Russian developers blocked from contributing to FOSS tools

Code is being refused if it comes from developers in sanctioned Russian companies… but it's not clear if this is an effective move. Cui bono? The Reg has seen two recent incidents of Russian developers being blocked from public development of FOSS code. One was a refusal on the Linux kernel mailing list, the other a more …

[lglethal]

"can be viewed as somehow taking part, that part is definitely far less than what, say, BMW or Bosch took in WW2, yet nobody seems to have cancelled them or at least remembered what they've done, let alone their individual employees. "

That's some top grade whataboutism right there. Germany paid substantial reparations and saw large parts of their industry destroyed or taken during and after WW2. There is also no-one working at Bosch, BMW or any other German company today who was even alive during WW2, so pointing at those firms is just stupidtiy of the highest order.

One of the major points of sanctions is to make the citizens of the targeted country, not suffer ,but to not be able to carry on as if nothing is happening. Which is exactly what most Russians were trying to do before Putin's mass mobilisation effort (when hundreds of thousands fled Russia to avoid being called up, because they could no longer avoid the reality of war). Before that the vast majority of Russians pretended like nothing was happening or if it was, it was nothing to do with them. Refusing their code contributions is just another way to say, sorry but you cant pretend everything is normal.

People are dying due to one nations illegal invasion. Sometimes you have to take a stand, and if the only way Github and the Linux Kernel mailing list can do that is to say, sorry but we wont accept Russian contributions anymore, then why shouldnt they do it?

[beardman]

Yes, the citizens of Russia must start thinking what's wrong with their country and begin fixing it. They should not continue as if everything is normal.

Путин - хуйло!

[Anonymous Coward]

@beardman - Let the Russian people decide

instead of pressuring them. They know what they're doing, they've already been through two major revolutions.

[Bitbeisser]

Re: @beardman - Let the Russian people decide

But it seems they still haven't learned a thing...

[Zolko]

Re: @beardman - Let the Russian people decide

Or may-be they did, but what they learned doesn't correspond to your world view.

[Adair]

Re: @beardman - Let the Russian people decide

Yeah, they learned: keep your head down, unless you fancy ending up with a bullet in it, or at least a nice long holiday in the gulag.

[Anonymous Coward]

sure. Just like the citizens of the USA, UK, etc, should start changing theirs after their different invasions of all type of countries over the years. That has gone very well too,

[Tams]

Because they have?

It's called democracy, which has the pressure of the ballot box.

After the cock up that was Iraq (and Afghanistan), those involved haven't put significant boots on the ground anywhere. 'Nation building' for others had been thrown out

[Fazal Majid]

George W Bush was re-elected

So much for democratic accountability

[John H Woods]

Re: Iraq (and Afghanistan)

Chalk (and cheese).

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Iraq (and Afghanistan)

Oil (and Opium) ?

[abetancort]

Re: Iraq (and Afghanistan)

Weapons of mass destruction. Hahaha!!

[TheInstigator]

@Tams Whilst I would agree with you that in theory democracy has turned out "better" than any of the alternatives that humans have come out with, I don't think what's practised currently in the West can really be termed democratic - or at least - it's democracy for those who are very rich.

I think if you dig a bit deeper and try to get involved in that democratic process it is extremely difficult to do so (unless you have a huge amount of money of course) - it's deliberately designed in this way as a closed club, and like all human based systems - also open to manipulation and abuse

[JoeCool]

"let alone their individual employees"

His analysis is completely on the nose.

[Effigy]

It's a stretch to call Germany's reparations substantial. In the west Nazis were allowed to keep their good jobs and positions of power (the GDR identified and fired those people). The family wealth and institutional wealth cross generations and are largely intact.

Sanctions are war and the point is absolutely to cause suffering among the most vulnerable. The average Russian has zero power to stop the invasion, exactly as much as I did when I protested the US' invasion of Iraq twenty years ago. Fine if you want retribution but be honest about the intent and impact.

[LogicGate]

"It's a stretch to call Germany's reparations substantial"

In 1945 there was very little left of Germany to perform reparations with.

In the USSR, Tens of thousands of German POWs were forced to perform reparations in Gulags for 5 to 10 years before being released (unless worked to deathe beforehand). The Russian should thus not complain. He got his reparations.

"The GDR identified and fired those people"

From what I have heard, much of the German security apparatus (including Gestapo) was turned into STASI with little filtering.

In the west, there was an effort to filter out and punish the big fish. It was not possible to remove every NSDAP voter. The effort was not always successfull (see judges).

Try to consider firing every Trump or Brexit voter. This would lead to significant systemic issues.

[Insert sadsack pun here]

"It's a stretch to call Germany's reparations substantial"

"In 1945 there was very little left of Germany to perform reparations with..."

...and much of what there was was loaded onto trains and sent to the Soviet Union.

[LogicGate]

Well, the supersonic windtunnels were picked up by ole Blighty.

(see Eric "Winkle" Brown)

[SundogUK]

I don't think 'supersonic wind tunnels' ever infringed anybody's human rights...

[LogicGate]

We were talking about reparations.

While little was left in Germany at the end of WW2, the victors did swoop in to pick the spoils.

The western nations picked price items and knowhow, but then helped Western Germany back on its feet through the Marshall program.

The conditions in early post war Germany should however not be underestimated. It was harsh.

The Russians behaved worse. Rape was common and they pillaged the occupied areas. There was no marshal plan.

in 1989, many places in eastern Germany still looked like they had in 1945, just more dilapedated.

I argue that of all the victorious forces of ww2, The soviets took the most reparations.

Human rights was not a part of the discussion. Human rights have not been a part of the discussion in Russia since the Mongols entered.

[TheInstigator]

@LogicGate The Soviets lost the largest amount of personnel in WW2 - so that is a metric that should be remembered.

Also - you're only talking (as normal) about the impact of WW2 in the West - the same thing was happening in the East.

In the West, the US were taking knowledge of (among other things) rockets etc and in the East, all the biological and biological warfare knowledge from Unit 731 etc and claiming that as their own and also unilaterally absolving the Japanese of any guilt - which is rather noble of them given they weren't subject to the numerous atrocities that the Japenese handed out to countries in the Aisa region

[LogicGate]

Somehow equating loosing the largest amount of personell to some kind of superiority is a logic that I would only hope to hear from Lord Rust.

One might consider the Soviet Union itself to have contributed almost just as much to these losses as the Germans.

The reason why the focus has been on WW2 in the west is because this is what was discussed in the article. Japanese autrocities in Korea and China were horrible.. As were Chinese autrocities on the Chinese both before and after WW2.

I have an interest in this (and other) part(s) of history. I hope that I can contribute with somewhat more differentiated viewpoints than many of the knee-jerk or "paid for with Roubles" comments that often pop up. Do I know it all, and do I present it without any bias? Nope. I am only human.

[TheInstigator]

@LogicGate "Somehow equating loosing the largest amount of personell to some kind of superiority is a logic that I would only hope to hear from Lord Rust."

FYI - It's losing - loose is what you do to a screw - not having a go and I may have been able to make it sound better/more polite manner - but know it's not meant as me having a go please.

I was comparing the loss in terms of manpower compared the amount of reparations - i.e. the USSR lost the most amount of soldiers - but they didn't get the most amount of money ....

"As were Chinese autrocities on the Chinese both before and after WW2."

Generally, other countries do not care about another country's losses in a civil war

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>It was not possible to remove every NSDAP voter.

There was also a need to rebuild a country and an army using people that had thrived under the previous regime and were devoutly anti-communist

Fortunately there was a thriving 'not a Nazi' rubber stamp system

[anothercynic]

There was only an effort to prosecute Nazis if it didn't advance your own country, that is.

Russia, the US and the UK all raided institutes, research facilities, storage bunkers and the like to try and lay claim on as much as possible and deprive 'the others' of the knowledge/stuff they laid their hands on. The UK and the US both did this to each other too... and we all know that Wernher von Braun and his colleagues from Peenemünde ended up in the US, whereas they probably should have been prosecuted for war crimes and jailed.

But there we are. What happened in (and after) WW2 is vastly different to what has happened in recent years. People have less of an inclination to... nudge-nudge-wink-wink at war crimes and let it slide, especially when this happens in Europe, which should have been way past the point where wars happen on the continent (says the one who conveniently glosses over the fact that the Balkan war happened in the nineties, the Chechen war happened in the early years of the millennium, and the first Ukrainian invasion and the Moldovan and Georgian incursions happened a decade ago).

So yes, all countries are as bad as each other with this crap.

[MMM4]

Guys, either way this was more than 50 years ago. As a matter of fact one of my grand-grand parent was posthumously decorated - so what? I could still be a very dangerous idiot or worse. Please don't feed this type of misplaced nationalist bullshit, it's totally irrelevant.

Even the "weapons of mass destruction" criminals are now dead or close to be. Granted they should have been tried but that ship has unfortunately sailed now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the "weapons of mass destruction" criminals are now dead or close to be

Oh, since when did Tony Blair have health issues? I know Bush is feeling his age, but Blair seems to be still getting around.

[TheInstigator]

@MMM4 "Even the "weapons of mass destruction" criminals are now dead or close to be. Granted they should have been tried but that ship has unfortunately sailed now."

What's your objective here - let them off? So how do you stop the same mistakes being made again?

[SundogUK]

"Try to consider firing every Trump or Brexit voter."

You just can't stop yourself, can you?

[LogicGate]

I guessed that this would trigger someone :)

Brexit aside, looking at the similarities between The Orange one and, say, Mussolini (going all Hitler is taking it too far).

Now look at the unwillingness of Trump voters to accept that they have been lied to, and one can maybe start to understand what happened to people in Germany in the late thirties.

It is much easier to fool a man than to convince him that he has been fooled. In order to achieve the latter, the man must accept that HE has been gullible.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is much easier to fool a man than to convince him that he has been fooled. In order to achieve the latter, the man must accept that HE has been gullible.

It is, but this is an indirect evasion that the election Trump won was attempted to be rigged in favour of Hillary Clinton on several different levels. This release of the hacked emails showing how the DNC nomination tampering left such a nasty stench that the Bernie Saunders types said "screw you; we aren't voting for Clinton after this" and stayed at home. Then after asking the Media to elevate Trump to the "front of the pack" as a "pied piper" candidate for the Republicans because he'd be so unpalatable that she'd stand a better chance of winning Hillary Clinton still proceeded to lose because she was that unpopular with voters.

How shit do you have to be to rig an election twice, eliminating your Democrat competitors from the race, and then get your dream choice of whom is going to be on the Republican ticket (and let's just gloss over the free and independent media accepting marching orders...) and still proceed to lose against Donald Fucking Trump?

You could literally pick somebody off the street at random and get a better performance.

Hillary Clinton should never have been the Democrat candidate and trying to rig the election was a mistake of historic proportions, of roughly the same size as the Democrats ongoing funding for the Far Right to supress political moderates to make their otherwise unpalatable candidates look like something that people can choke down instead of working out what the majority of people actually want, can agree on and then changing your political platform to target those voters.

America truly has the best Democracy that money can buy, and i'm heartily glad that I don't live on that continent.

[LogicGate]

I agree that any Democrat but Hillary would have probably won.

I also was amazed that the release of the grope tapes did not sink Trump by immediately loosing at least 50% of the voter base. How a female voter for the the self proclaimed party of morals could vote him in was stunning.

However, all of this was still in the "fool me" phase.

How anybody can still support him after even FOX has had to admit that Jan. 6 was based upon a pile of lies and falsehoods.. That is the bit where I feel that one can start to get an idea about how the mass delusion in various nations during WW2 worked.

People simply WANT to believe the lie because the alternative is to gain an unpleasant insight into oneself.

[Bitbeisser]

Nonsense. The GDR used actually some of the worst offenders who survived the war. It was just all smoke and mirrors behind the iron curtain...

[Potemkine!]

the GDR identified and fired those people

This has to be seen

Nowadays, the Far Right is the strongest in ex-GDR Länder.

The average Russian has zero power to stop the invasion

I don't think so. Those who oppose are persecuted, but refusing to adhere to Putin Khuylo's alternate reality is a first way to resist.

[LogicGate]

In procecuting Nazi camp prisin guards, the argument "I was ordered to go there" was countered with "You could always have volunteered for the eastern front".

The Russians may very well have to face similarly harsh options when they have to answer for what they have or have not done.

[TheInstigator]

@Effigy Totally agree with your comments here - in theory yes a citizen can effect change in a democratic country - and that's how you would answer an exam question, but the practical realties of such are a very different thing

[Lars]

@lglethal

I very much agree,

The Russian state, Putin, has a more or less total control of information in Russia. For us in the west it's actually very hard to grasp how complete that control is.

Russians who get all their information only from the TV are, as sad as it is, in the same position as Americans who have all their information from Fox News and similar.

Tens of millions of Russians are fully convinced they are being attacked by the west, by NATO and the fascists in Ukraine.

The propaganda against Ukraine and its people has gone on for many years.

Even among Russians living in the west there are those who rather believe in the Russian propaganda.

A lot of it, and it's very effective, they get through Facebook and similar, even Fox with Tucker have been helpful.

So it's not wrong to try to find and use even the smallest slit, gap in that propaganda wall.

[SundogUK]

"Americans who have all their information from Fox News" Because ABC/CNN/NBC are paragons of truthfulness. Nah. You just agree with their lies.

[Adair]

I think you should therefore nominate your chosen 'trustworthy source of news'—so we can all have a good laugh.

[ludicrous_buffoon]

No one but El Reg for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

The invasion is not illegal. It follows exactly the same logic NATO used for attacking Serbia back in the 90s. Blame NATO for showing how to do it. For more info, consult the wikipedia page on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_of_the_NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

Now, we may not like it, but that does not mean we get to critizice it and not be accused of being hypocrites.

The stand point of both github and the kernel maintainers is hurting the global community of free software users, as the opinion piece correctly points. Not Russian developpers, nor companies. It is stupid. We should not do it.

[Lars]

@AC

How do you think that "war" in Serbia would have ended without NATO. And if so when, and how, and after what, would it have ended.

[Zolko]

You aren't actually using your personal hypothetical assumptions of what "would have happened if " as legal basis for international war, are you ? Do you know that this is exactly how they justified human sacrifice : to appease gods ?

[Yes Me]

No analogy

Firstly, two wrong's don't make a right. But anyway, there's no real analogy between the situation caused by the civil wars in Yugoslavia and its sucessor states and the situation caused by Russia's two unprovoked invasions of Ukraine (in 2014 and 2022).

Secondly, a better analogy is Israel's two invasions of neighbouring countries in 1967 and 1973. So indeed, it's somewhat hypocritical that Western countries are supporting the invaded party in the current war and sanctioning the invader. In the case of Palestine, the invader has hardly suffered and the victims are still under attack.

[SundogUK]

Re: No analogy

"Israel's two invasions of neighbouring countries in 1967 and 1973" Are you serious? Good god, antisemitism is alive and well on the Register...

[Zolko]

Re: No analogy

antisemitism

why, what did Semits do in 1967 and 1973 ? Please remind me as I didn't listen in history courses when I was young

[TheInstigator]

Re: No analogy

@SundogUK Does any negative mention of the country beginning with I mean instantly it is anti semetic (even if it is entirely fact based and objective as stated in the previous comment?)

If so - wow - good to know! ;) Now think about that for a moment while I draw up a list of countries and organisations I'd like to apply this rule too as well ....

Oh I can't - because only that country can do that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No analogy

> Does any negative mention of the country beginning with I mean instantly it is anti semetic

Some people seem to think it is and they are usually the ones who would call saying that antisemitic. It is a handy device to silence criticism.

Even Jews are labelled as antisemitic for speaking out against the state and some of its members by those who like to play that card.

[SundogUK]

Re: No analogy

No but anyone claiming Israel invaded anywhere in 1972 has an agenda, and 99% of the time that is antisemitism.

[Casca]

Good work moron. Now go and watch RT.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you entirely. The Russians, a great many of whom do not condemn the war, see themselves as the victims. People are being murdered and displaced. Children are being kidnapped. Sorry you are somewhat inconvenienced by not being able to purchase Prada or contribute to open source projects. They blame the West, history, and everything and everyone else other than Putin and themselves.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Shouldn't we then go further and remove existing Russian contributions to open source projects?

We could also remove Russian inputs to vital military systems. Without the tyranny of the Tsiolkovsky equation our rockets will be much more capable.

[Adair]

Yeah, we could do that, but would it make any practical difference, or merely waste a lot of effort for no substantial gain in the message being sent?

[Professor_Iron]

Sanctions misunderstood

Ehh, no - making the civilians feel uneasy is not the original intent of sanctions at all - let's not try to defend unprofessional behaviour by making up ridicolous side-goals. It's just simply a method of blocking key economic activities that could contribute to the war effort either directly or indirectly. If Russia would be a software manufacturing powerhouse earning big cash on these FOSS (like it earns on oil & gas) it would be logical to block their contributions. But by the very definition of FOSS that's not the case, there's no underlying trade or licencing IP.

The ban in this case simply seems to be an example of people being overzealous and mixing their project management duties with personal ambitions. If you want to encourage them to stand up against Putin's regime then talk to them, but don't ignore their work just because 100% Russian-free software is the new chic.

[Kimo]

Re: Sanctions misunderstood

And it is helpful to note that the company that this engineer works for is owned by a company that is owned by a person on the sanctions list for their contributions to Russia's military and defense software and hardware, including their systems to track and punish dissent. Their cog in the machine may not be in the military sector, but the machine very much is.

[Snake]

RE: "sanctions"

Maybe the article is only looking at the picture through the window that it prefers: maybe the 'discomfort' of keeping the accounts active is a security concern, either from injected code or from unauthorized account use from state actors. State programmers have been hitting specific targets for quite a while now, it is not new news, so they may be closing off a potential avenue of attack out of, well, fear.

[TeeCee]

Much of the rest of what he wrote is straight out of the Kremlin's Bumper Book Of Bollocks too.

I'm afraid that Amelkin (if it is actually him and not someone using his name and reputation to spread this crap) is Lord Haw Haw in disguise and ICMFP!

[MMM4]

> One of the major points of sanctions is to make the citizens of the targeted country, not suffer ,but to not be able to carry on as if nothing is happening.

Where does that come from?

Winning a war is all about logistics and economy. ALL the sanctions are aimed at the Russian _economy_ and businesses, none is targeted at random Russian civilians, they're just undesired collateral damage as usual in war.

[TheInstigator]

@lglethal I find your comments .... interesting.

Your comments about Bosch etc are looking at it from a situation nearly 80 years after World War 2 happened - the person making the original comments is making them from the perspective of while this situation is occurring.

You also state "One of the major points of sanctions is to make the citizens of the targeted country, not suffer ,but to not be able to carry on as if nothing is happening" - is this really correct and if so how much should it inconvenience people from that nation? If those said citizen don't want to take a side and just carry on as normal that's not allowed in your world?

You don't state what country you're from, but for example if you're American what is a suitable treatment for American citizens whilst the US has not faced any legal action over it's war in Iraq? or about it's treatment of Native Americans and land grab? Or should those just be ignored?

[TheInstigator]

@lglethal Regarding your comment "One of the major points of sanctions is to make the citizens of the targeted country, not suffer ,but to not be able to carry on as if nothing is happening"

One of the things that it might be worth proposing is creating safety and security camps in Western countries comprising of citizens that the West doesn't get along with for A.N. Other reason - so Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iraqi, Afghanistan, North Korean - they can create more camps as needed - maybe torch any private enterprises that anyone with that ehnicity has in the host countries - or maybe get them to wear some identifying mark as they walk down the road so people can point and jeer ....

Does this sound anything similar to another situation that has happened historically in the world that you may have learnt about in school?

[doublelayer]

"Does this sound anything similar to another situation that has happened historically in the world that you may have learnt about in school?"

What? Making up a story about what someone wants that isn't backed up by anything they said and was written entirely by those who opposed them, then using that fake story to discredit them? Yes, I learned about that kind of thing. It's not great for you to use that tactic. More people will recognize when it's being employed so flagrantly. There are better propagandists out there. You might want to learn from them if actual debate is beneath you.

[TheInstigator]

"What? Making up a story about what someone wants that isn't backed up by anything they said and was written entirely by those who opposed them, then using that fake story to discredit them? Yes, I learned about that kind of thing. It's not great for you to use that tactic. More people will recognize when it's being employed so flagrantly. There are better propagandists out there. You might want to learn from them if actual debate is beneath you."

What are you even talking about here?

[doublelayer]

"What are you even talking about here?"

I'm saying that you made up a lot of suggestions. All your suggestions sound basically Nazi-ish, so clearly that's either the example or similar to the example you were going for. None of them came from what they said; you invented all of them. As such, you made up a fake story about what they wanted not based on anything they said and attempted to use that fake story to discredit them.

I can interpret this in two ways: you didn't like their views and resorted to making up a story to make them sound bad, or you really don't understand how what you said and what they said don't line up. Neither option is good.

[TheInstigator]

@doublelayer Then you're totally misunderstanding my posts.

A lot of what I think the OP has said actually tend towards Nazism already - such as sanctions affected all the people of that country/nationality - that's a VERY broad brush and (IMHO) goes down the Nazism road quite far ... what I'm doing is drawing that out to an excess in an attempt to show how unworksable (ultimately) such a thing is in practice.

[bofh1961]

FOSS neutrality?

The very nature of FOSS makes it universal, anyone can pick it up and use it, without charge, for whatever they want. Corporations monetise it but secretly wish they could own it. Governments make free use of it but secretly wish they controlled it. FOSS occupies a strange space that neither maths nor physics can describe, a space which bypasses geographical boundaries and economic models. It can be used for almost any purpose that involves information. Profit can be made from it but it can't be owned. It can be used but it can't be controlled. The growth and development of AI will only make this more so.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: FOSS neutrality?

So this is a big opportunity.

Companies receiving federal money shouldn't be using this open source cancer with it's Russian/Iranian/Cuban components.

They should be restricted to buying pure American software - like AWS / Azure / GoogleCloud

[Adair]

Re: FOSS neutrality?

Are you serious, or did you forget the sarc indicator?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: FOSS neutrality?

The article claimed: "Sanctions preventing use of proprietary software are a good idea"

I disagree. Send in the Oracle sales droids - followed a few months later by their licensing enforcement officials to draw blood.

But perhaps that would be "cruel and unusual punishment"?

[Paul Crawford]

I can see the point of the sanctions to a degree, a bit like excluding Russian athletes from international games as a means of reminding the nation of the consequences of its leader's actions. But I don't see that sanctioning individual FOSS contributors is that helpful and there is a danger of xenophobic attacks on Russian individuals irrespective of their support or opposition to Putin.

Possibly a better and more IT retaliation would be to route all access via one IP filter so international news access for Russian citizens is automatically part of gaining access to the rest of the world!

[Claptrap314]

It's not "a bit" like sanctioning sports teams, it's quit a bit like it.

Governments, even totalitarian ones, only continue to exist through the acquiescence of their population. While we generally try to aim sanctions directly at the power centers of the offending government, we also look to ways to sour the broader body public on their policies.

In this case, we have a company specifically sanctioned, presumably because we believe that it is in some way important to the offending government, and an employee of that company is whining about it, dragging out some of the exact same arguments being used by said government.

Moreover, he can do the same thing that outed Holly communists did when faced with boycotts--change his working name and carry on like nothing happened. Sure, it's a pain, but no, he's attacking the sanctions regime instead. If anything, his arguments demonstrate that the sanctions are not baseless.

[Insert sadsack pun here]

"better and more IT retaliation would be to route all access via one IP filter so international news access for Russian citizens is automatically part of gaining access to the rest of the world"

Russia is not North Korea or China. There is a high rate of smartphone access and the Internet is pretty cheap. Although Roskomnadzor does block some websites, generally speaking there is easy access to a ton of foreign news media in the Russian language.

The problem is not a technical one of lack of access. The problem is that Russians either don't trust those media sources or that they don't care - just like most westerners don't care what's happening in Yemen or the Sahel with western arms.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

Hypocrites.

[Version 1.0]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

Look at history ... was there ever a war that created a major improvement in the world? Look at all the original Roman wars history, every one of them created a mess and ever since then (i.e. early BC) we keep seeing the same stupidity in every country. People say that WWII was good but then look at our stupidity that create it after WWI.

[John H Woods]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

"was there ever a war that created a major improvement in the world?"

Probably not. But there have definitely been wars which, if not fought, would have resulted in the opposite.

[LogicGate]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

Saddam shot himself in the foot by trying to convince everybody that he still had chemical weapons.

He tried to use it as a poor mans nuclear deterrent.

It backfired, especially since Bush Jr and his apparatus was more than happy to believe him since Saddam had tried to target Bush Sr.

Stupidity all around.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

@LogicGate I think the general consensus is that someone's guilt should be established BEFORE they are being punished.

Hopefully that revelation doesn't rock your world too much!

[LogicGate]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

I was not attempting to take away guilt from Bush and Blair.

The war was a catastrophe that led directly to hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, ISIS, the current situation in Syria, millions of refugees in Europe etc.

Bush, and to a lapdig Blair never had to see any consequences for what they did. At least they are no longer in power.

I suspect that this is the big difference between democracies and dictatorships. The idiots tend to be removed at some point.

The point of my post was to remind about the situation before the invasion. Saddam actively tried to make people believe that he was dangerous, and the dimwits wanted to believe him.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

@LogicGate

"Bush, and to a lapdig Blair never had to see any consequences for what they did. At least they are no longer in power."

Somehow I don't think this will be a consolation to those affected by their actions

"I suspect that this is the big difference between democracies and dictatorships. The idiots tend to be removed at some point."

There's a saying - One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - likewise what can be said is a strength can also be seen as a weakness - limiting power to a fixed term is good to stop meglomania from taking hold - but conversely it doesn't foster a long time world view. What ends up happening then (and what you have to worry about) are the machinings of Government that exist (e.g. the Civil Service) that exist in the background throughout whoever "reigns" - I think Sunak got a whiff of this when he got in power - I think he was ready to relax the UK stance to China, until he got a few briefings that convinced him otherwise - I also got the impression he would have stepped away from supporting Ukraine as well - but that promptly resumed after political briefings which I'm guessing went something like "we just follow the US - so just be a good boy and do that will you"

[TheInstigator]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

Forgot to add ...

"The point of my post was to remind about the situation before the invasion. Saddam actively tried to make people believe that he was dangerous, and the dimwits wanted to believe him."

If you take this "country" situation and transplant it to individuals, it's a bit like the US police arriving to a situation where someone is threatening to shoot someone (but no gun is visible) and then shooting them anyway "just in case" ...

To be fair - I'm totally ok with this - as long as EVERYONE can do this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: was there ever a war that created a major improvement in the world?

You don't think culling all the violent male humans is a good idea?

[TheInstigator]

Re: was there ever a war that created a major improvement in the world?

@Anonymous Coward Yes - that should do it - because there are no violent females ...

[TheInstigator]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

@Version 1.0 Wars have actually driven a lot of the world's advances in several different areas such as tech etc - everything from Alexander the Great, Roman, British empire, WW1 and WW2 etc - maybe human kind's pinnacle of achievement is to destroy ourselves in a nuclear armageddon, the likes of which will actually warrant a visit from an extra terrestrial species

[Tams]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

Well, Saddam being an utterly nasty and evil piece of work helped there.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Where were the blockers during the USA's illegal war against Iraq?

@Tams Agreed - it's ironic that a lot of Iraqis now say they'd prefer to have him back because at least you knew where you stood ...

[ChoHag]

This Jakub says "we" but I only see one name in the From header.

[Rainer]

Ridiculous

Does everything has to be politicized these days?

Additionally, it's a slippery slope. What's next? Internment camps, because you don't trust 'em to not do any sabotage-acts?

Remember, folks: this war cannot go on forever. At some point, you will have to make peace again. Politicians make war, but only the people can make peace.

[moonhaus]

Re: Ridiculous

"Does everything has to be politicized these days"

A war is inherently political. Better to try and stop it with sanctions than even more bombs.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Ridiculous

This is, or should be, about FOSS. You cannot hold individuals, even citizens of a democracy, responsible for actions of their governments with which they do not agree, nor should you punish them for them and these would-be FOSS contributors are not even living in a democracy. What would you do in their situation?

[doublelayer]

Re: Ridiculous

"these would-be FOSS contributors are not even living in a democracy. What would you do in their situation?"

I would do as thousands of their countrymen have done and leave the country. It's not fun for Russians who despise their government to pick up and live in one of the countries that still accepts them, but they do it. Some did it to save themselves from the draft, which I don't have any problem with because by doing so they also save the people their drafted selves would have to shoot. Some of them would never have been drafted and left before the draft intensified, but they left for their own consciences.

Now that I've said what I'd do, let's look at what he did:

"You may rest assured that this "sanctioned corporation" takes no part in this awful war,"

There's a reason it's on the sanctions list. No, it didn't send troops to Ukraine, but it manufactures electronics necessary to build weapons and as a precaution, it was added to the sanctions list. I don't have a problem punishing the company, which does not automatically extend to punishing its employees directly but they may be disadvantaged as a result. But he goes on:

"and even if making civilian server products can be viewed as somehow taking part, that part is definitely far less than what, say, BMW or Bosch took in WW2, yet nobody seems to have cancelled them or at least remembered what they've done, let alone their individual employees."

We remember what they did, but that was many decades ago and, you know, it ended. When the war was still ongoing, do you think people in the UK were importing a bunch of BMW cars? They were not. They were not allowed to.

"All this is stupid, xenophobic and racist. Especially you labelling me as a terrorist on the basis of my ethnicity."

And a completely incorrect statement of what happened. Nobody called him a terrorist and it wasn't about his ethnicity. They blocked his account in a sweep of sanctioned organizations and it's about his position. I know a person who is also Russian in ethnicity and contributes to open source software, but because she doesn't work for a sanctioned company or support Russia's invasion, she hasn't been banned anywhere. He knows all of this, and he's making this up because he doesn't have a response for the real reasons why he's been affected.

[DuncanLarge]

Re: Ridiculous

> even citizens of a democracy

Russia isnt one. It pretends to be one, it tries to look like one to say "look at me, I'm in the club" but the actual gears and stuff that make the whole society work is as dictatorial as ever.

Sancions including ones imposed by FLOSS projects are whats needed to reduce damage a rouge state (you cant trust anyone with code commits from such a state surely?) can do as well as help put pressure on such a state to hopfully force the people to finally do something about it.

These commits. Who wrote them. Why? What do they do? How can you trust anything from anyone who could either be a supporter of the terroist state or simply wishes to appear to be for the sake of their own safety? Just because you've known them for years, doesnt mean they are the same person. They could be very different kinds of people now, not only actually fake individuals impersonating the developer or the developer who this in that very odd, old fashioned way we hear from Russia these days "wishes to protect the fatherland".

Fatherland, heck even motherland. What kind of cold war language is this? Sure we have patriotism here in Blighty, I'm all for it, I fly the Union Flag on VE day and on the coming corronation, I even anm very happy the British Empire did all the good stuff it did, the worled bloody needed it and we would be in a very very different world if it handt. If I were given an OBE, I would be the last person to squirm at the meaning of the "BE".

But even I feel a strange discomfort with this "fatherland" mentality. It's on their TV, its said in their streets. They think VERY differently than the west do and when they contribute to western projects or even release whole projects to be used by the west, FLOSS or not, how can you trust it?

We can read the code. But many programmers and security professionals will understand that there is code between the functions, unintended effects, unknown exploits. That code may be fine on paper/screen but unless you actually look at how the CPU registers are being used, what else is going on, you will miss that "special" set of circumstances that can be triggered to [insert possibilities here].

At the end of the day it bolis down to trust. Nothing more.

So when a FLOSS project rejects a contrib then its eiether a political issue or a trust issue. Being FLOSS the Russians can simply fork the code and use their own patches.

Would you use North Korean code?

Would you use TikTok on corporate mobiles?

How is this different from when we all decided to get rid of Huawei?

Is anyone seriously still using Kaspersky?

Keep in mind that most of the civilised world has policies and legal frameworks banning co-operation with anything or anyone linked to slavery. How is this different?

> What would you do in their situation?

The right thing. Demand change. Demand the dictator is removed. But I likley wont do that as I know, just like they do, I wont be free should I say those things and maybe I wont be alive to enjoy my release from prison.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Ridiculous

@DuncanLarge The same thing can be largely said about the US - Remember the Clipper chip or the attempts by the US to inject vulnerabilties into cryptographic algorithms? Or should we allow that because it's America and they only do good in the world?

Remember - all countries do dodgy stuff - no country is entirely altruistic - and if you believe otherwise I'm more than willing to listen to your candidates ...

As to TikTok being on corporate/government devices - the vast majority of corporate policies regarding usage of social media apps prevent the installation of ANY social media applications for the vast majority of employees - only a very small percentage would be normally be allowed to install apps like this on their devices - so it's mostly lipservice.

I can tell you the outcome of the US inquiry/witch hunt already - TikTok will be banned - this is all showboating. Evidence (just as it was with the WMDs in Iraq) is no longer required - it is enough that the TikTok app has links to China and is headed up by a Chinese male. Nothing was found at Huawei despite Western Intelligence having access to source code etc and their equipment is still getting stripped from pretty much all Western friendly countries.

The next step (if it isn't here already) is that all people who look remotely possibly Chinese will be viewed with suspicion and automatically be presumed to be a spy - the great thing is - you don't even have to get them to wear armbands as they already have naturally occurring and visible identifying marks! and - of course - as others have posted on this article - it is good and proper that this happens as it makes life difficult for the country in question and puts additional pressure on them to change their stance.

I'm wondering however - how such people would feel when the shoe is on the other foot - but I suppose the point being with that racism - if you're at the top of the tree then you don't get subject to that kind of treatment - so who cares?

[oxtan]

Re: Ridiculous

sure. How has that worked with Cuba, Iran, North Korea?

[sabroni]

Re: Does everything has to be politicized these days?

Only if you understand what politics is.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Ridiculous

@Rainer Yes! internment camps are a good way to go - armbands so people are recognisable in the street - so people can throw tomatoes at them etc

I'm sure it'll all be fine! ;)

[Jason Bloomberg]

Collective punishment

I have never been comfortable with punishing individuals for the actions of a state. Even less so with making people innocent victims.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Collective punishment

@Jason Bloomberg What are countries but a collection of individuals that share a common trait?

My point is that if you're going to think and act in that manner, then it has to be consistent - so how should we treat the British who have colonialised most of the world? How should we treat the Americans who are not only insurrectionists (against the British funnily enough!), but also who committed atrocities against the Native Americans.

How should we treat Australians - who also mistreated the Aboriginies etc

I appreciate these are awkward and uncomfortable questions to answer - especially if you're from the West - so let's not talk about these things and concentrate only on the bad things that other countries do ... I believe there is a word that described people like this .... begins with h ... something like hypoc....?

[heyrick]

Can't help but feel that this risks backfiring. Yes, the code submissions are from Russian citizens, and yes their leader is a dickhead, but it must be remembered that "democracy" in Russia means they have far less say in what their government does then I did when Tony Blair marched into Iraq with Dubyah...and I had no say at all.

Given the apolitical stand of software, especially open source that is by its nature intended to be global, it is concerning that submissions are being blocked. Firstly, it might be good for the citizens to know that the entire world doesn't hate them, and that a way to build trust beneath the radar of the megalomaniac in charge could be things like that. And secondly, there is a lot of nonsense going on right now. If they're going to take a position on this, how about the fallout from the demise of Roe/Wade? Or, maybe, just maybe, some people just want to fix bugs and add features and not delve into a political shitstorm in order to do so?

I fully agree with the sentiment that Russia should get the hell out of Ukraine (again), but is this the way to help achieve that? What's the point, other than people basically screaming "Russian, arrrgh!" so they can feel like they've done something? Because, really, they haven't.

Want to make a real difference? Accept the guy's code (let it stand on its own merits) and do something more useful......https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-crisis-appeal (Google for whatever that is in your own country).

[Insert sadsack pun here]

"Given the apolitical stand of software..."

This is naive. The purpose of these sanctions is to choke Russia's domestic electronics industry, because the Russian military needs it to continue its 9 year war against Ukraine.

[heyrick]

So we don't accept submissions from Russians, but they're completely free to use the code? That's choking what, exactly?

[doublelayer]

That depends where the code is being used. For example, they're blocking contributions that would add support for the hardware they produce in the mainline Linux kernel. That means that they can't sell the hardware as compatible with mainline and have to patch themselves. Fewer people will buy their hardware if it has that limitation. In other cases, there is probably much less effect on them, but it happens automatically because the people have been sanctioned. GitHub doesn't have an office of people discussing whether a certain person being banned will affect Russia's electronics industry. They have a list of sanctioned organizations and they push the button to ban people connected to them. They assume the people who made the sanctions list know what they're doing.

[Not Yb]

Exactly.

They're following the legal requirements in the country the main corporate office is in, the USA. Doesn't matter who the individual is, if they work for an officially sanctioned company, the law calls for removal from access to resources.

[sabroni]

Exactly.

The law is stupid and doesn't achieve the thing it's supposed to.

[Insert sadsack pun here]

"So we don't accept submissions from Russians, but they're completely free to use the code? That's choking what, exactly?"

The point is to isolate, disrupt, and exclude the Russian high value electronics industry in *all* its interactions with US markets and US IP.

The guy is frustrated and stamping his feet? Good - that's the point. Getting cut off from GitHub isn't half as bad as having your ciry bombed, as has happened to many Ukrainian devs in the past 9 years.

[TheInstigator]

@Insert sadsack pun here One of the ways that the war could end is for the US/West to either accept Ukraine into NATO, or to provide enough weaponry to produce a victory against Russia.

Instead the West is drip feeding resources to Ukraine in an attempt to keep an even match with whatever resources Russia is using against Ukraine - thus prolonging the war. Make no mistake - Russia is basically fighting the West right now in all but name. I can't believe that Ukraine has enough males of fighting age or hardware of their own to have lasted this long against Russia.

[Robert Carnegie]

Whatever the moral arguments, the law is the law. Also, Russia has some mean malware authors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Malware authors? Give me a break. How unrelated.

And the law does not prevent merging PRs now does it?

[sabroni]

re: the law is the law

And that means you obey it?

What a good citizen you are, have a voucher for the food bank.

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for a well reasoned article.

[Igor_O]

Being part of civilization, access to civilized peoples labor results, using their knowledge and tools, AND SUPPORT KILLERS AND MURDERES who kill civilians in Ukraine??? No way! Ban russians everywhere until they realize they must stop their war.

[Anonymous Coward]

You for sure seem to be very uncivilized.

Do you also hate Americans for Iraq, Israelis for Palestine, and so on? Or are these victims of illegal invasions somehow less human or important than Ukrainians? And if so, why do you feel they're inferior?

[TheInstigator]

@Anonymous Coward

I can't work out if he's being sarcastic or not.

I guess if you're stereotyping/being racist then the world is your oyster!

[TheInstigator]

@Igor_O I can't upvote or downvote your article until I know whether you're being sarcastic or not!

[Tron]

Taking back control of the online borders too.

Our governments have taken down the globalised system that kept prices low, prevented shortages and supported growth and development. They have 'taken back control' from the free market and consumers. You might not have voted for that, but politicians aren't there to do our bidding - they are there to farm us. Instead, we are all to be poked back behind borders and forced to remain within our tribes. That will create shortages, poverty, hunger, kill growth and push us down the slippery slope towards conflict, but they are cool with that.

Those borders will be online too, as in this case.

When the Soviet-style nationalist economy fails to deliver, as it always has done, they will start wars to give everyone someone to blame.

Any chance of coping with climate change depends upon us optimising resources, maintaining supply chains and working together. So, no chance of that then. But that doesn't matter. They believe that it is better to go down as a tribe than survive together.

Protect your finances, don't have kids, remember the good times, and keep hating your government, who have played their part in this. They will take everything from you, bit by bit, but they cannot take away your hatred of them.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Taking back control of the online borders too.

@Tron Sad - but true

[Grogan]

It's more than just punishing, it's a matter of protecting code bases from malicious actors.

If you're Russian right now, sorry, you're considered compromised. Maybe we'll talk again when you put Putin in the mud, but until then, I wouldn't trust anybody from that country with my snot collection.

[Doctor Syntax]

" it's a matter of protecting code bases from malicious actors"

You think pull requests aren't checked before accepting them?

[DuncanLarge]

> You think pull requests aren't checked before accepting them?

You honestly think that is good enough?

Read up on computer security. Just because you can read the code and it "seems" to do what you think, doesnt mean it does. With the right language, like C, your code can read one way and do something else when triggered. Programming is not just A2 = A/B. There are CPU registers, pointers, states. Do you know how that code will interact with everything else? In every situation?

This is why we have things like the NX bit in the CPU, why we have bounds checks and why Rust is very popular.

Have you heard of return based programming and how that can be used? No? Ah, you think you can check for it however?

Are YOU, yes you, clever enough to determine if the submitted code is capable of a rowhammer attack?

What if its run on the majority of CPU's out there, the old intel ones with Spectre flaws and the idiot who owns the box turned off spectre mitigations in the kernel to "make linux fast again"? Are you able to determine if that commit is clean enough to not leverage these flaws, with the other exitsing code, in all states, even with specific inputs that have yet to be provided? If this were a PDF editing program, would this commit be safe should the special PDF that will be released into the wild by other actors was to be opened in this program?

> You think pull requests aren't checked before accepting them?

If you think that that is enough you have no idea what a computer and a programming language and CPU bugs and malicious clever individuals are capable of. The answer to the question is, you can NEVER know. Even when using Rust its as good as Rust can be and if Rust has a problem that you no nothing about then even Rust isnt good enough to be trusted.

Thus you do what anyone sane would. Dont accept the commit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats to stop a malicious actor from using a VPN? This line of thought would mean you wouldn't accept commits from anyone unless they have gone through a though vetting process, you know like closed source....

[TimMaher]

Rust

While we are at it, Rust claims to have solved the Java NPE problem.

It hasn’t. I can pull an NPE equivalent by unwrapping an empty any time I like.

As you say, the risks are enormous... and not only from dodgy Russians.

[An_Old_Dog]

Secure Coding

Based on your statements, we'll have to go back to pure assembly-language coding so we'll know exactly what's going on in the CPU registers, etc., for the sake of "security."

[Chris 15]

Whilst I wouldn't put it so crudely, I came here to say the same thing. There's a war going on, and one side has shown it has very little in the way of morality.

Surely it's common sense to consider security ramifications of allowing potentially compromised or actually bad actors or their accounts access to modify and possibly compromise n different software sources? Risk mitigation is a prudent course of action

[TheInstigator]

@Grogan This is called stereotyping - and is both inaccurate and racist

[IGotOut]

I know it's crazy....

...but could not a compromise not be reached?

Is there no means for code to be submitted...it peer reviewed, the released?

It seem counterintuitive to block someone from releasing code that may enhance a product and even make it less likely to be hacked?

Or has everyone gone full red mist (no pun intended)?

[DuncanLarge]

Re: I know it's crazy....

> Is there no means for code to be submitted...it peer reviewed, the released?

Read up on computer security. Just because you can read the code and it "seems" to do what you think, doesnt mean it does. With the right language, like C, yur code can read one way and do something else when triggered. Programming is not just A2 = A/B. There are CPU registers, pointers, states. Do you know how that code will interact with everything else? In every situation?

Proof reading someone elses code only tells you what you understand about the environment, CPU, the language itself is true or false. "This code draws a button linked to a function here" or "this code tries to draw a button but there is a syntax error due to the library versions". But thats it, you dont see what that function does behind the scenes do you? YOu can say yes or no it the fact it adds a button but unless you reall know how programming works, how a computer works, you cant even fathom that it will shange the state of certain aspects of the CPU registers in such a way that will cause other code to misbehave and, when you should get the idea by now.

[-v(o.o)v-]

Re: I know it's crazy....

It looks like a good portion of people indeed have. Full on xenophobia mode, foaming in the mouth raving about the Sovi^WRussian menace and how all Russians obviously have turned bad suddenly one day in 2022.

It all just exposes them as the hypocrites/xenophobes/racists they are.

[SundogUK]

Re: I know it's crazy....

There are senior Russians threatening to annihilate the UK with nuclear weapons, on a daily basis, because we oppose the invasion of Ukraine. So no, right now I don't trust Russians. If they sort their shit out, I will reconsider.

[Plest]

Re: I know it's crazy....

Who would do the reviews? Who would do it and would you trust they did it correctly and were not "got at" by the rogue states under scrutiny? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just saying that you have be 100% certain that whomever is put in charge of checking this will not face any consequences such as being put on trial for treason, if they let something through that did turn out to be bad.

I'm trying not to sound paranoid but I most certainly would not want to be the person reviewing that code, especially if something were missed.

[Not Yb]

Re: I know it's crazy....

If 'you' work for a company on the US sanctions lists, US companies are required by law not to provide access to resources. Doesn't matter if 'you' are the best developer on the planet if 'you' work for a sanctioned company.

[trindflo]

"This seems backward to us"?

Who is this "us" you speak of Liam? Are you speaking for The Register as a whole?

I seriously doubt this is a move to punish open source contributors. My bet is that it is about preventing Trojan Horse contributions as part of a hacking campaign.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "This seems backward to us"?

You think pull requests aren't reviewed before they're accepted?

[DuncanLarge]

Re: "This seems backward to us"?

> You think pull requests aren't checked before accepting them?

If you think that that is enough you have no idea what a computer and a programming language and CPU bugs and malicious clever individuals are capable of. The answer to the question is, you can NEVER know. Even when using Rust its as good as Rust can be and if Rust has a problem that you no nothing about then even Rust isnt good enough to be trusted.

Thus you do what anyone sane would. Dont accept the commit.

[sabroni]

Re: Thus you do what anyone sane would. Dont accept the commit.

What you seem to miss is that your criticism of the security of Russian commits is equally valid for EVERY commit. By your argument the only way to be secure is to not use FOSS. As you say, code reviews won't necessarily stop malicious actors so what options do we have?

How is it you can't manage to follow that thread to it's logical conclusion?

It's not xenophobia is it?

[TheMeerkat]

If a programmer does not want to be sanctioned, they should find a new job in a company that is not sanctioned.

Working for Yadro he is helping Putin to kill Ukrainians.

[Ideasource]

That is a hell of a stretch

"Working for Yadro he is helping Putin to kill Ukrainians"

That's not a proper measure of causality for accurate assignment of responsibility

All governments do horrible things and then labeled them acceptable or justified for various reasons internal to that government.

By your logic, because I have worked and that's contributed to the American economy, then I am responsible for those who are unjustly put in Guantanamo Bay just to silence them.

Putting civilians on the social chopping block because of government they have no control over is running amok is pressuring the innocent to indirectly affect another.

That's pretty f*****.

That's not how responsibility works.

[tango_uniform]

Re: That is a hell of a stretch

By your logic, because I have worked and that's contributed to the American economy, then I am responsible for those who are unjustly put in Guantanamo Bay just to silence them.

As an ugly American, I DO feel responsible for what my government is doing. Anything less is an abdication of my civic duty.

Putting civilians on the social chopping block because of government they have no control over is running amok is pressuring the innocent to indirectly affect another.

And we've reached the crux of the matter: Russian citizens seemingly don't have any control over their government. There is no innocence in Russia, just degrees of cope.

FOSS is built on reputation. Reputation has many input variables. If project leads are making reputation calculations that others don't like, then the whiners can fork off and compete.

[Ideasource]

Re: That is a hell of a stretch

Civic duty cares nothing for accuracy that's social dogma built on nationalistic ambition. not objective measure.

You seem to be conflating idealism with real world mechanics.

[Ideasource]

Re: That is a hell of a stretch

Civic duty...

I fear for your future.

Do you really care so little for yourself and others that you place the artificial conceptual tools of hierarchical organization humans operate as

Superior to living breathing humans themselves?

My goodness man! To all external appearance, You're a virtual slave chained and then shackled within your own mind.

Never put an unliving tool ahead of any number of conscious human beings. you're worth more than that and so are we.

Tools are there to be altered, laid down, replaced, and and reengineered according to the whim of individual humans that choose them.

Do you symbolize mechanism Society or Country as to being a God or symbol for God?

If not,

What's it like to worship temporary objects?

[Fazal Majid]

Other major Russian open-source projects

Nginx, Clickhouse, quite a few contributors to PostgreSQL. Not open-source, but JetBrains was founded by Russians and had a lot of R&D done in Russia.

I realize the ban is Microsoft complying with US sanctions law, but ipmitool is critical infrastructure with privileged access to hardware that would be a prime vector for malware or root kits if compromised, so there is a sound national security rationale for a freeze there.

[Fazal Majid]

Re: Other major Russian open-source projects

Oh, and Zabbix also

[Plest]

Re: Other major Russian open-source projects

Zabbix was founded by devs in Latvia, not Russia. Latvia was founded in 1918 after it broke away from Germany. Yes the Soviets invaded and ruled until 1991 but that was 30 years ago, since then they've been a fully independent, highly tech centred state in their own right.

Hey, why bother to check facts when a little bit of jingoism does the trick, eh?

[DuncanLarge]

Re: Other major Russian open-source projects

Founded?

Who the hells cares abot when and who founded a project.

Its WHO IS SUBITTING CODE NOW that is the problem.

Jesus.

[TheInstigator]

Re: Other major Russian open-source projects

They all have surnames that sound the same and "Russiany" - it's good enough - ban them all!

[Plest]

In a word...

...you are collateral damage my friends. I'm sure you have nothing to hide and wish to have nothing to do with the war your overload Mr P started, but sadly the rules are what they are. Hopefully this mess can be sorted out in the next few years once someone can get close enough to push Mr P out of the 10th floor window and do the world a favour, then we can all get back to normal again.

[anothercynic]

Re: In a word...

Correct. Many Russian citizens who disagree with the war (and of course those who still claim to believe it's a 'special operation' and that there's nothing wrong with that) are collateral damage. Those who don't understand how sanctions work should try and live in a country under economic sanctions some time. They'll quickly understand that they as individual don't feature anywhere... they are lumped in with the baddies (whether they be military, religious or political). Namibia in the eighties and nineties was effectively also under sanctions when they were rolled out against South Africa. Did Namibia deserve those sanctions? That's debatable (although given that they were effectively a vassal state, probably).

And the blacks in South Africa and Namibia who had no part at all in the decision making processes that led to sanctions being imposed still got to sit down at home and take it because they were, like you point out, @Plest, collateral damage. And those South Africans who encouraged sanctions from their homes in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and New York knew what they would be condemning their countrymen to, but for them it was an inconvenience to endure if it meant that it hurt the white Apartheid 'colonialists' that those sanctions were meant to target more.

Those Russians who disagreed with Russia's politics and its war with Ukraine left the country as quickly as they could. Of course, many others didn't because it wasn't simply a case of packing your laptop, a suitcase and hopping on the next plane to Istanbul, Dubai or Belgrade from where they could fly on to the rest of the world, because they had families or other obligations to take care of. And, of course, many of those who agree with Putin but who knew that their rather flashy lifestyle was about to be severely curtailed, made the same moves (mostly to the UAE because the emirates there like to play the fence both ways). And the oligarchs, well... their complicated webs of financial trusts and shell companies and intermediaries currently still shield them from much of the damage... unless they happen to live in the EU, Switzerland, the UK, or the US, where their identifiable assets are frozen or seized.

[Lars]

Re: In a word...

I would like to add a word regarding the collateral damage, the innocent Russian person - would the Vietnam war not have gone on for longer had there not been demonstrations and opposition against it among the American population.

[SundogUK]

Re: In a word...

No. The US military would have been able to win and South Vietnam would have remained a free country.

[An_Old_Dog]

Read "The Pentagon Papers"

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly recommended against the war, because "There are no identifiable military objectives."

[doublelayer]

Re: In a word...

But in the world we live in, that didn't happen why? If you're saying that domestic protests about the war prevented the military from being as effective as they could be, that's obviously wrong. If you're instead saying that, given more time, the war could have been won by the American military, that may be true but it proves the original point. The war might have gone longer if the protests had not happened, whatever the results of that longer war would have been. You can think that that war would have been better or worse if extended, but what's undeniable is that, without domestic protest, it would have been extended. Domestic protest against wars tends to end them faster, though a dictatorship tends to have more resistance to doing things just because most of their citizens think that's the best plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian apologists out in force on this one, unsurprisingly. Nobody has to accept contributions from anyone if they don't want to.

If you want to fork stuff and distribute it yourself, nothing it stopping that. That's the whole bloody point of GNU and Copyleft.

Hold your leaders accountable for declaring completely un-necessary wars and breaking guarantees they were signatories to. This is a fringe application of pressure, but pressure it is.

[DuncanLarge]

> Russian apologists out in force on this one

Yes, and those who think that when coding everyone is somehow a serene angel beyond reproach.

They have a sort of naivety about computer security too, thinking a back door etc is going to come in as a commit with a comment line disclosing the fact there is a back door.

If I were to install a back door, I'd do it in stages, bit by bit, commit by commit over months. Only someone with a memory and a suspiscion to watch me would have a chance to peice together by jigsaw puzzle, then they also need to know how I'm impolementing the back door in the first place. Maybe I'm adjusting how variables are garbage collected, or not. Maybe I'm fixing real issues, but I just happened to leave a random pointer floating about. Maybe I'm "optimising how my loops work in the CPU cache".

Lets not forget that a university introduced malicious (but not dangerous) commits into the Linux kernel without any sod noticing just for research purposes. They were found out when someone read the paper that they published. Linus Torvalds himself may ahve seen some of the comits and yet people here think that a maliciopus commit would be detected and all Russian (chinese also) commits are thus trustworthy because they dont have the comment line saying "# Implement a backdoor for the motherland!".

Here is something I just though of: "If you take no chances, you give none"

[Ideasource]

All right well let's flip the table then.

You willing to die after targeted experiences worse than the peace of death after transition, in the effort to effectively hold your government accountable for its mistakes?

Or do you still value the life you have enough to to keep your job, be able to eat, and provide for your family?

The only way to truly hold a government accountable is to seize all its members dismantle its power and treat them all as prisoners of war.

[Rich 2]

Outraged!!!

I’m outraged!!! Outraged I tell you!!!

Let me shout and stamp my little foot and show you just how offended and appalled I am!!!

Errr…. What was the question again

[sabroni]

Re: Errr…. What was the question again

Is it right to accept contributions to Open source proejcts from coders who work for Russian organisations?

Not, as you seem to think, "Can you show off a bit for the bigots?"

[Rich 2]

Re: Errr…. What was the question again

You are making assumptions about me

I never said whether I was outraged because the chap in question has been barred from git, or whether I was outraged because the chap in question was Russian and therefore SHOULD be barred from git.

Being outraged and “offended” is very popular these days - I was just joining in

[TheInstigator]

Re: Errr…. What was the question again

I'm outraged that you're outraged!

[b.trafficlight]

Typical Russian whining

"Oh, poor me, evil / stupid Western companies don't let me contribute!"

I felt sorry for Amelkin for a second - maybe he is indeed a Russian who opposes war etc? Nope. His LinkedIn profile since the full-scale invasion has only a few re-shares of "what-about" articles and other Russians whining about "we don't like that people on the West suddenly discriminate and hate us". No condemnation of the war, no support of Ukraine. Nothing.

It looks like "guilty by association" works pretty well here and Alexander experiencing mild "canceling" does not like it. Public shaming sucks.

I like the approach when Russians are evaluated based on their usefulness to the war. Do they contribute anything which helps Ukraine win? Do they contribute anything helping Russia?

In this case I would argue that Amelkin contributes more to Russian side than Ukrainian side. His contributions to open source do not outweigh him working for a Russian company whose taxes finance the war. Him being oblivious to this only shows how self-centered and disconnected Russians are. Even those who work in IT and have access to the Western media and other alternatives to Russian propaganda.

[anothercynic]

Re: Typical Russian whining

You *do* realise that it is now a crime to criticise the 'special operation', right? If you're a Russian, living in Russia, and you utter a disparaging word against said 'special operation', you will be hauled in front of a judge, prosecuted and jailed (or sent to the proverbial Gulag). I am not kidding. See Newsweek if you don't believe me. It has gotten worse since that article was published last year with the penalties.

And posting something on LinkedIn, where it is in black and white for anyone to print off and run to the police with, is monumentally stupid. I somehow doubt this guy is of the monumentally stupid kind. Although, I don't think we *can* exclude him from the pro-Putin camp either unless someone has conclusive proof that he is contra-Putin.

[doublelayer]

Re: Typical Russian whining

It would be very dangerous to put anti-Russia comments on your LinkedIn page if you were living in Russia. That is not what I or the person who originally checked it expect to see. However, what is not at all dangerous is to post nothing there, either nothing at all or nothing political. Nobody would be arrested for being silent on LinkedIn. Similarly, nobody would need to prove themselves by posting pro-war material there. The fact that he did suggests that he had a reason to, either he believes it himself or he wants others to believe he does. Well, no matter which of those it is, I believe he does, so objective achieved.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Typical Russian whining

Don't waste your time trying to explain anything reasonable. He clearly knows best, leave him foaming in the mouth. A dose of reality might break his fragile but So Totally Righteous self.

[Ideasource]

Social stampede's

Building an angry mob and setting it against a foe tends to create at least as much unwanted collateral damage as it does intentional.

So many people exercising their opportunity to demonstrate hate from afar because it's being socially incentivized and cloaked in a shiny cause.

When the official conflict is over and it's time to return to peaceful mindsets the mob continues on its own momentum, to become yet another problem.

[Rattus]

Apart from the comments about ww2 German companies the rest of the article is a good read

It is stupid to block commits from Russia, or Russian citizens.

Firstly it is almost impossible to do (ever heard of free email accounts and VPNs/Proxies?)

Secondly for the reasons raised in the article, the only people it hurts is everyone else.

and Finally well just read the licence. Using the code is perfectly fine so preventing contributions is just cutting off your nose to spite your face...

[John Savard]

Rational Reason

Well, people who live inside Russia might be forced to include malicious code in their contributions to open-source projects.

[fajensen]

Re: Rational Reason

It is more likely that they will be assigned an FSB-handler that manages their login credentials and work schedule.

- and, as a special favour, provides the service of avoiding that they or their family & friends does not get into trouble with The Authorities, like being accused of spying, colluding with foreign powers. The kind of inconvenience that can just happen to anyone being in unsupervised contact with the western enemy powers.

[-v(o.o)v-]

Re: Rational Reason

And which country does not? Reminds me of America, who even goes as far as poisoning standards, standards processes and Intel CPU hardware. If you do not recognize which incidents I refer to I am not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

The saddest part of it all is that often these most rabid anti-Russia people are citizens of the most notorious aggressors: US and their lapd^W special relationship UK.

Did they have this much concern for, say, Afghanis or inmates in Guantanamo? Why did they not? Would it be because actually what is happening in UE is in no way unique or unprecedented - the difference here that it is "the enemy" as the aggressor.

As for the laughable security concerns I'll just say: Dual_EC_DRBG *mic drop*.

Oh and was there someone with the name Snowden?

[system5]

An own goal of sanction

I agree the most about the last sentence:“they just mean that any improvements that work will benefit only the countries being sanctioned, and hurt those enforcing sanctions”, or TLDR: this is an own goal of the sanction.

Firstly, this will strongly harm the reputation of neutrality of FOSS in non-Western countries, and anti-West propagator can say that “FOSS is falling to the control of the West, please use and support the state-backed systems” etc. , adding an evidence that the West is untrustworthy and often violating their own promises if they mark a certain nation as a threat to their unreasonable interest(think about the flee of money of non-western rich people from the western banks to non-Western financial centers like Dubai, HK after Swiss frezzed money of RU oligarchies last year)

Secondly, the sanctioned countries can still benefit from the improvments of the “outer” FOSS world as far as their is still a network connection between the both side(the complete seperation of internet is still very impossible as there are a lot of countries between the both side, and as the article pointed out even isolated North Korea can participate to the FOSS): Build a local duplicate(e.g. Gitee), get the new PR from domestic and the outer world, then merge them. The result is the last sentence of the original article. It is hard to apply sanctions on FOSS if we want it to keep it be free and even the accession is blocked their is still a lot of workarounds(think about watching Netflix contents that is only available in a certain region and so many pro-Beijing Chinese on twitter)