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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: May 17th, 2024

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  • This isn’t about them being kicked out, this is about the fact we don’t know the process that resulted in this. Was this a decision Linus made after a night coding and thinking about the world? Was the foundation ordered to do it?

    It lacks transparency into the process even if the outcome is fine and the way it was done doesn’t feel transparent, even if it makes sense not to include Russian coders in the project.


  • It would be much better if the company were not in a place in which gag orders can be issued, leaving questions as to transparency.

    As it stands now, it isn’t clear if Linus is just “grouchy” about this with a unique personality or if the foundation got a NSL and can’t say anything. And that leads to questions about whether there were other NSLs other than this one and if it’s had an impact on the code.

    Exploits are so hard to detect sometimes if done well and often although they get patched… eventually… the damage is done prior to the patch. The US government, despite doing lots of good things, engages in torture. And even if the US government is the “good guy,” this leads to less trust in the open-source ecosystem, no matter what the justification.


  • But seriously, Linus’s comment regarding this was… just… I have no words… he basically put every Russian in the same basket, called them trolls

    There are a huge number of online Russian trolls. That part of his response was not hyperbolic. They do have troll factories there to influence public opinion.

    The problem is this still leads to questions about transparency about the project in general and how this decision was made and whether it was made by those involved in the project or was an order from the US government.


  • Yes, this is exactly my same thoughts.

    This is terrifying.

    I don’t like what the Russian government is doing and Putin is cruel and evil, albeit intelligent (which makes him even more terrible).

    That being said, in the US, government agencies can order a company to do certain things, put in certain code, or whatever and then issue a gag order as part of that preventing disclosure. And although there’s a limit to how much that can screw over open-source software users, we do not know what exploits nation-states have, we don’t know what backdoors are in different chipsets or closed-source firmware.

    If a developer writing open source code can be blacklisted so easily without transparency into the process, it suggests the company is being ordered to do certain things and not disclose them by the US government, which is a government that still engages in torture.

    Notice how they are not coming out and saying “We were not ordered to do this by any government agency.”

    Could the foundation be forced to elevate a developer with government ties who then is able to “accidentally” put in an extremely hard to detect exploit into linux that won’t be detected at first and only patched later?

    I really wish companies associated with linux were not in a country that lacked transparency with government regulations and in which gag orders were not possible.


















  • I appreciate how the middle and upper classes who feign ignorance over their oppression always fall back on fake pretense of respectability and civility and genteelness as though their oppression didn’t stem from violence, even if they only watch it or support it through their efforts. If a homeless person who has nothing to eat steals an apple, and the police paid with your labor come to drag him away, would you do anything to stop it? Of course not. Your labor that signs off on the power structure and indifference to the class structure is a form of violence, and trying to end things by falling back on the disguise of respectability is a well known technique.

    I appreciate your trying to end this by saying “I am just a nice and respectful person, trying to end this in a civilized way,” the final refuge of oppressors: we are just civilized and they aren’t, as though your violence at a distance towards the poor somehow exculpates you and your genteelness protects you from impurity.

    If you do not realize that extraordinary cruelty and evil is being done to homeless people, and if you don’t realize this stems from the upper classes creating oppressive structures due to disdain for the freedom of the poor, then you are either stupid or vicious and avaricious and seduced by convenience and you clearly aren’t stupid. None of this matters in the end, the stupidity of the non-scientific class and myopia and selfishness of the upper classes has doomed us all and global warming is coming for us. It’s like skiing and seeing an avalanche and it’s too wide to ski to the side and you can only ski downhill in futility. There’s no outrunning global warming. Imagine India and Pakistan in 20 years in the future in the hottest regions at the hottest times. The displacements will be enormous, there’s only so much water in certain areas. How will everyone react then?

    I’m not offended by you specifically. You and your kind that feign ignorance of class oppression are a part of nature, you have no control over your mendacious ploys just like snakes wandering into a garden don’t really ask to be that way. However, the lower classes are becoming much more educated and as the environment becomes more undeniably destroyed by the upper classes, it will be interesting to see the emotional response of a more educated Internet-empowered lower class as their environment disintegrates before them. The ultra rich have underground bunkers to try to wait this period out for a few generations. It’s the smart thing to do, but likely won’t matter. My calculations and assessments of this situation could also be completely wrong if I am analyzing the data incorrectly, but I’m almost certain I am right. The data and mathematical trends are ugly and not negotiable. Most of the scientists who don’t believe in global warming likely have views rooted in religious delusion.

    There is no civility to your kind and I don’t accept your facade of respectability or agree to end our interaction with some sort of agree to disagree pseudo-civility. I still hope you suffer for being among the group that feigns ignorance of the cruelty inflicted by the upper classes. I am not a hippy striving for love at all times. I hope you suffer and I hope it hurts like paper cuts are covering your entire body.