Perhaps one of the more surprising changes in the 6.12-rc4 development kernel was the removal of several entries from the kernel's MAINTAINERS file. The patch performing the removal was sent (by Greg Kroah-Hartman) only to the patches@lists.linux.dev mailing list; the change was included in a char-misc drivers pull request with no particular mention.
The explanation for the removal is simply ""various compliance requirements"". Given that the developers involved all appear to be of Russian origin, it is not too hard to imagine what sort of compliance is involved here. There has, however, been no public posting of the policy that required the removal of these entries.
An early comment likely pins down the prevailing institutional pressures leading to this decision
What's the deal with an international project adhering to what is obviously a decision of the US government?
Hint: The Linux Foundation (which notably employs Greg KH and Torvalds, and provides a lot of the legal and other infrastructure for this "international project") is based in the US, and therefore has to follow US laws.
This is pretty fucked up. Like, we might see the kernel forked in the coming months/years.
See also: Phoronix: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted
All Russians are Hamas energy.
Also love that reactionary bit about being Finnish, and history. One of the users in the commit comments took issue with it too, maybe you saw this one already:
A few more good ones that resonate with me:
edit: replaced screenshots with darkmode versions
Everyone who disagrees with me is hamas/russiantrollfarm/chinesebot/$$nexttargetparameter$$
Russia gave 60 bucks to Cambridge Analytica in 2016 and now expressing anything but absolute bloodlust for citizens of NATO adversary countries activates hundreds of Rachel Maddow sleeper agents accusing you of being a Selenium script.
I'm glad I'm not the only one considering the long term viability of Linux.
Even if you think this is good in the short term this is going to be escalated in the future. what about when (not if, when) other BRICS countries get added to the list?
Would you celebrate Brazil being banned from "American" technologies? India? what if a country in Europe turns on American geopolitics? What if (or, when) GPL software was leveraged against Italy to force them to restart weapons trading with Israel? Or leveraged against South Africa to drop (or neuter) its ICJ campaign?
The US is clearly making a stand that is untenable even if it is acceptable to you (hypothetical redditors/.world user) personally for this one moment.