370
Phoronix: Several Linux Kernel Driver Maintainers Removed Due To Their Association To Russia
(www.phoronix.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
370 points (98.2% liked)
Linux
47826 readers
1504 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Linus Torvalds Confirms Decision to Remove Maintainers from Russia
You couldn't come up with a more powerful spit in the direction of FOSS. And from Linus, who is now kind of showing f*ck to the entire community. Here you have freedom, openness and all that. Today they just wiped their ass with it, and by one of the founders.
This is the moment when the split politics, dirty ones from all sides, have penetrated into the very heart of OpenSource - into the Linux kernel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_YozYt8l-g
.
Why force your political beliefs on something that has nothing to do with?
Unfortunately, Russia would not hesitate a second to use these Russian maintainers to include some shady stuff into Linux. Russia used everything they can to their advantage.
Now, we can wait for that to happen and have all sorts of issues when some backdoor gets distributed on a massive scale on a lot of Linux systems, or we can be realistic about the situation and take action before that.
I would not trust anyone from China to work in FOSS either, since they are exactly the same.
Yeah better discriminate based on nationality /s. But why stop at that? Poor people are too easily bribed can't have them. I hear the CIA recruits from top US universities, can't trust those college grads either. Anyone belonging to some homophobic church or religious group? Better not what if they're closeted gay and get blackmailed? Anyone in a monogamous relationship should be excluded for the same reason, if you think about it. *tips forehead*
If we follow through with it, I would absolutely never ever trust anyone from the US, for example. US is very much known for cyber espionage and shady operations, and could absolutely backdoor Linux.
This is all power play, and it comes from a very certain direction amidst this political struggle.
You want your open source code not to have backdoors? Review it meticulously. This is really the only way, and the one an entire open-source community relies on - pretty successfully, by the way.
by this logic it turns out that the code quality control system is built in such a way that if someone has malicious intent and wants to add malicious code, but is not affiliated with dubious structures, then he will easily succeed? Hey, what about enough eyeballs and shallow bugs?
If only there was some sort of review process for code to get into the kernel...
@MrAlternateTape @fireshell <sarcasm>But Stuxnet proves nobody in the United States would do that.</sarcasm>
Software still has to follow legal rules, like when some distros removed stuff to be ITAR /EAR compliant for shipping across borders
Nothing is stopping Russia from taking the Open Source kernel and developing it themselves
@BCsven @fireshell Or Linus from moving the organization back to Finland, or Iceland, or Switzerland, or some other more neutral territory.
Kernel cannot follow or not follow any legal rules. Linux Foundation can.
And if regulations become a serious issue and go against the spirit of open-source, it is time to move the Foundation somewhere else.
the foundation should have moved long ago but I think Linus' personal adoration of the US is going to get in the way of that.
@Allero @BCsven That was the point I was making when I suggest back to Finland or perhaps Iceland or Switzerland.
Agreed with you!