this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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I for one am going through quite a culture shock. I always assumed the nature of FOSS software made it immune to be confined within the policies of nations; I guess if one day the government of USA starts to think that its a security concers for china to use and contribute to core opensource software created by its citizens or based in their boundaries, they might strongarm FOSS communities and projects to make their software exclude them in someway or worse declare GPL software a threat to national security.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Nothing is devoid of global politics.

Russian maintainers were unceremoniously kicked out citing compliance issues.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Unfortunately no.

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I'm out of the loop, what's the recent Linux drama? If you don't wanna type it out, you can point me in the right direction. Thanks. :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Torvalds kicked out a bunch of Russia-based kernel maintainers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

For additional context, this was not a choice, but a requirement. The Linux Foundation is US based, and Torvalds is a US citizen. This was required due to current US sanctions against Russia, and was not just some sort of "Russia bad" thing from Torvalds that a lot of people are framing it as.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

and was not just some sort of "Russia bad" thing from Torvalds

The way he announced it and responded to the critics very much made it seem like that. He legitimately needs to shut the fuck up and get a PR person to talk in his stead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

this was not a choice, but a requirement

It has been framed as such, but no evidence has been given that it was a requirement

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Yes, bad actors can exist everywhere, it doesn't really help anything but fragment the project and harm it, do we need multiple directed forks ? Fuck no it will be best if everyone can monitor and contribute, I kind of think of it as they do peer reviewing in research and shit, it's always better when more people can view it, that will leave less room for biasing and frankly detect bad actors easily

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Nothing is devoid of global politics.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

There was more drama? I didn't even notice. They're always doing drama.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I just wanted to say that I have the same questions, and it's a relief to see it posted by someone with more courage. I'm too ignorant to contribute to the discussion though. I don't know how a government or private entity could pressure a FOSS project in this way, unless that pressure was put on the project's git platform. At which point the repo just moves elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

FOSS does not mean:

  • Community owned: Linux is owned by the Linux Foundation, a legal entity of the United States and subject to it's laws.
  • Obliged to accept all contributions: The owner is free to accept or reject contributions for any reason.

Nothing changed except some people are no longer responsible for maintaining parts of the source tree. Their delegated power to accept contributions was removed. They can still propose changes, but they will be reviewed by others who aren't subject aren't at risk of Russian state influence.

This isn't saying they've done anything wrong, or that they are currently under state influence, but now that they no longer have maintainer privileges the chance of the FSB knocking on their door has probably dropped 90%.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

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

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