Russia Mulls Forking Linux in Response to Developer Exclusions (cyberinsider.com)

submitted 2 months ago by ahriboy@lemmygrad.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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[-] ganymede@lemmy.ml 33 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

personally i don't agree with sanctioning foss communities.

but fuckit, bring on more forks i say.

among other benefits, the scifi-type scenario of nations trying to patch eachothers backdoors and slip in new backdoors (and hopefully innovations). could make for an exciting OS space-race type scenario

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk -4 points 2 months ago

personally i don't agree with sanctioning foss communities.

Foss communities aren't being sanctioned. Whole countries are. It's the same limitation whatever enterprise you're in.

If Olympians have to renounce their country to take part in global competition, why do you not think a software developer wouldn't have to do the same to be involved in a global project?

[-] ganymede@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

this is a complex topic and probably belongs in a different thread.

essentially i don't personally believe in punishing citizens of a country for the actions of its politicians.

at best its misguided, at worse it basically empowers politicians on both sides who draw power from friction between citizens of different nations. typical divide and conquer bs.

why do you not think a software developer wouldn’t have to

wouldn't or shouldn't? if you mean wouldn't, it's not surprising and its not the dev's fault they have to comply with policy, so the criticism is not with them.

if you mean shouldn't, i don't agree with punishing athletes either, but regarding foss specifically, isn't the "friendly competition" of olympics equivalent to that? sort of. in some ways yes. in other ways its actually the opposite.

collaboration is actually the opposite of competition.

and while there's a case for the benefits of healthy sports competition, i don't believe it truly fulfills the spirit of international goodwill to the degree it says on the packaging. foss and other forms of international collaboration for the betterment of greater society are definitely on a higher rung - in my opinion at least.

[-] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

Probably better for BRICS countries to consider contributing to something different.

Realistically there's no feasible way for the US to block access to use the kernel, and even a soft fork of it will be laughably easy for glowies to exploit. There are a bunch of promising kernels that could be well suited for China and Russia's push towards RISC and ARM independence, whereas in Linux they'd be tasked with maintaining drivers and other systems that are a massive security vulnerability if you don't have total control over them.

I'd honestly even consider it a good idea for Russia to get the FSF to fight this considering it's a blatant violation of the GPL. Even if the president can just say whatever they like, at least you can make it embarrassing and expensive for the chauvinists gloating at the labour they exploited for years.

[-] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 13 points 2 months ago

I'd honestly even consider it a good idea for Russia to get the FSF to fight this considering it's a blatant violation of the GPL.

How is telling someone that you won’t accept their contributions anymore a violation of the GPL?

[-] velox_vulnus@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago

It'll be called BRICS Linux.

[+] JustMarkov@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

[deleted]

[-] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 5 points 2 months ago

What “not at all free dogmas” are you referencing, and why is “free” in scare quotes?

[+] JustMarkov@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

[deleted]

[-] gomp@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 months ago

First of all, saying "based on their country of residence" is either grossly uninformed or (most probably) plain dishonest.

Ignoring that, the GPL-freedoms of companies subject to sanctions are still preserved, so.... having established that your "free" is not the same "free" as in "free and open source software", what the hell are you talking about?

[-] IRQBreaker@startrek.website -1 points 2 months ago

You do know that the maintainers delisted worked for russian companies that was sanctioned by the west? And if you feel somehow wronged by this, you are always more than welcome to emigrate to a country that aligns with your worldview.

[-] hedgehog@ttrpg.network -5 points 2 months ago

First, you’re acting like the decision was made by Linus or another member of the team and that they weren’t following the law.

Second, even if that weren’t the case, it’s still completely free. Unless you can name one of the following freedoms that was impacted by those actions:

Freedom 0: The freedom to use the program for any purpose.
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

[-] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

All of those freedoms were directly impacted bozo.

And as for "Linus didn't do it", not only did they choose to comply with an order that directly violated the GPL, but in doing so he then followed up by gloating about Russian maintainers who have worked diligently on the kernel for years for the betterment of open software AND Linus' paycheck.

Calling your former volunteer contributors bots and state assets because of their home country is just straight up racist, especially when the only evidence of state-sponsored tampering in the Kernel has come from American institutions (that we even know of).

[-] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 months ago

Literally none of those freedoms were impacted. Everyone is still free to use the program as they wish, fork it, make changes, etc.. Linux doesn’t have a new license that says “anyone but Russians” can use it.

he then followed up by gloating about Russian maintainers

How did he gloat? He explained the change. If your complaint is that he was abrasive, I feel like you’re not familiar with Linus.

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.

Sounds a lot more like he’s frustrated than delighted to me.

Calling your former volunteer contributors bots

He didn’t call the contributors bots.

He called the people submitting reverts and complaining about those maintainers, who weren’t contributors themselves, “troll farm accounts.”

and state assets because of their home country

When did he call anyone a state asset? To be clear, being a troll or a paid actor doesn’t make you someone’s property.

He also explained that this was a legal matter:

> Again -- are you under any sort of NDA not to even refer to a list of
> these countries?

No, but I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to go into the details that
I - and other maintainers - were told by lawyers.

I'm also not going to start discussing legal issues with random
internet people who I seriously suspect are paid actors and/or have
been riled up by them.

[-] Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Check out the post history, this person is a Richard Stallman defender

[-] evanstucker@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago

Please don't...

Can we organize and force the Linux Foundation and/or OFAC to exclude open source software from these sanctions? Is anyone doing that yet?

[-] korbel@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

What would be the point of the sanctions then? If the Linux Foundation were against it they could move the infrastructure to an other jurisdiction which does not sanctize countries, that would carry a strong message. But if they refuse to do that, what's wrong with others' forking it and doing it? That's the point of opensource.

[-] scratchandgame@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

its quality will not be lower than usa linux, as they will pull latest development but not push back (to the linux list)

[+] uiiiq@lemm.ee -22 points 2 months ago

The fork has no hope of survival. Are you telling me Russia's Ministry of Digital Development can maintain a project of this size? lol, rofl even.

[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

They can pull patches from mainstream Linux if they can't keep up themselves. The project is big but not too big.

[-] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Disregarding the parent comment, but hosting a soft fork is easy enough but it'll quickly become a spaghetti mess of local patches that conflict with upstream changes. It's not like there's an argument for preserving access to Russia either since the nature of the kernel being hosted across torrent trackers makes it impossible to deny Linux to any one country.

It seems like the better solution (imo) is to work on a different kernel receptive of these maintainers, so that the companies employing them can still have a kernel that is developed for their use-cases whilst supporting projects that don't so openly collaborate with hostile states.

[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 months ago

whilst supporting projects that don't so openly collaborate with hostile states.

Geopolitical propaganda spotted. Reporting...

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

No, but they can host the infrastructure so that excluded developers (the ones that just so happen to be Russian) along with whomever will want (BRICS developers for instance) can surely contribute.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

Why wouldn't they be able to. Russia has a lot of tech talent, and tends to top programming competitions. Also, if this happened I imagine other countries like China would collaborate as well. China alone has a bigger population than all of the west, and a better education system to boot.

this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024

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