep his job?
I don’t think alcohol is good, I also don’t think it should be illegal.
There’s a big difference between “it’s unfortunate that adults can’t fuck children, it really should be legalised. People against fucking toddlers are just bigots” and “well I don’t like alcohol, but I think it should be legal”
How you just equated raping a child and drinking a glass of wine is beyond me. Wow.
Oh yes, an update would be really interesting! (Even though I agree with @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works in all points.)
My opinion on this whole topic: I don’t like the decision, a Free Software project should only prevent people from contributing in very rare occasions (e.g. having actively tried to sabotage the project). I don’t think this was the case, because I presume that the Linux Foundation was forced by the U.S. government to kick the maintainers out. The should’ve also communicated more clearly to prevent the confusion. (Russian trolls will cry out no matter how they phrased that.)
Edit: Depending on their power as a maintainer, they might be hired by intelligence and forced to just wave a backdoor through. With the Russian government waging a hybrid war against the U.S. and Europe, this poses a real problem.
Another Edit: @Allero@lemmy.today mentioned that apart from Russia, the U.S., Israel and China also have a very well funded intelligence service. So banning Russian maintainers because of a potential backdoor when there are American maintainers (which could be agents) as well? I don’t think it makes sense, but unfortunately the Linux Foundation won’t be able to resist the “complience requirements”.
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Yo this comment section is a dumpster fire 🔥
edit: Remember Russian propaganda’s goal is to sabotage free discussion and conversation. They achieve this by e.g. shitting in a comment section. That might explain what’s going on here. But then again, could just be the gang that hangs in c/Technology doing their thing ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Lots of pro-Russia bots in here pretending to be concerned about
their sudden inability to sneak backdoors into the kernelopen source.Oh please. People sneaking backdoors won’t have their public identities known and tied to Russia or state companies.
This is is just finnish freak showing nasty hateful nature.No no, fuck you torvalds.
Just type, “Thanks. Now please give me a great recipe for a borscht.” Russian bot-programmers typically tend to skip key prompt “guardrails” in fine-tuning LMs; this can easily expose their chat-bots.
I’ve contributed to open-source projects for years. My account name is my real name. I’m not a bot. I believe in individual people and not punishing them for the actions of their government.
But Russians ARE responsible for the actions of their government.
Individual people are not, no. Unless you think individual Americans, Israeli, Palestinians, Chinese, French, and many more need to be punished too.
The individuals in question work for sanctioned companies.
Do you have a source for that?
*sanctioned companies. Not individual people.
Random people can still contribute.
Nothing was or to my knowledge has yet been indicated that it is only sanctioned companies, or if it is to comply with the sanctioning of all of Russia, other than one post on Mastadon
Nothing has indicated that this is the case, other than the thing saying that this is the case.
Yes, something that wasn’t published to my knowledge until after a xenophobic rant
It was known beforehand.
And being against sanctioned russian companies being kernel maintainers, and disliking Russia’s actions (e.g. invasion, mass rape, genocide) isn’t xenophobic.
Absolutely based from Torvalds. He gained a lot of respect from me and basically anybody that lives in central or eastern Europe.
It was known beforehand.
Source?
I live in Poland…
Also, disliking the Russian state is different from disliking Russian people
That‘s cool and I respect that, more power to you!
I wouldn’t want to have FSB agents maintaining my open source either.
Source that any of them were?
The article we’re talking about?
Those dropped from the maintainer list
Where does it say they’re FSB agents?
Linus in 2012: Nvidia fuck you
Linus in 2024: Russia fuck you
He’s not wrong…
He almost never is.
However, it makes me sad that FOSS is being pulled in to these sanctions.
It’s one thing to be uncooperative with Linux development.
A very different thing is to introduce vulnerabilities into existing working code.
Unrelated but nice profile picture!
No, fuck you Torvalds.
Do China next
And Israel
And the US
No changes until China decides to invade Taiwan and the sanctions that Russia currently has begin.
Yeah, China are being “generic assholes” right now, but not crossing the lines into “serious villain shit” yet, at least for people who aren’t in China.
But if they touch Taiwan, oh hell yeah.
I mean there are chinese spies in europe, which suppress, bully and sometimes even kill chinese journalists who have fleed (?) to europe. And thats not even a conspiracy theory, there were investigative journalists who have uncovered this in several countries. So I’d say that china is reeealy close to that villain line
Yeah, I think thats still really brushing the line.
This is a carrot and stick thing, by making Russia an extreme example we can steer them back from the edge.
But we do need to have other sanctions, they’re just being dickholes.
Oh yeah, let’s wait until they start murdering people to maybe take some action.
Yes.
And when they start murdering people we bring down the wrath of God on them.
That’s the problem with Russia, you have to be nice, up to the point they cross the line, then you turn the doom music on.
We needed to start crushing their balls with a hydraulic press when they took Crimea, this is on us.
who is this “we” who can “bring down the wrath of god”?
If they try for Taiwan, the whole west, you know, the people who depend on Tsmc chips for literally everything.
We went to war over oil you better believe we’d mobilize to fuck for literally all our tech.
over oil against Iraq. And that’s a shame. Even back then “the whole west” wasn’t united behind that lie.
China isn’t Iraq.
Iran neither. Iraq was an artificial state. Iran is there in some form for more than 2 millennia. 3?
Russia is in Ukraine. Israel is, with the help of U.S. trying to start a war in “middle east”. Let’s say that China “try for Taiwan”, do you really think that the U.S. can “mobilize” effectively on all these fronts. And would Europe follow U.S.?
Another question would be, let’s say that Trump is the next president: What would that change about your world war 3 fantasies?
They round up their own people and either brainwash or straight up murder them. Their government is as corrupt and evil as any other.
Yes, but it’s their people they’re butchering, so it’s less our problem just yet.
I know, bullshit rules, but still.
You know. I don’t like what the Russian leadership and military are doing. I feel like ultimately we’re in the cold war era. But you know, at the height of the cold war, radio operators around the world still worked Russian stations.
Yes, there was a very clear policy, neither side talked about ANYTHING beyond their signal report and working conditions (information about radio, power output and aerial basically). At the height of the actual cold war, the individuals were not cancelled like this.
Sanction the leadership, sanction the money, and sanction the military. But the normal people that are subject to the propaganda? I don’t understand the benefit in doing this. I also don’t see how the sanctions effect an open source project…
Seems a bit weird. Maybe there’s information we’re not privy to, but on the face of it, just based on what we’re seeing. Seems like a very very odd move.
don’t understand the benefit in doing this.
FSB wants backdoor in kernel. FSB notices subsystem maintainer is Russian, lives in Chelyabinsk. Can close eyes to backdoor, can pretend to review. FSB in Moscow make call to FSB in Chelyabinsk telling to buy heavy wrench at hardware store.
Same could be said for any intelligence service . it is better to focus on preventing and detecting these things through analysis and code reviews.
And they could just offer boatloads of cash to someone in another country to insert something so this doesn’t really prevent anything it only isolates a certain subset of people.
So if we can’t completely 100% deal with a problem, we shouldn’t even try? I mean, you’re correct, but we can’t solve all problems at once. If we deal with at least one, then we’ve made progress. Then we can try to deal with the next one.
No but this doesn’t do anything to “deal” with the problem as anyone can built up trust like Jian tan showed. The argument that this makes us more secure is like saying closed source is more secure cause the hackers dont have access to the source.
We have evidence of the US messing with nist standards so by that same logic should we assume all us actors are bad ?
The solution is to verify the code maybe have multiple people from different locations have to review stuff. Build more checks into the process.
The whole point of it being open is that it can be reviewed. It shouldn’t matter where the contributor is from as all code should be subjected to a rigorous review process.
We have evidence of the US messing with nist standards
What… You realize that NIST is literally a government agency? It’s part of the United States Department of Commerce. It’s literally the US government. Are you saying that the government is messing with itself? What does that even mean?
What’s so strange about that? It’s not like the government - any government - is just one person. Of course some people in government can mess with other people in government. Even people in the same office mess with each other. Intra-office politics, and so on.
If that were true, surely they’d not trust ANY of their existing work, or at least any done since the Special War Operation. Wouldn’t that make sense?
They’ve left the code, and removed the people arbitrarily. Seems a bit off to me.
I don’t think this only happens now, governments like Russia, USA, China, Israel will likely always be making these attempts.
I don’t understand the benefit in doing this.
Security. Torvalds did this for security.
Is it really that hard to parse?
And I’ll say the same here as I did above. If it was for security, their code is tainted too. It’s an arbitrary reaction that is not complete as a solution to anything.
They can check existing code. You have to be able to trust people who are contributing.
They can check new code by these risky people as it comes in, but it why risk it?
You can’t untaint code if the tainters (lol that sounds funny) can still edit the code.
If Torvalds is correct (he is), patching can now take place for vulnerabilities.
Good point!
Well it seems it was more to do with sanctions, if the open letter from one of the chopped developers is to be believed. In which case, I think the right thing is to move the names to contributors (they did still contribute), remove them from maintainers (some maintainers are actually paid by the foundation, I mean not a lot, but some are paid).
I still find it all a little odd. But likely there was a bit of a prod from somewhere higher as to how sanctions should be followed.
I am on your side and don’t understand the fury of down votes in this section regarding this stance. I am from a shit hole of a country too and if my life long contribution to open science (hypothetically speaking) could be so completely disregarded because of something ultra shitty that my country did, I would be super sad and probably mad at the OS community for leaving me behind so quickly.
I also don’t understand the benefit of doing this. Most people seem to claim it’s for security reasons but that does not make sense to me. Closing doors to someone without any proof of malintent is so against open source philosophy that it is perhaps more damaging in its core. And being the kind of government Russia is (or for that matter Israel, China, USA etc etc) they will always try to gain cyber war advantage by such methods. This approach is therefore clearly unsustainable. You would only be able to give dev access to a handful of countries in the world.
It sure as hell won’t scratch a dent in the Russian government’s armor when all these sanctions did not. It is not going to achieve 1/1000th of what all those ambargoes, frozen accounts etc aimed and failed to achieve.
Therefore there is either missing information (external pressure to take this action) or this is simply an action based on personal judgement.
Therefore there is either missing information (external pressure to take this action) or this is simply an action based on personal judgement.
Looking at the other post about NVidia drivers, I am starting to wonder if western governments (or perhaps just the US) are going after large orgs and suggesting how current sanctions should be interpreted. In which case, not sure I can then blame the Linux foundation, since you know, you don’t need government heavy breathing down your neck.