Asklemmy

Unfortunately no.

I remember the selinux controversy and the nsa trying to slip bad algorithms in.

I think the prestige of "maintainers" and contributions/control are what is being torn down. Anyone anywhere is still welcome to contribute, they are simply limited from direct control. They can still fork at any time, anyone can. Getting people to follow your fork is another thing entirely, and your open source code will still likely be incorporated directly or indirectly. The only thing that has changed is the misguided prestige that has grown around the project and is not a required or relevant part of the project as a whole.

This shows that no open-source project can really be directed from the US, or if they are then a fork should exist and be maintained by BRICS citizens who are obviously viewed as lesser, at least in the Linux project.

It's basically the same as me not installing that Flappy Bird copy because the dev is Russian. I don't trust it, even if the code is available to review.

We also learned a lot about trust with that file zip software a year or so ago. I don't remember the details of that, but open source doesn't automatically mean secure.

What happened this time?

Edit, answered elsewhere:

Recently, Linux removed several people from their organization that have Russian email addresses. Linus made a statement that confirmed this was done intentionally. I believe that there was some mention of following sanctions on Russia due to the war. I haven’t looked into the details of it all, so take my analysis with a grain of salt. From what I understand, it sounded like it was only Russian maintainers that were removed and normal users submitting code from Russia can still contribute. Maintainers have elevated permissions and can control what code gets accepted into a project, meaning that a bad actor could allow some malicious code to sneak past. This may have also contributed to the decision since this type of attack has happened before and Russia seems like a likely culprit. The reactions to this change have been varied. Some people feel it is somewhat justified or reasonable, some people think that it means it is no longer open source, and some people think it is unfairly punishing Russian civilians (it is worth noting that that is part of the point of sanctions).

Hasn't changed my view much. I already knew Linux was a company that has a legal presence in the US and so would be subject to their laws. The only real surprise is that it's taken so long to action this particular set of sanctions.

I do think the announcement was poorly handled - it should have been explained either before or immediately afterwards to cut back on the conjecture. The git notice only said that these contributors' names had been removed from the credits, not that they'd been stopped from contributing completely. Any company, including Linux, that does something they know is going to be contentious like this should bloody well get ahead of that curve and put the facts out.

The world is at war. It's not a bloody world war as we've seen before, but it is nation against nation by other means. FOSS is used so widely it is absolutely a target and nobody can be so idealistic that they cannot see the conflict, nor not know that it's constantly being attacked. Where you live does matter. I wish that wasn't the case - I truly do, but it's naive in the extreme to pretend otherwise.

From what I understand this wasn't a decision dictated by sanctions nor was there any strongarming. Otherwise it would've happend way earlier.

I also think splitting politics and literally anything else doesn't work and is something people who benefit from the discussion (or lack therof) made up.

People are just waking up to the fact that theory isn't reality.

Yes. I always thought of sanctions as being finance-related, meaning you can't transact with sanctioned groups. I figured it couldn't apply to decision-making/membership in non-profit organizations (that it might somehow violate "free speech" or some shit). Finding out this is not the case is terrifying and one more reason to hate the US (not that we needed more). This might disincentivize some people to contribute to FOSS.

Everything be it software or anything else is beholden only to those who is the highest bidder. Being FOSS doesn't change anything. This has been true for some time now that Linux and TLF is duty bound to businesses running it.

It had been covert till now, it is the overtness of this action which is surprising to most. I for one am surprised it didnt happen sooner.

Well, in theory open source is immune to all that. However, the country a project is registered at, matters. That's why the RISC-V project, for example, took its headquarters from the US to Switzerland. For that exact reason: so no country could strong arm it, especially since Chinese were the major contributors to the project (Switzerland is not 100% neutral, but it's more neutral than other countries).

Nothing is devoid of global politics.

No

@[email protected] Views on the idea, no. But it confirmed my opinion that the current socio-economic system is unfriendly to FLOSS

So like what happened

No, only of Linux

@Artemis_Mystique No.

It changed my view on how true to their ideas some people are.

Just this one. The philosophy is still there, Linus and TLF have abandoned it with great hubris. I am very disappointed in them.

No.

Certain Open Source movements are pure bigotry and opportunism, the Linux Kernel / The Linux Foundation for example, so it doesn't really make me wonder.

I get that it's a nice daydream to think of open source projects as existing in some kind of independent, ethereal vacuum just because the code is out there and accessible from any place on Earth. But every software project is (mostly?) dependent on the jurisdiction in one country, in this case it's the US, and so their laws about sanctions and so on apply. And yes, this means that unless conflicts/wars between nations happen to cease, that we will eventually have completely separated blocks of politics/culture/military and also IT. Globalization is over. China will have their own stuff, Russia will have their own stuff, and US+EU will have their own stuff. And none of those countries should continue using high-tech products made by the other because they could be sabotaged and it might be hard to find, so it's best to not use them at all and just cook your own stuff. It's unfortunate, but bound to happen in the current state of the political world.