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.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    6141·
    2 months ago

    But folks who work for US companies building weapons for Israel are totes okay?

    It’s honestly fucking wild that an internationally developed open source project has to play by the US government’s rules when the US government is out here helping commit genocide right the fuck now.

    Like, look in the fucking mirror on this why don’t you.

    Maybe the better rule is that if you work for a company that produces weaponry for war you shouldn’t be allowed to contribute, period.

    • Orygin@sh.itjust.works
      588·
      2 months ago

      Wow, I didn’t know that being a Linux/open source contributor meant you don’t have to follow your country’s laws.

      It’s developed internationally but devs still reside somewhere and have to abide by the rules at that place. Linux in this case being represented by an US entity means they have to follow the gov’s sanctions. If you want more or less of those, that’s where (the government) you act.

      • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
        12·
        2 months ago

        This isn’t about them being kicked out, this is about the fact we don’t know the process that resulted in this. Was this a decision Linus made after a night coding and thinking about the world? Was the foundation ordered to do it?

        It lacks transparency into the process even if the outcome is fine and the way it was done doesn’t feel transparent, even if it makes sense not to include Russian coders in the project.

    • kbal@fedia.io
      3811·
      2 months ago

      You may be amazed to learn that there aren’t many international sanctions against the USA at this time, but I imagine you could probably get into legal trouble for collaborating with Americans if you’re in, I don’t know, North Korea maybe.

      • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3716·
        2 months ago

        You may be amazed to learn that the reason there aren’t many international sanctions against the USA at this time is not because the USA is a beacon of peace, freedom, democracy, and national sovereignty. Because the US is very much not that.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        216·
        2 months ago

        It’s crazy how the US Treasury isn’t sanctioning companies for working on US government approved contracts. /s

            • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
              193·
              2 months ago

              U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

              • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
                94·
                2 months ago

                Yes and? You keep arguing against things I’m not saying.

                I’d be perfectly happy if we told Bibi to fuck off. But the US government isn’t going to impose sanctions on itself.

            • actually@lemmy.world
              81·
              2 months ago

              The genocide has such wide support in the USA community and defense companies ( irregardless of the louder minority of people protesting it)

              That if there were justice, then many other people and organizations would have similar treatment and be kicked

              We can’t get away from politics, or limits, but if I will point out the hypocrisy

        • kbal@fedia.io
          1910·
          2 months ago

          Address your complaints to the government of the USA. Or, if you have the right to do so, cast a vote in the upcoming election there to prevent it taking a big step in the opposite direction from a world in which it might consider anything like similar sanctions against Israel.

          • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1811·
            2 months ago

            “Write a stern letter to a foreign government” and “Vote against ‘very probable 101% genocide’ and for ‘proven 100% genocide’” are some weak tea, and beside the point being made.

            • kbal@fedia.io
              127·
              2 months ago

              Your particular complaints are better addressed to almighty God I suppose. So long as you don’t blame linux kernel devs for them it’s all the same to me.

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              44·
              2 months ago

              Oh look, a bad faith argument about the upcoming election from someone who I’ve tagged for making bad faith arguments about the upcoming election. Fun.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        6·
        2 months ago

        What are you even trying to say here?

        Do you think you’ve unraveled some massive conspiracy simply by learning about the existence of Western hegemony?

    • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
      134·
      2 months ago

      Maybe the better rule is that if you work for a company that produces weaponry for war you shouldn’t be allowed to contribute, period.

      This is something I can actually get behind on.

      But, you see, there is just one teeency weeency tiny problem with that. They spend trucks of cash on whatever they deem will give them what they want, including funding organizations that they profit from.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      92·
      2 months ago

      But folks who work for US companies building weapons for Israel are totes okay?

      Who here said this?

    • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
      11·
      2 months ago

      You want the World Bank to bail out your economy post-pandemic, you gotta accede to some tough demands