Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers

Status
Not open for further replies.
We know nothing about this except for some vague justification. This is not to say there was no justification, nor does it say anything that there was justification. The fact that a vague statement was made to back up their action is expected. These kinds of things could be shrouded behind an NDA.

To reiterate, their non-statement is expected in this circumstance. And, we know nothing. Speculation here will only feed more speculation. Speculation like this could even damage the FreeBSD project. I think we should keep our opinions to ourselves and this topic should be closed to any further comment.
 
kpedersen said:
For one I think it is mad that the foundation website is better maintained than the project website itself.
Click to expand...
This is a bit off topic, but I'm curious - what makes you think that? The project's website is a marvel - lightweight and fully functional, with no need for JavaScript. I can't offer the same praise for the foundation's.
 
JohnK said:
I'm reading about "foundation driving this/that" is a bit of a taste of "real life". I'm just going to go back to my thoughts that it works like:

"I'm BSD. Hey, I'm an engineer and it would be cool if XYZ ... let me just use my super-foo-brain and code this up in three lines ... *boom goes the awesome*"
Click to expand...
This is another aspect where FreeBSD is a compromise between Linux and OpenBSD.

Unlike OpenBSD, the FreeBSD foundation can be "slightly lobbied" ;)
Whereas the DARPA funding incident as demonstrated by OpenBSD would never have happened with the Linux Foundation. They would bow down for any penny!

eseipi said:
This is a bit off topic, but I'm curious - what makes you think that? The project's website is a marvel - lightweight and fully functional, with no need for JavaScript. I can't offer the same praise for the foundation's.
Click to expand...
If you resize the main FreeBSD website it becomes an overlapping layout mess. A lightweight and fully functional website still shouldn't do that.

Check out the OpenBSD one for an example of a well maintained site (it may look the same but the code behind it has changed quite a lot over the years. A complete overhaul from HTML4 tables to CSS tables 2 years ago).

Yes, the FreeBSD foundation website (and docs) is heavy and unsuitable for every non-commercial browser. I'm sure I don't want to know how much they spent on it. They outsourced it to an external company rather than it being a community project. The external company is Giant Rabbit, who specialize in fund raising and advocacy.
 
Although these projects are based in the US, they are international in it's development. Geopolitics should stay out of open source development. This nonsense is going fracture and split the Linux community. There is something to be said about 501c3 (used by the FreeBSD Foundation) vs 501c6 utilized by the Linux Foundation also. The former seems to be more in tune and closely involved in its community; non-subject to corporate pressure IMO. The BSD license shines here too in these types of scenarios. There's definitely some political maneuvering done by those lawyers to strong-arm Linus into making such an abrasive decision. I don't think he has as much control of the kernel as we were led to believe.
 
kpedersen said:
This is another aspect where FreeBSD is a compromise between Linux and OpenBSD.

Unlike OpenBSD, the FreeBSD foundation can be "slightly lobbied" ;)
Whereas the DARPA funding incident as demonstrated by OpenBSD would never have happened with the Linux Foundation. They would bow down for any penny!
Click to expand...

The FreeBSD Foundation is based in the US. OpenBSD is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Different country, different laws.
 
cy@ said:
The FreeBSD Foundation is based in the US. OpenBSD is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Different country, different laws.
Click to expand...
Indeed. This offers *some* protection for things like encryption exports. Though I fail to see how different laws force an open-source foundation to be more corruptable and greedy (in the case of the Linux Foundation).
 
kpedersen said:
Indeed. This offers *some* protection for things like encryption exports. Though I fail to see how different laws force an open-source foundation to be more corruptable and greedy (in the case of the Linux Foundation).
Click to expand...
You don't know the backstory and neither do I. Don't speculate. We know squat.

Maybe more will come out in the next few days. Maybe this is a bigger story. Maybe not. We don't know. All we have is one data point. And to speculate like this is foolish.
 
I do agree with cy@ that this is a bigger story.

I suspect that some TLF lawyers told Linus/Greg/etc. that if Linux wouldn't get rid of people with ties with Russian companies subjected to sanctions those sanctions would sooner or later apply to Linux itself, with a possible disastrous outcome.

But this is just my opinion, I don't have any proof of that of course.
 
cy@ said:
You don't know the backstory and neither do I. Don't speculate. We know squat.

Maybe more will come out in the next few days. Maybe this is a bigger story. Maybe not. We don't know. All we have is one data point. And to speculate like this is foolish.
Click to expand...

Of course. It's near impossible to unseal what could possibly be under an NDA. But we can extrapolate context from behavior; especially given the current geo-political landscape. Stuff like this reeks of sketchy lawfare IMO. Keep politics out of it.

Over-the-counter ambiguity from GKH doesn't really help the community either. I hate s**t like that.
 
cy@ said:
You don't know the backstory and neither do I. Don't speculate. We know squat.
Click to expand...
I wasn't referring to the recent situation (I believe that to be quite clear through my previous posts). I find the Linux Foundation (and many foundations in general) to be quite greedy in general and detrimental to the projects they were intended to nurture.
 
You can still speculate in the "extrapolation." Would it be "lawfare" if the lawyer was just like "allowing patches from entities known to bankroll civillian cyberwarfare creates a liability risk"? Oh no, terrible insurance regimes...
 
msplsh said:
You can still speculate in the "extrapolation." Would it be "lawfare" if the lawyer was just like "allowing patches from entities known to bankroll civillian cyberwarfare creates a liability risk"? Oh no, terrible insurance regimes...
Click to expand...

Hypocrisy and exceptionalism. This is no better than the international atrocities committed by G7 or the CCP. Keep politics out of it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top