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.

  • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
    4536·
    6 days ago

    Also from that thread.

    Again, we’re really sorry it’s come to this, but all of the Linux infrastructure and a lot of its maintainers are in the US and we can’t ignore the requirements of US law. We are hoping that this action alone will be sufficient to satisfy the US Treasury department in charge of sanctions and we won’t also have to remove any existing patches.

    US law CAN’T apply on foreign ground, period. Nothing can. Just because they can bully their way around that, doesn’t mean they are right.

    And it should be only fair that Israeli maintainers be removed as well.

    They should also rethink their infrastructure policy and whether they still want it on US soil.

    This is all wishful thinking, I know, but this just goes to show you how they have absolutely no backbone whatsoever. As if anybody is gonna touch the Linux kernel and jeopardize the safety of millions of systems. We all know that is never going to happen, but they still bent over for the US… so typical… just goes to show you how little backbone everyone has, including Linus.

    Oh, and don’t get me started on the Russia/Finland history comment…

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      305·
      5 days ago

      Does everyone here just not understand how international sanctions work?

      As someone with a STEM degree in a STEM field, I’m consistently bummed out by how clearly silo’d my colleagues’ educations were. It is so plainly obvious as soon as you try to have a conversation with them about anything outside of their area of expertise.

      And don’t bother trying to correct or teach them anything, because in their minds, they’re smarter than you, and you have nothing worthwhile to teach them.

      This thread is full of software engineers with just no concept of how society functions, or even a basic understanding of the geopolitical context of any of this.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
        101·
        5 days ago

        I mean, if you’re in a STEM field you really should understand how sanctions work because they matter to your work and, thus, to you.

      • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
        210·
        4 days ago

        This thread is full of software engineers with just no concept of how society functions, or even a basic understanding of the geopolitical context of any of this.

        The whole idea of open source is that you can contribute without restrictions and regardless where you live.

        • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
          81·
          4 days ago

          That is not the whole idea. The whole idea is you can see the source code. There are plenty of Open source projects that are only one person and they don’t except help from anyone.

        • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          I don’t think free software/open source has ever guaranteed the ability to maintain a specific project. Only the freedom to modify the software. They haven’t been stripped of that core freedom from the GPL which is the closest thing there to what I think you’re talking about.

          • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
            11·
            3 days ago

            They have been stripped of a role because of a thing that has nothing to do with their competence to contribute to the project. Quality of code is all that matters in open source, not who you are or who you work for.

              • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                The reality is that there are many other wars around the world, yet the Russians are the only ones getting sanctioned. They should set an example by sanctioning everyone that currently works for a company that enables any military. Maybe then the world will see how stupid this whole thing is.

    • BCsven@lemmy.ca
      141·
      5 days ago

      If the company is in the USA they can restrict who you colloborate with. They also can control what you export as a oftware product under ITAR/EAR rules. It is why when some encryotion work had to be done the devs crossed the border into Canada to work on development, because under USA law encryption code is a controlled export product even if opensource

      • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
        64·
        4 days ago

        Then why in the hell was the LF founded in the US? That is something that clearly needs explaining. For example, Sweden is a much better place to do these sorts of things, their software laws are very liberal.

        Some of these things need to be rethought if you ask me, this is not something that should be left like this. If no one in the kernel, including Linus, doesn’t see a serious problem with “we have to move people around to code”, then most of these people are probably braindead… I’m sorry, but if it was me, once I found out I had to move devs around to code, I would have been “fuck this we’re moving the foundation”.

        • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          101·
          4 days ago

          You might be surprised to learn that Sweden also has sanctions against Russia, together with the rest of the EU, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, South Korea and a bunch of other countries. Because this is not about the US being an ass, it’s about Russia being an ass.

          • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 days ago

            You don’t get it. It’s the lack of transparency about kicking these people out, not the kicking these people out, that is the problem. Who made the decision?

            It makes sense to sanction Russia for being an ass but the way this was done doesn’t feel open, and many people sense it.

          • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
            23·
            4 days ago

            I wasn’t saying that Russia is not an ass, I was just saying that the whole point of open source is that it’s above borders and nationalities, religion, sexual orientation, etc. It should be an imperative to keep these core values, not bend over backwards when even no warning has been issued, which I’m fairly certain it would have never happened. And on top of that, Linus’es reaction to them being Russian, I mean… come on!

            • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              6·
              4 days ago

              I’m sorry but that is absolutely not “the whole point of open source”.

              The point of open source is the ability to read, modify, keep and share the source code of the software you use.

              • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
                1·
                4 days ago

                These projects are so big and complex that even with open-code a malicious actor is sometimes able to insert damaging code. Who suddenly made this decision? Did the US government order them to do this? If the US government can order them to do this, can they order the elevated coding status of a “benevolent” contributor on the US government payroll who is then ordered to put in a very hard to detect exploit? Open code doesn’t mean exploit free, it means exploits are more likely to be patched.

            • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
              61·
              4 days ago

              Where does this idea the open source is not political and above boarders. Open source is very political in its nature.

              • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                Political as in freedom to contribute, not political as in “we’re banning devs because they work for someone we don’t like”.

                  • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
                    1·
                    3 days ago

                    Even if that is the case, that doesn’t mean that their code or the code they approve is garbage. I don’t care who you are or who you work for. What you do in your life outside of open source is your own business. Quality of code is what matters in open source.

        • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
          3·
          4 days ago

          It would be much better if the company were not in a place in which gag orders can be issued, leaving questions as to transparency.

          As it stands now, it isn’t clear if Linus is just “grouchy” about this with a unique personality or if the foundation got a NSL and can’t say anything. And that leads to questions about whether there were other NSLs other than this one and if it’s had an impact on the code.

          Exploits are so hard to detect sometimes if done well and often although they get patched… eventually… the damage is done prior to the patch. The US government, despite doing lots of good things, engages in torture. And even if the US government is the “good guy,” this leads to less trust in the open-source ecosystem, no matter what the justification.

        • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
          41·
          4 days ago

          Don’t know if it would help as there are international sanctions against Russia.

        • IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org
          2·
          4 days ago

          Thats a good point. I think its probably because most of the corporations who fund and contribute to the kernel are American, and coordinating financial and physical contributions would be complicated across borders. Just a hypothesis though.

          • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
            21·
            4 days ago

            But moving people around to code isn’t 🤨? I’m sure it far easier to justify a donation than to book plane tickets and find places for the devs where to stay. And to be perfectly honest, the whole point of open source is “you can contribute from anywhere”. The first time I would’ve encountered the move people around problem, I would have been “this is not the point of open source, it goes against the very spirit of it, we have to do something about this”.

        • BCsven@lemmy.ca
          1·
          4 days ago

          I agree it might be better elsewhere. (Like how my preference is Protonmail being hosted by a neutral country based company) But so I don’t mislead, my encryption example was generic, not specific to linux kernel…however any novel encryption does have to be noted to NSA and other organizarions in the USA. Canada has something similar but it appeared less strigent, and adjustments have been made between the bordering countries. I personally diaagree that encryption should have government hand in it, it solves nothing. A foreign state actor wanting to send encrypted communications to overthrow another entity isn’t going to follow software laws anyway.

          • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            Like how my preference is Protonmail being hosted by a neutral country based company

            I also use Protonmail because of this. Sure, the free plan is not really great, but I only keep important stuff, so I don’t get over the 500MB limit, I delete or archive the rest.

            kernel…however any novel encryption does have to be noted to NSA and other organizarions in the USA

            That may be true, but only if you’re a US citizen. For example, my country doesn’t have such regulations. In the end, if it’s open source, it shouldn’t matter whether I report stuff like that to any organization. It’s open source, look it up, it’s on a git repo online freely for everyone to review the code.

            A foreign state actor wanting to send encrypted communications to overthrow another entity isn’t going to follow software laws anyway.

            Exactly. As if hacking and DDOSing are legal 😒. It’s just throwing money away on some people doing pointless things.

            On the other hand, having a ln encryption technologies taskforce makes sense IMO. Watching over what’s going on in the open source world regarding cryptography, yeah, that is something that can actually be useful… for the country’s cyber-security I mean.

    • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
      42·
      4 days ago

      Israel is not against the US at this point. Russia and the US are in a war with Ukraine being the middle man. Look at what the US did to Hauwei sanctioned it and forbid any us company from doing business with it. Basically none of the world could use the phones. All the tech the world is using is American so they get to say what any country can do.

      • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubOPEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        What? Almost none of the tech where I live is from the US. Not to mention that Samsung is the biggest contender to Apple in the US and they’re more or less 50/50 with market share ATM.

        The US is losing the war on world domination, something they were winning the past century or so, and they don’t like that. That’s basically the only reason any of this is happening. The war is just an excuse. As always, they would rather have Russia and China out of the picture than having to compete with them… because they can’t, especially not with China.