[tpkee]

What is the point of open source if it doesn’t protect individuals from the control of corps and non-democratic countries? What’s the damn point of open source if law enforcers can just hijack the project?

I don’t care about the Russians shenanigans but I’m dumbfounded by the lack of transparency, the obvious racism, from Linus.

[lifthrasiir]

The only point of open source is that you are still free to inspect, use and possibly fork everything and start anew. The concept you actually want is open governance, which is much more vague and less established. I guess this incident clearly demonstrates that Linux is less openly governed than what people assumed, but also it doesn't change anything about being open source. (We are even not very sure whether open governance is necessarily good in general!)

Also, at least try to say that you do care about "the Russians shenanigans" (but you can also don't support the incident as well), because it's also a highly political matter and inducing any useless emotion is just as bad as Linus' reply.

[tpkee]

I supposed it was clear that I was referring to FOSS, in hindsight it wasn’t clear at all.

> Russian shenanigans

I do care about the conflict and hope for a swift victory by Ukraine, but in this instance it could have been anyone really. It doesn’t matter these people are Russians: Linus, to comply with “legal requirements”, threw out maintainers without giving an actual reason. If he is so eager to comply with legal requirements now, I wonder what he — he or any other software maintainer — would do were the “legal requirements” be for an unjust cause; countries shouldn’t dictate who can and cannot work for FOSS projects.

And on the matter of “we are the good guys, nothing can go wrong”: In EU politicians tried to make cryptography useless again, and while I don’t believe the law will pass I can’t help but wonder if FOSS maintainers, just like Linus, will happily comply.

[bigfatkitten]

You don't get to operate in a legal vacuum just because you're writing software.

[tpkee]

Then what is the point of free software? By existing within the law mechanism it is on itself pointless: it is free labor companies tolerate because it suits their interests and it is for now allowed because we don’t live in a dictatorship, but it is easily hijackable and, as Linus proves, there is not even a need to actually write malicious code.

I wonder what would you think projects like signal, but the FOSS community too, should do if the “chat control” law actually passed in Europe.

EDIT: if, as you say it doesn’t exist in a legal vacuum, then FOSS is worthless and, I reiterate, just free labor for corporations

[aa_is_op]

For a good reason, though! Invading another country and having "human safaris" with their citizens is kind of a pretty valid reason.