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Did the recent Linux drama change your views on how you perceived Open Source projects? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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] 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

So like what happened

[–] ObsidianNebula 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Recently, Linux removed several people from their organization that have Russian email addresses. Linus made a statement that confirmed this was done intentionally. I believe that there was some mention of following sanctions on Russia due to the war. I haven't looked into the details of it all, so take my analysis with a grain of salt. From what I understand, it sounded like it was only Russian maintainers that were removed and normal users submitting code from Russia can still contribute. Maintainers have elevated permissions and can control what code gets accepted into a project, meaning that a bad actor could allow some malicious code to sneak past. This may have also contributed to the decision since this type of attack has happened before and Russia seems like a likely culprit. The reactions to this change have been varied. Some people feel it is somewhat justified or reasonable, some people think that it means it is no longer open source, and some people think it is unfairly punishing Russian civilians (it is worth noting that that is part of the point of sanctions).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

As per usual, the discussion of the Linux drama far exceeds the actual drama. I'm guessing most of those people will still contribute.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Nothing is devoid of global politics.

Russian maintainers were unceremoniously kicked out citing compliance issues.