this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
369 points (97.7% liked)

Technology

58833 readers
4615 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (4 children)

The central project of open-source community closes doors to people based on nationality, and everyone is cheering...

Why? You seriously miss the implications of breaking the very basic principles of open source? You are ready to forgive literally anything if it is claimed to target Russia or Russians in any way?

For those of you who say about backdoors:

  • US is known to create the most complicated spy networks with myriads of backdoors. Where are the bans of the US maintainers?
  • Israel is a literal powerhouse of state-sanctioned spying software - Pegasus, as well as many less renowned programs, was created here. Any bans, anyone?
  • China is known for invasive software. Maybe ban them all too?

The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code. Threat actors can be anywhere - and Russia is not some unique threat location, nor was it banned with that justification - just "compliance requirements".

This is politics permeating the sacred place we all had. This is a giant threat to the community, and the way Linus framed it in his message is even more terrifying. This was never meant to happen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 minutes ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago)

The only reasonable way to avoid backdoors is to meticulously check the submitted code.

Which is the job of maintainers. Which now aren't Russian, any more. To the best of my knowledge the kernel is still accepting code from Russian citizens, ultimately not having Russians in maintainer roles isn't going to stop the FSB from infiltrating the kernel but it certainly does make it harder.

This also isn't in any way a judgement on the removed people, it's just that it so happens that if you're a Russian citizen you're quite vulnerable to wrench attacks. You could even say that the kernel org is protecting them from being used like that.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I’m actually shocked by how people are acting about this.

You see, it’s actually a really bad thing to ban devs from an open source project based on nationality over all else. “Oh, but they are state actors!!!” How do you know? Because they are Russian?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

Exactly! Being Russian doesn't mean having any political affiliation.

Moreover, even Russia the state is adopting Linux and is greatly disinterested in messing it up. If anything, this could really be the attack on Linux-reliant Russian infrastructure, but even then it most likely will be a reason for a fork, no more, no less.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Torvalds responses make clear he has spent too much time with the wrong people. Calling everyone paid actors is such an embarrassment to his own intelligence. When the linux kernel starts falling behind because of a lack of competent maintainers after banning any country that NATO isnt friends with, we will know that this is where it started and that people cheered.

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

Yeah, arguing that everyone disagreeing is a paid Russian troll is a cherry on top.