Comment by gb12ayg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gb12ayg | Hacker News Reader

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I find it sad that there are so many reductive comments here. The author of this article is very nuanced:

Should U.S. developers have been sanctioned over the Iraq war that was launched under false pretenses (non-existent WMD)?

Should company sanctions apply to individuals who happen to work for such a company?

Should the matter have been handled more gracefully than a stealthy removal from the MAINTAINERS file?

Has the culture of the Linux Kernel changed?

The culture has certainly changed, almost all big OSS projects have been captured and are essentially governed by corporations.

Perhaps Torvalds has been legally pressured, but 20 years ago he would have put up a fight at least. Back then everyone was proud that OSS could be used by anyone for anything. Now he attacks critics with the Russian troll meme. This is the worst of Torvalds I have seen so far.

So far, he does not seem to have any issues with exporting the Linux Kernel to Russia, which should also be prohibited by sanctions.

- "exporting the Linux Kernel to Russia, which should also be prohibited by sanctions."

There's no export controls of non-commercial, non-ITAR software; such a thing would quickly run into a First Amendment wall. As PGP's Phil Zimmermann observed thirty years ago, you can always just print out your source code on paper and bind it as a book. Can the US government outlaw a book? Of course not.

- "In 1995, Zimmermann published the book PGP Source Code and Internals as a way to bypass limitations on exporting digital code. Zimmermann's introduction says the book contains "all of the C source code to a software package called PGP" and that the unusual publication in book form of the complete source code for a computer program was a direct response to the U.S. government's criminal investigation of Zimmermann for violations of U.S. export restrictions as a result of the international spread of PGP's use.[7]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann#Arms_Export_Co...

> Now he attacks critics with the Russian troll meme

You should really provide more grounds for stating that.

One second to find using Google:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/23/linus_torvalds_affirm...

Quote in the middle of the article.

No, you misunderstood the statement. That article on the Register I had abundantly read when it came out.

The poster should show that that one sentence from Torvalds could be dismissed - we do not know exactly what interventions he called "trolls". Maybe they were, maybe they were not.

You can read the part of the lkml thread preceding Linus' message.

You mean, all the exchanges before https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=whNGNVnYHHSXUAsWds_MoZ-iEg...

I will still prefer to suspend judgement as it is not immediate what was in Linus' mind when he accused some of being trolls (on suspicion of being organized trolls). He is there and knows names and past - we the outsiders should get properly acquainted with all of that.

Surely, this outcome feels like better-if-avoided collateral damage.

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