Comment by pvaldes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pvaldes | Hacker News Reader

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> Linux has joined the dark side too. Banning people based on nationality

"Linux" is not banning anybody. They must comply with the sanctions against Putin regime that many governments in the world raised, in response to insane Putin's behavior.

Linux is not banning people based on nationality, is banning people based on their employers that is a different question. Linux has every right to ban somebody that would be working for a cartel, for example. This is a win-win for the people banned also, because protects them to be targeted and forced by the Russian regime to participate on war crimes.

Calling about "mafreedom!" and "your lack of ethics" just looks deranged and out of the reality. "mafreedom to kill you (and you must help me to build the bombs or are a very bad guy)" is preschool level material. Not even funny as a joke. They really think that we are so stupid?

> Linux lacks ethics

Since 2022 the Russian president is sending 1000 Russians a day to a sure death, could stop the carnage at any time, and couldn't care less about it. Most Russians support him and don't care also. I will not accept any lesson on ethics.

Maybe you should be banned from this discussion forum? After all, you are from the same country that dropped atomic bombs on civilians and remains the only country in history to have done so. Any lesson on ethics from an American is by definition facetious, right?

> Since 2022 the Russian president is sending 1000 Russians a day to a sure death, could stop the carnage at any time, and couldn't care less about it. Most Russians support him and don't care also. I will not accept any lesson on ethics.

Could you spell out the exact relevant conditions that you believe disqualify someone from delivering a "lesson on ethics"? It seems a priori unlikely that you could find criteria that are not obviously tortured and self-serving while also granting this qualification to a typical US citizen, especially one who has worked for any major tech company (as is the case for many posters here).

> This is a win-win for the people banned also, because they are in a vulnerable position to be forced by the Russian regime to commit crimes.

Nonsense.

If your concern is that a maintainer might be strongarmed into getting surreptitious changes in the linux kernel, that's a misplaced concern because:

1- the maintainer in question didn't have access to approve changes across the whole linux kernel, but only on the drivers that they were maintaining (mainly Baikal electronics hardware, I assume. I.e. the Russian government could sabotage the drivers for hardware developed inside Russia itself, not exactly something that we'd truly have to worry about)

2- just because an individual, working in the open and with a clear/known identity (and association with a bankrupt Russian hardware design firm) has been excluded, it doesn't mean that a government might give up trying to sneak in changes. They can just create new personas (just like with "Jia Tan" of xz fame)

I understand that the Linux kernel got their hand forced, but this is just stopping a volunteer from contributing (and feeling welcome), in an open source project in which they had been involved for several years. It's a win for the Linux kernel (because they are not going to get a slap on their wrists), but it's not a win for the affected individuals

To elaborate, if you're genuinely thinking that:

1- the affected maintainer has any concern of potentially being strongarmed

2- the affected maintainer appreciates being excluded from a project in which they worked on for several years

Just read their goodbye message in lkml:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2m53bmuzemamzc4jzk2bj7tli22ruaa...

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