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Goodbye from a Linux community volunteer (lore.kernel.org)
submitted 22 hours ago by 0x4E4F@infosec.pub to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Official statement regarding recent Greg' commit 6e90b675cf942e from Serge Semin

Hello Linux-kernel community,

I am sure you have already heard the news caused by the recent Greg' commit 6e90b675cf942e ("MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements."). As you may have noticed the change concerned some of the Ru-related developers removal from the list of the official kernel maintainers, including me.

The community members rightly noted that the quite short commit log contained very vague terms with no explicit change justification. No matter how hard I tried to get more details about the reason, alas the senior maintainer I was discussing the matter with haven't given an explanation to what compliance requirements that was. I won't cite the exact emails text since it was a private messaging, but the key words are "sanctions", "sorry", "nothing I can do", "talk to your (company) lawyer"... I can't say for all the guys affected by the change, but my work for the community has been purely volunteer for more than a year now (and less than half of it had been payable before that). For that reason I have no any (company) lawyer to talk to, and honestly after the way the patch has been merged in I don't really want to now. Silently, behind everyone's back, bypassing the standard patch-review process, with no affected developers/subsystem notified - it's indeed the worse way to do what has been done. No gratitude, no credits to the developers for all these years of the devoted work for the community. No matter the reason of the situation but haven't we deserved more than that? Adding to the GREDITS file at least, no?..

I can't believe the kernel senior maintainers didn't consider that the patch wouldn't go unnoticed, and the situation might get out of control with unpredictable results for the community, if not straight away then in the middle or long term perspective. I am sure there have been plenty ways to solve the problem less harmfully, but they decided to take the easiest path. Alas what's done is done. A bifurcation point slightly initiated a year ago has just been fully implemented. The reason of the situation is obviously in the political ground which in this case surely shatters a basement the community has been built on in the first place. If so then God knows what might be next (who else might be sanctioned...), but the implemented move clearly sends a bad signal to the Linux community new comers, to the already working volunteers and hobbyists like me.

Thus even if it was still possible for me to send patches or perform some reviews, after what has been done my motivation to do that as a volunteer has simply vanished. (I might be doing a commercial upstreaming in future though). But before saying goodbye I'd like to express my gratitude to all the community members I have been lucky to work with during all these years.

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[-] Matty_r@programming.dev 12 points 5 hours ago

Honestly must be incredibly stressful managing a project like the Linux kernel. Governments constantly wanting changes made for their own purposes, companies leeching off the work of volunteers, neck beards losing their minds over some change they don't like.

I don't envy them at all. This sort of change was inevitability going to piss people off - it could have been handled better but I think it was going to be lose/lose no matter which way it was done.

[-] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 hours ago

I personally think this is a cop out. Obviously people would have been outraged either way, but personally my only issue is about how it was done. The whole point of the FOSS community is openness and transparency. The senior maintainers of arguably the most important FOSS project trying to operate secretively on something like this has shattered my trust in them, as well as many others.

[-] JustMarkov@lemmy.ml 33 points 8 hours ago

It's ridiculous how some see nothing wrong with delisting maintainers and are genuinely happy about such discrimination.

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 hours ago

Not ridiculous. Majority of U.S propaganda is based on dehumanising people.

Also I read somewhere that this ban only applies to folk that work in companies that are sanctioned. So might not be straight up racism.

But I do agree with you. Who tf is U.S to sanction others while it's formed on a genocide and still committing another one.

[-] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 13 points 7 hours ago

I would say sad... especially seen from other devs.

[-] kbal@fedia.io 117 points 21 hours ago

Later in that thread:

Please accept all of our apologies for the way this was handled. A summary of the legal advice the kernel is operating under is

If your company is on the U.S. OFAC SDN lists, subject to an OFAC sanctions program, or owned/controlled by a company on the list, our ability to collaborate with you will be subject to restrictions, and you cannot be in the MAINTAINERS file.

Anyone who wishes to can query the list here: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

[-] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 73 points 21 hours ago

Which is exactly what anyone who wasn't wanting to just snort some concentrated outrage knew was the case.

And you can argue as to if OFAC list should apply to things like this or not, but the problem is that the enforcement options for OFAC violations include 'stomp you into the ground until you're powder', most people are just going to comply.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 45 minutes ago

Oh hey, a reasonable comment here that actually has a decent score... These comments are wild. But given the recent... I'll just say, conspicuously pro-Russian, turn this site seems to have taken in the run up to the election, it's not exactly a surprise.

[-] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 14 points 17 hours ago

Also from that thread.

Again, we're really sorry it's come to this, but all of the Linux infrastructure and a lot of its maintainers are in the US and we can't ignore the requirements of US law. We are hoping that this action alone will be sufficient to satisfy the US Treasury department in charge of sanctions and we won't also have to remove any existing patches.

US law CAN'T apply on foreign ground, period. Nothing can. Just because they can bully their way around that, doesn't mean they are right.

And it should be only fair that Israeli maintainers be removed as well.

They should also rethink their infrastructure policy and whether they still want it on US soil.

This is all wishful thinking, I know, but this just goes to show you how they have absolutely no backbone whatsoever. As if anybody is gonna touch the Linux kernel and jeopardize the safety of millions of systems. We all know that is never going to happen, but they still bent over for the US... so typical... just goes to show you how little backbone everyone has, including Linus.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Russia/Finland history comment...

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 28 minutes ago

Does everyone here just not understand how international sanctions work?

As someone with a STEM degree in a STEM field, I'm consistently bummed out by how clearly silo'd my colleagues' educations were. It is so plainly obvious as soon as you try to have a conversation with them about anything outside of their area of expertise.

And don't bother trying to correct or teach them anything, because on their minds, they're smarter than you, and you have nothing worthwhile to teach them.

This thread is full of software engineers with just no concept of how society functions, or even a basic understanding of the geopolitical context of any of this.

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

If the company is in the USA they can restrict who you colloborate with. They also can control what you export as a oftware product under ITAR/EAR rules. It is why when some encryotion work had to be done the devs crossed the border into Canada to work on development, because under USA law encryption code is a controlled export product even if opensource

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[-] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 53 points 21 hours ago

It sucks if well meaning people are caught up in this, but it also sucks if you're living in the aggressor state of an ongoing war.

[-] x00z@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

These people allegedly work for companies that work for the Russian war machine. They will regain privileges if they don't work for them. So if they find a moral job, they'll be treated morally.

[-] matcha_addict@lemy.lol 18 points 15 hours ago

So shouldn't this also include the US and the many countries (most of Western Europe, plus others) involved in coalitions bombing the middle east and elsewhere?

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 22 minutes ago

Yeah probably... But that's a separate discussion isn't it?

[-] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 1 points 7 minutes ago

How is it a separate discussion?

[-] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 11 points 14 hours ago

Yes, if the issue was a moral one. This issue, however, is a legal one.

[-] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 hours ago

Then it isn't about living in an aggressor state, is it?

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[-] Korkki@lemmy.world 37 points 21 hours ago

Are they legally bound to follow any sanction list in their dealings? If so Linux foundation should consider move out of the US jurisdiction, because the santion load is just going to increase and more countries will be included.

If they are just doing this because of a political fad and partaking "the current thing" then they are just voluntarily digging their own and the linux foundation's grave.

[-] freeman@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

Linus chose to move to the US as well to become a US citizen.

To be fair he never claimed to be an idealist.

Also he is anti Russian himself as he made clear in his first comment in the thread. So being forced to remove them is probably a bonus for him.

[-] nialv7@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Where should they move to? Countries that aren't sanctioning Russia right now are likely to be... problematic? in other ways. But I am also pretty ignorant about which countries are on that list, and I would like to know more.

Maybe they need to become pirates on international water...

[-] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 9 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

because the santion load is just going to increase and more countries will be included.

Not to mention more stupid shit, like not being able to visit the US if your wife is Russian, cuz.. you know, you might be a spy.

If they are just doing this because of a political fad and partaking "the current thing" then they are just voluntarily digging their own and the linux foundation's grave.

My 2 cents. Nobody is asking them to do anything... yet... and they probably never will, but... they're scared shitless and they would rather comply, even for things no one is asking of them yet and is dubious whether or not they're even covered by the sanctions, than show some backbone.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

Here's an idea: don't invade sovereign nations unprovoked.

(Can't wait for the inevitable "whatabout America?!" reply. Yes, America is shit too and we deserved to be punished for Iraq... Unfortunately there wasn't really any international authority that could do it)

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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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