Removal of Russian coders spurs debate about Linux kernel’s politics

"Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. They can come back in the future if sufficient documentation is provided."

That two-line comment, submitted by major Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman, accompanied a patch that removed about a dozen names from the kernle's MAINTAINERS file. "Some entries" notably had either Russian names or .ru email addresses. "Various compliance requirements" was, in this case, sanctions against Russia and Russian companies, stemming from that country's invasion of Ukraine.

This merge did not go unnoticed. Replies on the kernel mailing list asked about this "very vague" patch. Kernel developer James Bottomley wrote that "we" (seemingly speaking for Linux maintainers) had "actual advice" from Linux Foundation counsel. Employees of companies on the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (OFAC SDN), or connected to them, will have their collaborations "subject to restrictions," and "cannot be in the MAINTAINERS file." "Sufficient documentation" would mean evidence that someone does not work for an OFAC SDN entity, Bottomley wrote.

There followed a number of messages questioning the legitimacy, suddenness, potentially US-forced, and non-reviewed nature of the commit, along with broader questions about the separation of open source code from international politics. Linux creator Linus Torvalds entered the thread with, "Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about." He wrote: "It's entirely clear why the change was done" and noted that "Russian troll factories" will not revert it and that "the 'various compliance requirements' are not just a US thing.

"As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too," Torvalds wrote before signing off. Torvalds later wrote that he would not go into the details that kernel maintainers "were told by lawyers," and would not "start discussing legal issues with random internet people," which he suspected "are paid actors and/or have been riled up by them."