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.
Yes, it's a petty dispute. The US has done the same every 3-6 years for the last 200. It's a common occurrence for empires to do whatever they want. It has nothing to do with random citizens contributing to volunteer projects based in entirely disconnected countries.
The USA isn't in this discussion right now. Russia invaded Ukraine and is trying to kill Ukrainians to take over their country. Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't a petty dispute either. You tankies are shitty people.
If you want to rely in the logic that invading sovereign nations justifies this, you will have to discuss the US, the major instigator of war.
Sounds like you are just upset that your complete lack of consistency has been pointed out.
No this has nothing to do with the USA right now. It's a strawman to whip out the "but the USA" card. Russia has sanctions, they invaded a sovereign nation, and are willfully targeting civilians. They're fully against the west at this point, allowing them continued access to help build tools the west uses, is not only against the current sanctions, it's also a dumb security risk as well.
Here's you making excuses for removing all the Russians from the contributor list: "Russia invaded a sovereign nation...but that's a petty dispute...are you sure you're on the right instance? Sounds like you need to recreate your account here on ml..."
Your logic, if you can call it that, is that if the country you're from invades a sovereign nation, it makes sense to get kicked off the list. Guess which country invades sovereign nations every 3-6 years.
To make another point, of course the US is relevant, its government is the one making this exact thing happen.
No more excuses, champ. Gotta look reality straight in the face.
lol no it isn't.
Yes we all know this.
The US has invaded at least 4 sovereign nations in the last 21 years. It has bombed far more in that time, including couping Libya, turning it from the highest HDI country into a failed state with open air slave markets.
The RF has been comparatively less harsh on civilians. Look at what the US, NATO, and Israel do to civilians. They bomb residential buildings, pharmaceutical factories, hospitals, schools, buses, civilian infrastructure. Millions died in Iraq, about half children, in the 90s due to the US systematically destroying civilian infrastructure and then coordinsting tight sanctions.
And do you know what preceded the RF invasion? Ukraine ramping up its civilian shelling campaign in Donbas.
Given what the West does with its power that is a smart position to take.
Yes and? You're just admitting that this is a chauvinist political move headed by the United States.
It's not a security risk at all, the Linux team has tight review procedures and all of these people have been making contributions as maintainers. There were zero concerns raised about their code.
PS the US is not entitled to the world and every international project.
Treating all members of a nation as that nation is dangerous and stupid. According to that standard you're a racist, sexist, genocidal fascist who just kills anyone that doesn't let you exploit them, assuming you're American.
I don't give a shit about the Russian state. I'm not a tankie, I don't care about random petty disputes between empires and whoever pissed them off. Let the unrelated people collaborate on the things that represent the end of such empires in peace.
A full scale war on a sovereign nation is not a random petty dispute...the fuck is wrong with you?
It is quite a beefy and roided dispute, imo.
My issue with the dispute is that it has jack shit to do with Linux, Foss or the open source community and the consequences felt aren't against the people persecuting.
It's a missed shot. The Russian fuckarchy doesn't care if they get to contribute to Linux, or if they ever get to again, if they even know or care to notice in the first place.
The entire Linux community in Russia gets to suffer so a disapproving man in the Netherlands can wave his finger disapprovingly.
Is it worth it? Worth what? No one gets anything.
It's a security risk is how it's being looked at as well.