From that same mail thread:
Moreover, we have to remove any maintainers who come from the following countries or regions, as they are listed in Countries of Particular Concern and are subject to impending sanctions:
- Burma, People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
- Algeria, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, Comoros, and Vietnam.
For People’s Republic of China, there are about 500 entities that are on the U.S. OFAC SDN / non-SDN lists, especially HUAWEI
Some patches are linked where it looks like they’re trying to remove vast swathes of Chinese maintainers as well. If they insist with being a US lapdog like this then Linux kernel (as maintained by the Foundation/Torvalds etc) is fucking dead, no contest.
I’ll make a prediction, I think that the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be given a stewardship role over a domestic fork of the Linux kernel.
I was thinking more about this, and I’ll make a further prediction: the US government will ban the import of devices that both require operating systems, and that use operating systems not developed by either American companies or companies in countries closely allied to America.
I misread that as treats.gov and briefly felt a complete understanding of US foreign policy
death to torvalds. he keeps throwing tantrums on the mailing lists anyways.
Seeing Linus Torvalds’ talk like a BlueAnon lib was very disappointing.
Why does free, international software have to abide by US sanctions, anyway?
Edit: Apparently the Linux Foundation is based in the US. I got it.
So long as the foundation and the official “owners” of the kernel are US based, then the real answer is “because it’s the law”. Despite the fact the kernel is maintained and used throughout the globe, other countries’ laws are entirely irrelevant, but people who employed in a country are typically held to its laws.
The real mistake was having a registered company in the US that they’re unable to realistically move abroad.
In a world with sense, someone vaguely accountable in a new country will fork the kernel, that just becomes the de facto new kernel, doesn’t seem likely. We can only wait and see.
For the same reason Google has to abide by EU rules and regulations and VW has to abide by American laws and Disney has to edit their movies for China.
gee all those entities are for-profit, why does Linux need to prioritize profits again?
Okay you’re still missing the point. The same reason the Red Cross or Doctors Sans Borders needs to abide by laws in several different countries.
profit has nothing to do with it. Its about where you reside or do business.
