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Fwd from Alexander: Собственно ответ Линуса: So I think the easiest thing to do is to just quote the reply I sent Serge when he asked. So the below was written and sent to him at Baikal Electronics, but it's generic enough that rather than write a whole new explanation it's just quicker for me to just cut-and-paste my previous one... Linus ----- cut-and-paste from previous email ----- So Jakub actually let me know ahead of time, and there was discussion with other network maintainers too, so this isn't really a "rogue maintainer" kind of situation. As I told Jakub when he asked about the situation, I personally wish we could make all our policies on purely technical grounds. BUT. While I think basing all our decisions on technical grounds is a good thing in general - just because there is seldom any huge discussion, and you don't get into overly emotional arguments, and you can strive to actually rely on hard numbers and facts - I don't think it can ever truly be the only issue. We obviously also have various legal issues wrt IP rights etc, so technical issues are inevitably never the only thing we can look at. And even more importantly than that, I believe that trust between developers is really really core. It's kind of the bedrock of open source. Yes, you trust the code, but when you work together with other people, you need to trust those people too. End result: with the whole war in Ukraine, I can well understand that there are a lot of developers who question any patches from Russian sources. And honestly, I understand completely. I'm originally from Finland, and while it's been a couple of generations, there's a _lot_ of distrust still. The Finnish winter war with Russia was only a couple of generations ago, after all, and I knew people who were displaced by it and absolutely _hated_ Russians as a result. And that's coming from a country that realistically had very good relationships with its largest neighbor - nothing like some of the Eastern European countries that have seen literal atrocities. Btw, since I'm sure that the Finnish Winter war is taught very differently in Russia, let me point you to the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War and go to the "Justification" thin in particular. Sound familiar? It sounds all too similar to *exactly* the same thing that Russia did to "justify" the war in Ukraine. This is not just history, and "three generations ago". I was back in Finland early last year for my mother-in-law's funeral, and at the time the local news were of Russian aggressions towards the de-militarized Åland islands (part of Finland, although closely associated with Sweden). I pooh-poohed it as "why would Russia do that, that would be insane" - but there was clearly some real intelligence behind those rumors, with the invasion of Ukraine happening three weeks after I got back. So while I doubt you - or your company - has anything to do with the whole mess in Ukraine, I will state that I believe 100% that Russia is a terrorist state that has gone off the deep end. My "that would be insane" turned out to actually be true, even if the target then was Ukraine, not Finland. But when tanks start rolling over borders to "re-unify the Russian empire", let me tell you that as a Finn, I take it somewhat personally. I will not stop any kernel developer I trust from taking patches from Russian sources that they in turn trust, but at the same time I will also not override anybody who goes "I don't want to have anything to do with this" and doesn't want to work with Russian companies. And yes, I realize that you will likely feel this is hugely unfair, and that you had nothing to do with the insanity of your country's politics and leadership. But I hope I have explained why I don't feel like I should override any maintainer who feels that they cannot work with Russian companies as things stand now. Russian aggression *must* stop. And in the meantime, here we are. Linus
