this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Linux

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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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[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 215 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Couldn't think of a more lemmy thread topic than one involving both Russian geopolitics and linux.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 36 points 1 month ago

This one is scratching a ton of itch.

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 152 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Hello Internet commenters. Please remember that there's no rule that says you need to tell us all your gut reaction to this if you know absolutely nothing about the situation.

[–] Kajika@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 month ago (19 children)

knowing nothing about the situation is indeed the problem. if only this process was more transparent...

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[–] BobGnarley@lemm.ee 103 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

Dude, WHAT. This is totally against what Linux and Open source in general stand for.

I don't support the thing that I'm sure was their reason for this but I definitely don't support banning someone from contributing to an open system solely off nationality.

So what eventually only the "good guys" can contribute to and use open source software? Who exactly decides who the "good guys" are in this scenario? USA? China?

The implications of what this can cause in the future for potentially all of the open source community is absolutely sad. We should welcome all our fellow human beings to contributing to open source.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 53 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Reminds me of a comment the other day on a post about Ventoy. Whatever the situation there is, which definitely needs clarification still, the person was saying that you shouldn't trust it at all because the maintainer is Chinese, even though he has emigrated away. Because the CCP will be able to leverage his family still there to force him to create a backdoor.

That's just thinly veiled racism in my opinion.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 45 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's plain racism honestly.

I knew a (asian) guy who was working for a government contractor serving the US military. The racism is very serious to say the least. He got framed when something went down and was almost tried with treason. (that carries the death penalty) The authorities hit him with questions about his loyalty to the US for 5 hours even though he grew up in the US and so did his parents.

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[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 month ago

As far as I can read from that, they're still maintainers, just have had their credit removed from the contributors page, no?

Still a strange thing to do and I look forwards to an explanation.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 65 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Kernel development is for fed only.

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[–] 0x0@programming.dev 59 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (15 children)

"Compliance requirements"? The kernel's american now?! WTF?

The commonality of all these maintainers being dropped? They appear to all be Russian or associated with Russia. Most of them with .ru email addresses.

Not short-sighted in the least...

Similarly, the driver code remains within the kernel -- including for Russian hardware such as around the Baikal CPUs from Russia's Baikal Electronics.

Not a hypocrite move at all...

Are israeli developers blocked as well? How about all american developers considering how the US foreign policy keeps fucking everyone up all over the place in the name of liberty and freedom... of oil?

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[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 50 points 1 month ago

I am quite disappointed at the lack of transparency regarding this.

[–] fireshell@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (19 children)

it's a pity that politics is penetrating more and more into open source and FOSS.

recently support for Russian cloud providers was cut out of opentofu. https://github.com/opentofu/registry/pull/824

now this. this is, of course, natural the core and many components of modern distributions have not been free in terms of decision-making for a long time and are under the influence of large companies, which in turn are under the influence of the USA.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 47 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

It's a fact of life that politics permeates everything, nothing is in isolation of the political climate it exists within.

The state of the world today is a function of the politics that got us here, a big change in world politics can have dramatic and far reaching effects.

A healthy global FOSS culture requires collaborative politics to be the flavour of the day—which is unfortunately not the case in a lot of countries currently.

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[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 month ago (4 children)

FOSS has always been political. And usually fairly reactionary.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] nanook@friendica.eskimo.com 37 points 1 month ago (31 children)

This is a shame, I always thought Linux was supposed to be an International collaboration, hate to see it caught up in this bullshit political agenda.

[–] Midnight 22 points 1 month ago (38 children)

Political agenda is a funny euphemism for imperialist invasion and genocide.

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[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (11 children)

Does invading your neighbor count as international collaboration? Not that all Russian people can be held directly responsible for the actions of their government.

[–] nanook@friendica.eskimo.com 21 points 1 month ago (8 children)

@theunknownmuncher The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with. Russia invades a neighboring country when we install a leader that is going to allow us to put missiles on their border. I really hate to see political hegemony get in the way of a good collaborative effort, we all suffer for it if we allow this.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (16 children)

The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with.

Absolutely fair point. I agree with you on this portion of your comment.

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 35 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I think the Russians that would want to backdoor stuff would just use a name like John.

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[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm definitely all for Ukraine winning, but this is bullshit, basically the red scare all over again (but for tech).

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

red scare all over again

It never stopped. Most people still think Russia's communist. Or any country that calls themselves as such.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 month ago (3 children)

This is dumb. Corporate divestment, sure, of course, fuck their money and their power structures. But open-source developers are not generally gung-ho about the war effort... let alone propping up their local military-industrial complex.

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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

Now what the actual fuck

Linus gives it a full green light and refers to negative reactions as Russian bot attacks

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Russian-Devs

1000054130

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[–] penquin@lemm.ee 26 points 1 month ago

Gotta have them "various compliance requirements", man, gotta have'em. Don't ask me what they are, but damnit, gotta have'em.

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

My first thought is that this was to make Linux palatable to western regulations, like how companies can't use Kaspersky anymore. Stupid if I'm right because it's not like the fsb is going to sneak spyware into Linux.

Edit: Linus commented on this and I was right: https://lemmy.world/comment/13034386

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 month ago

They very well could. However, it also could come from some US intelligence agency as well.

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[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Linus is an absolute cunt for not only following this gleefully but then attributing pushback to "russian trolls" and "state propaganda" fuck you man.

These people weren't the MIT pricks who inserted vulnerabilities into the kernel, they were contributors who did hard work and helped advance FREE software. Linus is now turning his back on the GPL and manning it clear that Linux can be controlled by the US state on a whim.

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[–] Agility0971@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (18 children)

This is such an odd thing to do... I really cannot see the benefits for the project doing this. Maybe those maintainers were payed for their work and sanctions prohibit paying them or something?

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[–] fireshell@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (39 children)

Linus Torvalds Confirms Decision to Remove Maintainers from Russia

You couldn't come up with a more powerful spit in the direction of FOSS. And from Linus, who is now kind of showing f*ck to the entire community. Here you have freedom, openness and all that. Today they just wiped their ass with it, and by one of the founders.

This is the moment when the split politics, dirty ones from all sides, have penetrated into the very heart of OpenSource - into the Linux kernel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_YozYt8l-g

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