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Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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"Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.
It's entirely clear why the change was done, it's not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to "grass root" it by Russian troll factories isn't going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren't troll farm accounts - the "various compliance requirements" are not just a US thing.
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."
fuck yes. fuck russia. fuck russians.
Man, it's like you spend centuries brutalizing all your neighbors, if not outright conquering them and enforcing holocausts, and this is the thanks you get!
Putin:
No, it is appreciated. Just not in the way you want it to be.
fuck russians? fuck the Russian government and the people who support it, not all the russians.
"fuck the overwhelming majority of russians" doesn't have the same ring to it.
I have no problem with Russians, but I do have a problem with the Russian government, and that makes me suspect Russians due to the chance of the Russian government using its leverage to get them to do what they want. So I understand the move, but I'm saddened that FOSS gets sucked into international politics.
FOSS is inherently political, though, and an international collaboration like Linux is inherently internationally political. Allowing big corporations to influence the direction of the codebase? That's political. Allowing the free usage and distribution of the software to anybody for any purpose not otherwise afforded by existing copyright law? That's political. Collaborating with contributors from almost every country on Earth? That's political. Being headquartered in the United States? Again political. Creating a hierarchy with Linus Torvalds at the top? The definition of politics.
It feels like people only start screaming "that's politics though!" whenever it becomes political in a way that's controversial to them – without recognizing how completely pervasive politics are in every single aspect of our lives. The fact we're even talking on Lemmy right now is political – in all likelihood, we both decided that Reddit's system of governance was unfair and thought a federated system was somehow more ideal, in this case a platform created by outspoken authcoms. That's even disregarding the Internet which Lemmy sits on top of, including net neutrality, freedom of speech, the infrastructure connecting different jurisdictions, the way it came about through organizations like DARPA, CERN, the IEEE, and ICANN, etc.
It seems though that Linus didn't make this decision for political reasons, but instead because he doesn't want to get in trouble with the US government. He indicated that he was advised by lawyers to do this:
I agree that that's why he made the decision, but you understand how that's political, right?
He probably isn't too bothered by the sanctions given his comments about his Finnish nationality being a reason why he opposes Russian aggression. But still, it seems at the moment he's just trying to follow the law.
I agree, and I mean to say that following the law is a political statement in the same way that him standing up and protesting by not following the law would be a political statement. We're all political actors; it's just that the amount of power we have to enact political change varies.
Fair points. I guess I happen to think Linus's action is fair since I think the sanctioned companies are thought to be supporting Russia's invasion in some way.
No. Not fuck Russians as a blanket policy. The Russian government is full of corrupt and evil bastards, but it's certain that most Russians are the same as most other citizens; They just want to go about their business.
I'm in favor of blocking the Russian accounts, they're probably mostly state actors. The ones that aren't actively sabotaging the codebase are unfortunate causalities, but it's better than the alternative.
I’m really sad about this. There is a lot of computer science talent in Russia, and I’m very very upset that It Has Come To This.
But it very clearly has.
this is racism and bigotry
"Russian" is not an ethnicity to claim racism against.
Hostility toward someone nationality is racism to me. If it's not it sill equally bad.
That's not how words work. Ordinary Russians don't deserve blanket animosity or praise, yes. However, one can claim disliking Russians wholesale is bigotry, not racism. Words have definitions even if you pretend they don't so you can virtue signal on the internet.