Official statement by Blender regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine
blender.org
blender.org
> On behalf of everyone in the blender.org organization I hereby fully and loudly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I do too. The issue is that this has nothing to do with the mission of the Blender Foundation, nor with free software. It's an important (in fact, more important) but different issue.
FLOSS organizations taking a political stance on completely unrelated issues is something we've seen many times. It's an issue because it becomes a "package deal": people should be able to put their forces (and their money) together towards a common goal without having to agree on any other issue.
The statement is one I agree with, but it belongs on a personal blog, not on blender.org. Those who support and endorse the Blender Foundation are expressing agreement with its mission, not with whatever other political view Ton (or others) may have, now or in the future.
I especially admired the Blender Foundation for its neutrality and focus on its mission, without failure for two decades. But now I think it has made the same mistake as other FLOSS organizations.
> Official statement by Blender regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[0]
> https://www.blender.org/press/the-war-in-ukraine/
This press-release published by Ton Roosendaal[1] (+ Blender's tweet also retweeted by Ton)
N.B. Ton Roosendaal said that “the product Blender should stay neutral”[2], but other FOSS projects contributors asking at least for posting supporting message from his own.[3]
FTR, Yorik van Havre (FreeCAD project lead) decided to help Russian to survive Internet isolation & sanctions.[4]
P.S. I'm Ukrainian living in Ukraine. Here is my statement for HN:[5]
+ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/app4soft
+ Verified Ways to Help Ukraine: https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/27/verified-ways-to-help...
[0] https://twitter.com/Blender/status/1501923221096079362
[1] https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal
[2] https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1501965776001110017
[3] https://twitter.com/SolveSpace/status/1502178134187122688
As for the statement (in support of Ukraine, against Russia), while I agree with it, I really believe it would rather belong on a personal blog, as a statement from individuals, since it's on a political topic unrelated to the Blender mission, thus without corrupting the neutrality of the organization.
At the same time, we should not blame a people for their government actions. We didn’t do it to Americans when the US invaded Iraq, we don’t blame Israelis when the IDF bombs Gaza, and we shouldn’t do it to Russians when so many risk their freedom to show support towards the Ukrainian people. We must acknowledge Russia is not a democracy and the actions of its government have little support from its people and the support it has was obtained through propaganda and misinformation.
For example, Alexander Prokoudine[0,1], author LibreArt/LibreGraphicsWorld[1] magazine (and contributor to GIMP and other FLOSS projetcs), even it looks like supporting Ukraine, internally for Russian speaking Linux-users auditory he joked about Crimea (Ukraine's sovereign territory occupied by Russia since February 20, 2014) that “[Russian] should give it back to [Arnold] Schwarzenegger:)” in 2015.[2]
Russian in whole should respond to do nothing to prevent actual war in last 8 years.
Even more, all Russian has 22 years to stop Putin.
No Russian should escape Russia and its sanctions — instead they all should fight with own Russian gov, as hard, as Ukrainian did it at Revolution of Dignity[3] in Ukraine, just before Russia started Russo-Ukrainian War[4] since February 20, 2014.
[1] https://twitter.com/lgworld
[2] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1500394792290766849
That guy may be an a*hole, but I wouldn’t say isolating him will help drive the realisation he’s wrong and hurting others.
Guess, You might just know nothing about Russian terror.[0]
Stalin’s Soviet Union was not a democracy. We don’t blame the German people for the Holocaust either.
To be honest, they has 8 years to learn something from 2014, but Russian propaganda catches them just via TV.
There was Internet in last 8 years, and years earlier, but Russian did nothing serious to stop actual invasion.
Nw, when they see that their Visa/MasterCard/PayPal does not work & Russia's gov blocked USD operations, they might understand something.
I has a friend, he is policemen working in Ukrainian Police in my city. He also has a brother, which is married with Russian girl. This brother moved to wife's home in Rostov region of Russia and now he is living there for less than 10 years.
On the first day (Feb 24, 2022 aka Day1) after first shelling all around Ukraine my friend policemen called to brother living in Russia to talk — brother in Russia repeatedly talking that "Russia was attacked by Ukraine!" — that was how propaganda already wins in Russia. Even mother, who I know too, tried to talk with her son actually in Russia, son living in Russia repeated that "You [Ukrainians] attacked us [he already recognized himself as Russian]".
There are a lot of such stories from families I know, in just one single city, and a lot more in all other cities in Ukraine, in the first days.
All such talks ends where Ukrainian families tired & angry fully blocks their Russian relatives phone numbers.
Of course, there was stories where relatives living in Russia fully understand what is going on, but even them can't do nothing just because Russia is actually a jail for all of them.
Keeping Internet open for Russian would not help Russian to organize at all.
Today Russia started isolate own Internet segment from inside - Russia's gov revealed own root certificate which should be.[0,1]
All servers which would not install this root cert would be locked and/or DDoS'ed by Russia's gov cyber forces.
[0] https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=56830
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20220311061258/https://www.openne...