Russia Mulls Forking Linux in Response to Developer Exclusions
Russia Mulls Forking Linux in Response to Developer Exclusions
Russia plans to establish an independent Linux development community after the removal of Russian contributors from Linux kernel development.
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It was expected. This is how "free" development becomes a victim of not at all free dogmas. It is also how already fragmented Linux development becomes even more fragmented.
What ânot at all free dogmasâ are you referencing, and why is âfreeâ in scare quotes?
What's free about delisting maintainers based on their country of residence?
First, youâre acting like the decision was made by Linus or another member of the team and that they werenât following the law.
Second, even if that werenât the case, itâs still completely free. Unless you can name one of the following freedoms that was impacted by those actions:
- Freedom 0: The freedom to use the program for any purpose.
- Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
- Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.
- Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
All of those freedoms were directly impacted bozo.
And as for "Linus didn't do it", not only did they choose to comply with an order that directly violated the GPL, but in doing so he then followed up by gloating about Russian maintainers who have worked diligently on the kernel for years for the betterment of open software AND Linus' paycheck.
Calling your former volunteer contributors bots and state assets because of their home country is just straight up racist, especially when the only evidence of state-sponsored tampering in the Kernel has come from American institutions (that we even know of).
Literally none of those freedoms were impacted. Everyone is still free to use the program as they wish, fork it, make changes, etc.. Linux doesnât have a new license that says âanyone but Russiansâ can use it.
he then followed up by gloating about Russian maintainers
How did he gloat? He explained the change. If your complaint is that he was abrasive, I feel like youâre not familiar with 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.Sounds a lot more like heâs frustrated than delighted to me.
Calling your former volunteer contributors bots
He didnât call the contributors bots.
He called the people submitting reverts and complaining about those maintainers, who werenât contributors themselves, âtroll farm accounts.â
and state assets because of their home country
When did he call anyone a state asset? To be clear, being a troll or a paid actor doesnât make you someoneâs property.
He also explained that this was a legal matter:
> Again -- are you under any sort of NDA not to even refer to a list of > these countries? No, but I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to go into the details that I - and other maintainers - were told by lawyers. I'm also not going to start discussing legal issues with random internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them.That's a lot of cope babe, are you ok? & thanks for posting Linus' ravings to prove the other guy right
You do know that the maintainers delisted worked for russian companies that was sanctioned by the west? And if you feel somehow wronged by this, you are always more than welcome to emigrate to a country that aligns with your worldview.
First of all, saying "based on their country of residence" is either grossly uninformed or (most probably) plain dishonest.
Ignoring that, the GPL-freedoms of companies subject to sanctions are still preserved, so.... having established that your "free" is not the same "free" as in "free and open source software", what the hell are you talking about?
Check out the post history, this person is a Richard Stallman defender
It doesnât. Russians are still free to use and contribute to Linux development. Just a few people lost their maintainer rights.
No point in contributing to a hostile organization.
Russians are still free to use and contribute to Linux development. Just a few people lost their maintainer rights.
Yeah... Russians lost rights. A bit of a catch-22 there, pal.
Right? Itâs weird how so many people upset about the situation in this thread are incapable of explaining why itâs a problem without lying.
Like, I get that it sucks to be removed as a maintainer because of something outside your control. But being, or continuing to be, a maintainer of a project isnât a right thatâs integral to that project being free.
@uiiiq @JustMarkov It's amazing how many people are performatively pretending to not understand this. A handful of specific, named individuals who work for specific companies on the sanctions list are no longer allowed to be maintainers.
Being angry at Linus's wording might be understandable (I rather thought it bang on) but much of the outrage is bizarre, looking a lot like advocacy for ignoring legal obligations, or sometimes like outright opposition to sanctioning Russia.