[idiocrat]

This reminds of the Anti-German sentiment during WWI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment

"The Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens, counting approximately 480,000 of them. The Committee of Internment of Alien Enemies recommended sending them to internment camps, though the idea was opposed by the War Department and the Attorney General. More than 4,000 German aliens were imprisoned in 1917–1918. The allegations included spying for Germany and endorsing the German war effort.

When the United States entered the war in 1917, some German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Propaganda posters and newspaper commentary fed the growing fear. In Wisconsin, a Lutheran minister faced suspicion for hosting Germans in his home, while a language professor was tarred and feathered for having a German name and teaching the language. The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One person was killed by a mob; in Collinsville, Illinois, German-born Robert Prager was dragged from jail as a suspected spy and lynched. Some aliens were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty."

[shiroiushi]

I'm not sure why you think this is comparable at all. These aren't Russian immigrants or descendants living in the west, they're Russians living in Russia, and working for Russian companies on the sanctions list. As a result, they've been stripped of their maintainership status, so they can still contribute, but they have to go through the regular send-a-patch process that any other random contributor would have to. It surely doesn't feel good to them after their history of contributions, but international law and politics cause things like this to happen.

[idiocrat]

Yes, what you are saying is fair enough.

I can imagine technological "divorces" will happen more often going forward, as the polarization between the G7 and the BRICS++ members grows.

[shiroiushi]

Yep, this reminds me a lot of how things were before the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union and all the countries aligned with it were behind an "Iron Curtain" and there was very little communication and trade between the two sides. I just hope there isn't a massive war between the two factions, and we can move peacefully towards having complete economic isolation between them like we had before.

[whatshisface]

>No matter the reason of the situation but haven't we deserved more than that? Adding to the GREDITS file at least, no?

The author of the linked article suggests that they should get some form of memorialization. When Linus is finished berating Sam for working at Halliburton during the Iraq war, something that by analogy I guess he has every right to do, this advice should probably be taken.

[d_milivojevic]

Under international law (the real one, not the USA BS about "rules based order") unilateral sanctions are illegal.

[dragonwriter]

> Under international law (the real one, not the USA BS about "rules based order") unilateral sanctions are illegal.

No, they aren't, in general international law. They may be between partners in a multilateral agreement that provides trade terms, but they are specifically allowed on national security grounds within the largest such organization and the only one I am aware of where both the US and Russian Federation are members, the WTO, under GATT Article XXI(b).

[InsideOutSanta]

"German Americans were looked upon with suspicion"

This isn't about Russian Americans, though. This is about Russian developers working for Russian companies that are involved in the actual war.

[prmoustache]

Have we seen the same about Israeli contributors?

[InsideOutSanta]

Pointing out hypocrisy is not the same as pointing out a flaw in a decision. This can be both the correct, legally required decision, and also be hypocritical.

[oneshtein]

Israel attacked by Hamas, which, in turn, was bribed by Russia to start the war. Hamas captured and killed citizens of few nations, completely unrelated to occupation of Palestina by Israel.

It's not like one side is completely innocent, while other side is pure evil.

[d_milivojevic]

"Israel attacked by Hamas, which, in turn, was bribed by Russia" :)))))))) Everything wrong in the world is caused by Russia. It's not like Israel has been illegally occupying Palestinian lands since 1967 keeping those people in an open air prison.

[prmoustache]

The action of a terrorist group do not justify a genocide.

[xenospn]

Has Israel been sanctioned by any major western government?

[diegolas]

no and that's exactly why those sanctions are bullshit

[prmoustache]

It should but won't because the likoud always play the criticizing_Israel choices = antisemitism card to shutdown any discussion and most western gov have too much baggage against jews to feel entitled to argue against. This + it is a matter of who you hate the most. Most far right political groups in western countries are hating islam and arabs even more than jews at the moment.

The irony is that some neonazis in european countries who used to make jokes about gaz chambers are currently calling out parties expressing concern about Israel politics as antisemitists and islamists.

[idiocrat]

And then the next paragraph of the wikipeida: "In Chicago, Frederick Stock was forced to step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by German composer Wagner with French composer Berlioz. After xenophobic Providence Journal editor John R. Rathom falsely accused Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Karl Muck of refusing to play The Star-Spangled Banner and triggered a trial by media in October 1917, Muck and 29 of the orchestra's musicians were arrested and interned in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, until well after the Armistice. "

[krick]

And of course notorious renaming hamburgers to "liberty steaks" in some restaurants in the timeframe between WWI and WWII.

[oneshtein]

It looks like typical wartime politics. It's better to say sorry rather than to risk millons of lives due to espionage. There is no liberals at war.

[yencabulator]

It's not about espionage, it's about sanctions intended to cause economic loss to the companies targeted (and thus to the country those companies are in).

State level actors won't be using such "flagged" companies as their delivery method; see Jia Tan.

[ogurechny]

You managed to read about the results of that idiocy, and believe it's a promotion of that same idiocy.

[whatshisface]

>It's better to say sorry rather than to risk millons of lives due to espionage.

We can't open a discussion about obfuscated FSB patches if we aren't going to ask what we're doing about obsfucated NSA patches.

[Arnt]

This isn't about patches at all. They can submit patches. Anyone can.

This is about being listed as a contact. You can EITHER work for a company that produces CPUs for the Russian army OR answer mail on behalf of the linux kernel maintainers, but not both.

[whatshisface]

So, what, the espionage concern is that a person who is listed as a contact might read emails on LKML.org?

The only possible justification for this is the one being offered, that some lawyers do not believe it is safe for Linus to head a project with ties that could be made real to a jury between its leaders and sanctioned entities.

Considering the fact that individual people need to stay out of court as badly as they need to avoid being convicted this is not such a difficult decision to empathize with, but it is being conducted in a typical Kernel fashion, with personal views being injected at all the worst moments and contributors leaving who would not have had any quarrels if they had not been fabricated.

[oneshtein]

They still able to read LKML, so it's not, but they no longer ask questions like "Tell me details of your hardware because I'm official kernel maintainer while you is just engineerer, so I can easily harm you career if you refuse to cooperate.", then use this information to improve hardware used in Russian weapons.

[whatshisface]

If official kernel maintainers could harm careers over not telling them proprietary hardware details, NVIDIA would be selling hot dogs at a street corner.

[Arnt]

What espionage concern? Has anyone involved said there is one?

[whatshisface]

Yes, and I quoted the comment I had replied to. It sounds like we agree except for misunderstanding.

[oneshtein]

> Could this have been an NSA attack? Maybe. But there were many others who had the skill and motivation to carry out this attack. Unless somebody confesses, or a smoking-gun document turns up, we’ll never know.

USA? Russia? China? Israel? North Korea? Iran?