Posted by ajb 10/24/2024
That company received very significant subsidy from the Russian state. They produced CPUs for the Russian military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU
https://ge.usembassy.gov/targeting-russias-senior-officials-...
Note that self-professed “freedom loving” doesn't not mean much. There's always a million of excuses to tell yourself that you're an exception.
In this situation it is fairly obvious there are legal implications to having these people as maintainers; so the choice becomes "go with the feels" or run headlong into legal complications.
The decision made at this juncture says about the decision maker. Turning your back on the rule of law is a big step.
It's not really obvious to me, and looks like to some other people too. It would really help if gkh explicitly said what law prohibits collaboration with Russia-based maintainers or what specific legal consequences they are avoiding in this manner. The vagueness just creates a sense of uncertainty for every non-Western contributor
There are “legal implications” of disobeying the orders and disagreeing to serve in the military.
There are “legal implications” of calling the glorious leader a crooked mobster.
There are “legal implications” of having banned books on display in a library. (Not officially banned, but the officials are making scary faces because someone heard that higher ups discussed something, and the librarian rushes to hide the you-know-whom and you-know-what without any specific orders.)
There are “legal implications” of discussing this and that, and posting links, when it is officially declared “illegal information”.
etc.
Comrade Stalin does not force anyone to do that himself. Regular people — you and me — do that.
If was possible to handle the case properly without bowing to anyone. If there was an immediate security danger, announce that. If legal team told you to stop working with certain entities, inform the people properly. I suspect that Linux leadership is now between the rock and the hard place because some men in suits only strongly hinted they need to do that, and now, then they acted, they don't have a single piece of paper to prove it was under someone's pressure. A classic trick to manipulate people who believe in “matters of national security”.
It is highly likely that most people who vehemently show support, and ignore the obvious “nothing to see here, citizen” details are simply trying to keep the bubble of “living in a democratic country, unlike those shitty places” intact. After all, media and politicians are 100% set on using war spectacle to sell the feeling of (in)security, and blame everything on external and internal enemies. It's the same tool Putin and company used to remain in power.
Strictly speaking, nothing stops the guy from leaving Baikal - I don't think they are a branch of military per se. But then he won't be paid to contribute to Linux kernel.
As to the penalties for this; check Appendix A to Title 31 (Code of Federal Regulations), Subtitle B, Chapter 5, Part 501.
Fines can be up to and including the financial amount found to be in question. And this can be affected by; wilfulness, recklessness, pattern of conduct, managerial involvement (amongst others). Could be up to millions.
A criminal conviction may be up to 30 years in prison.
So the choices are a) follow the rule of law, or b) face years in court and possibly go to prison for 30 years. And for the later, to achieve what? Those people will never get back on the list (while the sanctions are in force) even if Linus "stood up" to the US Govt.
As the prayer of serenity says "Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".
Getting sanctions overturned can be a good thing if they are unjust (and I personally can't see how these sanctions are unjust), but keeping someone as a maintainer on the Linux kernel is almost certainly not the way to do it.
If YOU want to do something about it, then fork the kernel and invite those people who have been removed as maintainers to join you.
You are wrong about things people cannot change. All of this depends on “small people” believing they are small, and finding convenient stereotypical excuses for “doing what everyone does”. Not on some magical evil powers.
There's a lot of advice in those threads telling people what they should do. I wonder if people are going to follow them themselves, and rush to storm offices of agencies and military bases to figure out what's happening.
On the other hand, if you're saying “I'm fine if one day they torture Torvalds until he gives all the passwords, as long as it's in full accordance with the law™, and for the Big Good Cause. It's something that we cannot change, la-la-la~~~”, then state it clearly.
If on the other hand your issue is who is a maintainer, then fork it and set up your own maintainers.
If your issue is how it was done (i.e. lack of transparency) then there was an apology made, so either accept the apology, or keep ranting (maybe into the void)
If your issue is that the US gets to decide what their laws are, we you could try to overthrow the US, but I wish you luck.
If your issue is that laws in different countries are different, well then you're fighting the universe on that one; existence is far more complicated than what one single person can hold in their head, I'd suggest you get used to the idea that life is complicated, or to quote a lawyer "it depends".
If you think the company at hand is incorrectly being sanctioned, then write to the OFAC. But considering just the open source intel on the company supplying dual use equipment via Rosoboronpostavka it's very unlikely to be de-listed any time soon.
Being rude is not the issue. The issue is being ordered to “act now” by someone else, and haphazardly executing that order. Neither Linux Foundation, nor Torvalds has made any direct statements making it clear they acted on their own accord (which would be most obvious thing to do). If this doesn't bother you, you may believe a bit too much that nothing extrajudicial happens in USA.
If that happened, Linux community might need to put some pressure on organizations involved instead of cheering carelessly.
That "someone else" is us; it's the government passing laws and regulations, "of the people, by the people, for the people". Now that may not be as true in non democracies, but in a democracy the people elect representatives from the people. Those people make the law, and the people follow the law. Obviously it's not perfect, but as Churchill once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others".
Just remember, control is an illusion, you can influence things; some more than others, but control itself is an illusion.
https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=whNGNVnYHHSXUAsWds_MoZ-iEg...
Linus Torvalds comments:
... 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.
LinusThe perfect counterarguments from Russian friends:
1. Authoritarian regimens need security guarantees or their attacks against smaller countries are the fault of the West
2. Western liberal democracies are not perfect, this means that they are just as bad as Russians.
I am commenting on Linus' communication on this issue that has been exactly how I described.
In what dystopian world is it not okay to point out if someone is verifiably lying?
Linus made very few comments in the context of this removal, and they were very easy to understand. It was abundantly clear why the maintainers were removed and that they could be reinstated if they provided sufficient proof/documents that the sanctions don't apply to them.
Thus, they were lying.
I observed they were doing so, and provided evidence that their claims were lies.
I have only expressed my opinion based on what I have read [1], including the mailing list. The very fact that the whole affair is causing so much waves suggests that the communication has been poor. You are free to disagree but don't be a dick about it.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/23/linus_torvalds_affirm...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
It's akin to saying "he's talking nonsense" when someone is just putting random syllables after each other.
If that is insulting, than the fact he took the action is the insult, not my pointing it out.
[flagged] Getting Called "Paid Actor" by Linus Torvalds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41929585 - Oct 23 2024 (24 comments)
[PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923749 - Oct 23 2024 (1 comment)
Re: [PATCH] Revert "MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to compliance" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41928532 - Oct 23 2024 (3 comments)
Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927838 - Oct 23 2024 (35 comments)
The situation is sad for individual contributors indeed. The overall backdrop does seem in line with sanctions requirements for ITAR, OFAC etc.
But it is one thing when it's "sorry man, nothing I can do" (as in his private conversations with senior maintenaners), and other thing entirely, when for all your good work you are being dealt with like that, no heads-up, no good-bye, instead you get these things Linus has said today. Like, seriously, it doesn't even matter if Linus hates Russians and truly personally thinks this is desirable to get rid of these maintainers, it is just a matter of human decency to not make it any more than it has to be against individual person that basically worked for you (for free). And even if you don't have any human decency, it still just would be smarter to play it more neutral. So, yeah, it was really even surprisingly ugly.
I agree the how should have been way better implemented. For the human enterprises that they are it certainly seems like insufficient consideration is often paid to that.
Better to have difficult conversations than pretend it will be okay and everyone will be fine. Sometimes people are just saving themselves by avoiding that. Unfortunately to the detriment of others!
In war time a lot of companies supply the country. The war is obviously no fault of his. But the leap to persecution is actually a more war-like attitude that is where we lose some of our humanity and decency, so it’s better to skip it.
I don't think it's persecution what Linus did, it is a necessity
Anyway, I feel sorry for you that you think that way. When abusing people based on their country becomes a necessity, we are not far from war.
When you lay the blame all on one side you justify war.
Anyway, the bigger picture is that no human society is free of war, blood and death. This is not a group-unique problem. It is a whole of humanity problem.
Keeping that in mind, i.e. the geopolitical version of the hacker news rule remember the human, might actually pave the path to peace.
To resolve a genuine conflict you probably need each party to take 100% responsibility.
One guy loses his "volunteer" position, which in fact he was being paid to do by either the Russian government or the Russian military (via Baikal Electronics).
The other side has missiles and drones falling on their cities.
Russia invaded, and again, and again, and again.
What should be done to make sure Linux is not involved in this bombing of civilians? At the very least, we should figure out which military contractors are involved, and which countries they are from.
Isreal maybe is not my cup of tea, but at least they have some justification for waging their war because they were attacked first. So Israel with all its faults is not in the same league with Russia.
Edit: typo
Citation needed.
[1]: common sense
But it was in the lower page 2, 10 minutes later page 4, so yes it is definitely a 'lame rug sweep attempt', all the "Maintainer removed" submissions in fact are suppressed, so i ask why is this? Is it not a:
[1] "What to Submit: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups."
EDIT: 2 minutes later away from page 1 and completely flagged with removed title (still thinking it's user-side flagging?)
EDIT: 2 minutes later away from page 1 and completely flagged with removed title (still thinking it's user-side flagging?)
I'm not sure what that means but things that drop off the fp and gain the [flagged] tag are just about always flagged by users. Flagged submissions lose rank through user flags long before they get tagged [flagged].
yes, that's effect of user flags. Just more of them came.
Things touching a highly-charged political matters (e.g., the Russo-Ukrainian war and sanctions regimes associated therewith), tend to attract user flags, perhaps in part because they are seen as likely political flamewar topics, or at least sources of unproductive discussion as interested parties from both sides descend to push their propaganda while blaming any negative karma on the posts from their side on a conspiracy of the opposing side to silence them rather than a response to their combative, hostile tone approach.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41934219
Page 1 with 27 points ;)
EDIT: 2 minutes later away from page 1 and completely flagged with removed title
Moreover, I am interested if this effects FreeBSD which is not run by corporates like Linux Foundation but is still US. And what about OpenBSD which is Canadian?
Because the code is thought still owned by the devs, I do not know how much difference that would make.
DW = DesignWare
0) this happened out of nowhere several years into sanctions
1) so some busybody probably reported Semin recently (the only person with non-.ru email address on the list) for past involvement with Baikal Electronics (on sanctions since 2022-09-15) - reported to LinuxFoundation or to authorities
2) LF lawyered up and out of abundance of caution removed all .ru email domain users from MAINTAINERS, since lawyers probably tell them this covers them for now, without having to deep dive into every apparently Russia associated developer
3) mailing list shitshow after top handlers of this situation went all contemptuous to concerned mailing list contributors, who all saw very obvious targetting of all .ru and .ru email holders only without reason (OFAC list is public, and they're not there)
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/2024101835-tiptop-blip-09ed@greg...