• Context: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Russian-Linux-Maintainers-Drop
• Source: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=whNGNVnYHHSXUAsWds_MoZ-iEgRMQMxZZ0z-jY4uHT+Gg@mail.gmail.com/ CW: Russophobia, Finnish man speaks on politics

A group of maintainers with a “.ru” top level domain have been removed for “compliance issues” and that if they met those requirements they would be brought back in. People noticed and started voicing their concern.

• https://lore.kernel.org/all/20241023080935.2945-2-kexybiscuit@aosc.io/

This reverts commit 6e90b675cf942e50c70e8394dfb5862975c3b3b2.

An absolutely no-one-ever-reviewed patch, not even by the maintainers who got removed themselves - at least not on the mailing list. Then the patch just got slipped into an unrelated subsystem pull request, and got pulled by Torvalds with not even a comment.

What about the next time? Who next would be removed from the MAINTAINERS file, the kernel.org infrastructure? What if the compliance requires another XZ backdoor to be developed without further explanation? Is the kernel development process still done in public?

Are the “compliance requirements” documented on docs.kernel.org? Who are responsible for them? Are all that are responsible employees of The Linux Foundation, which is regulated by the U.S. legislature?

This specific email, (noticeably not from a .ru domain) elicited a negative reaction from Linus Torvalds, the leader of the Linux kernel

Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about.

It’s entirely clear why the change was done, it’s not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to “grass root” it by Russian troll factories isn’t going to change anything.

And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts - the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.

If you haven’t heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by “news”, I don’t mean Russian state-sponsored spam.

As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I’m Finnish. Did you think I’d be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it’s not just lack of real news, it’s lack of history knowledge too.

The Linux Foundation is a 501c non-profit organization based in San Francisco and is therefore under US jurisdiction. The Linux Foundation also receives support from the leading oligarchs of the US digital empire (Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Microsoft, etc.).

Going from Linus’ rash response to the foundation being stationed in the heart of the digital silicon valley empire, it’s more than likely that the Linux Foundation and the kernel maintainers are abiding by US-led sanctions against Russia. The Linux kernel’s lead developer aligns himself with the imperial core, and it seems he has no regrets doing so.

With the recent Israeli terrorist attack on Lebanon via remote detonated pagers (which have maimed children), the US is now cashing in its unchecked dominance on computer technology in its vain attempt to keep its empire afloat. The threats have now become actions. The Russian SMO has not gone well for the US-led NATO forces as the war begins to enter its 3rd year and the recent rise of the Chinese digital power has spooked the Silicon Valley oligarchs into acting.

What does this mean for GNU/Linux users and others using the Linux kernel?

The development of the kernel is fundamentally decentralized via the version-control program that Linus himself spearheaded: git. Most orgs keep their own git tree of the kernel and have their own development branches. The GNU Guix project also maintains/ships a completely libre kernel that removes all form of binary blobs (mostly for enabling yankee-made hardware, go figure). Unfortunately, it seems like all the people who lambasted the GNU Hurd project for being too slow and idealistic didn’t realize the danger of a singular monolithic kernel (pun not intended).

I doubt this means the introduction of backdoors (because why now? If backdoors were implemented they wouldn’t do it just now).

TL;DR

Linus Torvalds had the feds knock on his door and ask him to remove certain Russian maintainers, Torvalds, being a millionaire finnish neckbeard, gladly granted this request. Too bad he hasn’t gotten over his anger issues because his furious response only confirmed the yankee involvement and that Torvalds is not allowed to discuss this issue.