Russians have given up on Linux, but not all

This happened on October 18, but only now did the information reach the mass media. Phoronix writes that, according to sources, the founder of the operating system, Linus Torvalds, supported such a decision.

Apparently, the executor of this decision was the American programmer Greg Kroah-Hartman, who was responsible for maintaining a stable version of the operating system kernel. It issued a related update, citing “compliance requirements.”

According to the media, the emails of 10 of the 11 removed developers were located in the “ru” zone, while the 11th actually works for the company that produces Russian processors “Baikal”.

Interestingly, the notice sent to developers states, “They may return in the future if sufficient documentation is provided.” It is not known what kind of documents we are talking about, but there should probably be some kind of evidence of lack of connections with the Russian government and evidence of non-involvement in the war against Ukraine.

The code these Russians wrote will remain in the operating system kernel. For example, it is claimed that developers will not remove the compatibility of Linux with Russian equipment, especially Baikal processors. Also, as Radio Svoboda wrote, other citizens of Russia remained in the list of developers.

Possible causes

The exact reason for the Russians’ removal is not given, but we do have a few clues. Linus Torvalds, for example, wrote: “Okay, there are a lot of Russian trolls everywhere. It’s obvious why this change was made, it won’t be rolled back, and using a bunch of random anonymous accounts to try to ‘root’ the Russian troll factories won’t change anything, innocent observers not trolling the factory accounts : “various compliance requirements” are not just a chip on the part of the US. If you haven’t heard of Russian sanctions, try reading the news sometime. This does not mean state-sponsored Russian spam. Please use the nonsense you call me “supporting” Russian aggression. Did you think? This is not just a lack of real knowledge about history.

He also cites some “details” that were “told” to him and other executives by lawyers, but fails to elaborate. It seems that sanctions caused Russian developers to be kicked out of the Linux team.

Russians comment

Radio Svoboda quotes a programmer, one of eleven programmers.

No thanks, no thanks to the developers for all these years of dedicated work… Whatever the reason for the situation, don’t we deserve more?
– says Serhiy Semin.

Although there is currently no evidence or investigation that would subject the Russian government to interference in the development of the Linux operating system (e.g., the introduction of spyware or other malicious code), such an option cannot be ruled out given the country’s efforts. It damages every corner it is in.

• It is worth noting that this is not the first case where Russians were denied access to Linux development. Last year, we also reported that network driver patches were rejected on the grounds that they were developed by a Russian person/institution.
• Linux is an open source, free operating system. It was developed by unpaid volunteers from all over the world who work in their spare time. Anyone can submit their edits to the program code, and the main developers decide whether to implement or reject them.