This has nothing to do with open source. If Russians want to work on the Linux kernel, they’re absolutely free to do so, because the source code is free and open source. What they are being restricted from is getting their changes submitted to the normal Linux foundation trees. FOSS doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have the maintainer of a project look at your patches, it means you can use the software however you want.
And yeah, it makes me sad that Russian kernel maintainers are being excluded. That doesn’t mean it’s a violation of open source philosophies (a maintainer can exclude anyone they want for any reason), it just means it’s an unfortunate policy due to international sanctions.
I actually just emailed RMS about this and I’m genuinely curious what he says. If anyone else is interested, I’ll ask if he’s fine with me sharing some of the response.
“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
RMS on June 28th, 2003
"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "
RMS on June 5th, 2006
"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
None of those say it is good. I disagree with him, he also disagrees with him and apologized for saying that. But that is very different from saying its good. I don’t think alcohol is good, I also don’t think it should be illegal.
He said it’s a shame that paedophilia is outlawed and that it was narrow-mindedness that made it so.
He said it’s untrue that having sex with children harms them.
And yeah, he later apologised and said he doesn’t believe it anymore… 2 days after his job became on the line.
Ask yourself this:
A man has been publicly championing raping children for decades. Publicly. He firmly believes he should have the right to fuck children.
News media hears about this, and now his job seems untenable.
All of a sudden, the man claimed changed his mind, that he’s completely reversed his opinion (that he held for decades and publicly shouted to the world). In just 2 days, he’s gone from thinking it’s a tragedy that you can’t fuck children, to thinking fucking a child is bad.
Do you believe him? Or do you think he’s just saying anything he can to try to keep his job?
I don’t think alcohol is good, I also don’t think it should be illegal.
There’s a big difference between “it’s unfortunate that adults can’t fuck children, it really should be legalised. People against fucking toddlers are just bigots” and “well I don’t like alcohol, but I think it should be legal”
How you just equated raping a child and drinking a glass of wine is beyond me. Wow.
First of all, none of those things are saying its good.
Ask yourself this:
A man has been publicly championing raping children for decades. Publicly. He firmly believes he should have the right to fuck children.
I think you need to be more realistic about who he and others are and try to understand why they have the beliefs they do, a lot of them are differences in personal and social awareness/ability. An analogy(I know you struggle with these, sorry its just the way I communicate and explain my thoughts), but would you look at someone with dyslexia and use them struggling with reading as an excuse to completely invalidated their opinions and views on everything else?
Stallman has deeply ideological beliefs, one of them being radical freedom of choice. He looked at pedophilia through that, because that’s what his conception of the world(and therefore ability to perceive it) allows. To be totally blunt I think its an “autistic” struggling with understanding the feelings of others(that many on here and Reddit also have) that lead to him focusing on his ideological perspective. I think he “put himself in the shoes” of kids, and thought, “I want to be able to engage in consensual relationships” he didn’t consider that not everyone is him, or how he would feel in circumstances different from ones he’s experienced. This combined with his ideological conviction made him fail to understand how kids lack an ability to consent.
If he really apologized to keep his job, I don’t know. But he has and continues to say deeply controversial things that cost him opportunities. He also still leads Gnu and FSF. I think its possible he just was upset about the situation, talked to someone he trusts about why people are responding this way, and they explained it in a way he could understand and he changed his mind.
How you just equated raping a child and drinking a glass of wine is beyond me. Wow.
I did not equate them. But also don’t underestimate the damage alcohol has had on the world. Child rape is bad, I have never denied that.
My opinion on this whole topic: I don’t like the decision, a Free Software project should only prevent people from contributing in very rare occasions (e.g. having actively tried to sabotage the project). I don’t think this was the case, because I presume that the Linux Foundation was forced by the U.S. government to kick the maintainers out. The should’ve also communicated more clearly to prevent the confusion. (Russian trolls will cry out no matter how they phrased that.)
Russians aren’t restricted from getting their changes submitted, they just can’t be maintainers. This means that they need another maintainer to approve their changes, just like if you or me were to submit a change. A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what actually happened.
Because there are both US and EU laws preventing code from countries deemed a threat. Torvalds is paid by the Ameircan Linux Foundation, which has to work under US law and he himself is an EU citizen. Also a lot of other developers are from those countries and if they do not comply, they could get into some pretty bad legal trouble.
So it pretty much boils down to kick out the Russians or kick out all US and EU citizens and well we see Linus choice.
Do you also know Finland is next to russia and it does not have to be US influence for someone like Linus to know Russian gov can pressure developers? This change removes code commit not the contribution rights.
That’s the start, of course. One could always play good cop, bad cop: “I have to do this to comply with the law, sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.” What Linus has done here is play bad cop, bad cop: “the law says I have to obey sanctions, and by the way I support the sanctions and this move anyway.”
How is this keeping to open source philosophies in any way?
“No, you can’t work on this, you’re Russian.”
I don’t support the Russian Government or its actions in any way, but these devs are probably not part of it.
This has nothing to do with open source. If Russians want to work on the Linux kernel, they’re absolutely free to do so, because the source code is free and open source. What they are being restricted from is getting their changes submitted to the normal Linux foundation trees. FOSS doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have the maintainer of a project look at your patches, it means you can use the software however you want.
And yeah, it makes me sad that Russian kernel maintainers are being excluded. That doesn’t mean it’s a violation of open source philosophies (a maintainer can exclude anyone they want for any reason), it just means it’s an unfortunate policy due to international sanctions.
I actually just emailed RMS about this and I’m genuinely curious what he says. If anyone else is interested, I’ll ask if he’s fine with me sharing some of the response.
Just what we need. The opinions of someone who thinks having sex with children is a good thing.
He never said that. I agree he was more skeptical than I’d like, but he eventually was informed and apologized.
You are mistaken:
RMS on June 28th, 2003
RMS on June 5th, 2006
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
None of those say it is good. I disagree with him, he also disagrees with him and apologized for saying that. But that is very different from saying its good. I don’t think alcohol is good, I also don’t think it should be illegal.
Huh?
He said it’s a shame that paedophilia is outlawed and that it was narrow-mindedness that made it so.
He said it’s untrue that having sex with children harms them.
And yeah, he later apologised and said he doesn’t believe it anymore… 2 days after his job became on the line.
Ask yourself this:
A man has been publicly championing raping children for decades. Publicly. He firmly believes he should have the right to fuck children.
News media hears about this, and now his job seems untenable.
All of a sudden, the man claimed changed his mind, that he’s completely reversed his opinion (that he held for decades and publicly shouted to the world). In just 2 days, he’s gone from thinking it’s a tragedy that you can’t fuck children, to thinking fucking a child is bad.
Do you believe him? Or do you think he’s just saying anything he can to try to keep his job?
There’s a big difference between “it’s unfortunate that adults can’t fuck children, it really should be legalised. People against fucking toddlers are just bigots” and “well I don’t like alcohol, but I think it should be legal”
How you just equated raping a child and drinking a glass of wine is beyond me. Wow.
First of all, none of those things are saying its good.
I think you need to be more realistic about who he and others are and try to understand why they have the beliefs they do, a lot of them are differences in personal and social awareness/ability. An analogy(I know you struggle with these, sorry its just the way I communicate and explain my thoughts), but would you look at someone with dyslexia and use them struggling with reading as an excuse to completely invalidated their opinions and views on everything else?
Stallman has deeply ideological beliefs, one of them being radical freedom of choice. He looked at pedophilia through that, because that’s what his conception of the world(and therefore ability to perceive it) allows. To be totally blunt I think its an “autistic” struggling with understanding the feelings of others(that many on here and Reddit also have) that lead to him focusing on his ideological perspective. I think he “put himself in the shoes” of kids, and thought, “I want to be able to engage in consensual relationships” he didn’t consider that not everyone is him, or how he would feel in circumstances different from ones he’s experienced. This combined with his ideological conviction made him fail to understand how kids lack an ability to consent.
If he really apologized to keep his job, I don’t know. But he has and continues to say deeply controversial things that cost him opportunities. He also still leads Gnu and FSF. I think its possible he just was upset about the situation, talked to someone he trusts about why people are responding this way, and they explained it in a way he could understand and he changed his mind.
I did not equate them. But also don’t underestimate the damage alcohol has had on the world. Child rape is bad, I have never denied that.
Oh yes, an update would be really interesting! (Even though I agree with @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works in all points.)
My opinion on this whole topic: I don’t like the decision, a Free Software project should only prevent people from contributing in very rare occasions (e.g. having actively tried to sabotage the project). I don’t think this was the case, because I presume that the Linux Foundation was forced by the U.S. government to kick the maintainers out. The should’ve also communicated more clearly to prevent the confusion. (Russian trolls will cry out no matter how they phrased that.)
Russians aren’t restricted from getting their changes submitted, they just can’t be maintainers. This means that they need another maintainer to approve their changes, just like if you or me were to submit a change. A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what actually happened.
Because there are both US and EU laws preventing code from countries deemed a threat. Torvalds is paid by the Ameircan Linux Foundation, which has to work under US law and he himself is an EU citizen. Also a lot of other developers are from those countries and if they do not comply, they could get into some pretty bad legal trouble.
So it pretty much boils down to kick out the Russians or kick out all US and EU citizens and well we see Linus choice.
Do you also know Finland is next to russia and it does not have to be US influence for someone like Linus to know Russian gov can pressure developers? This change removes code commit not the contribution rights.
That’s the start, of course. One could always play good cop, bad cop: “I have to do this to comply with the law, sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.” What Linus has done here is play bad cop, bad cop: “the law says I have to obey sanctions, and by the way I support the sanctions and this move anyway.”
He didn’t banned the Russians when the war started, he could, and probably wanted, but didn’t so what’s your point?
risc-v saw this coming a while ago and moved to Switzerland to avoid it.
Switzerland is being routinely strong-armed these days.
😯🤔 maybe I should look that up, where exactly 😂would be fun to work on RISC-V
You can work on RISC-V wherever you are, just post your patches publicly so anyone can get them, regardless of their jurisdiction.
Yea, just checked their job board, most is remote anyway 😂
And it’s also FOSS, so there’s nothing stopping you from working on it w/o officially working for them.
I think people didn’t understand that I am joking 😅
It’s not that hard of a choice either ofc, given one is essentially required.