It appears the maintainers of Linux are dumb enough to embrace the Grand Bifurcation and write off the majority of the human population:
Following yesterday’s news first featured on Phoronix of several Linux driver maintainers being de-listed from their maintainer positions within the mainline Linux kernel over their connections to Russia, Linus Torvalds has today commented on the matter.
Since yesterday there’s been a lot of concern and mixed views over a number of Linux kernel maintainers being de-listed from the kernel’s MAINTAINERS file seemingly over being Russian or using Russian email addresses. In response to the patch posting from last week has also been proposals to revert that prior patch, some of the affected maintainers voicing their surprise over this sudden move, and some being upset over the lack of public clarity into the seemingly new “compliance requirements” imposed on the Linux kernel.
Greg Kroah-Hartman who authored the patch dropping the various maintainers has yet to comment on the mailing list thread, but a few minutes ago Linus Torvalds chimed in with his opinion. Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote:
“Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about. It’s entirely clear why the change was done, it’s not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to “grass root” it by Russian troll factories isn’t going to change anything.
And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts – the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.
If you haven’t heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by “news”, I don’t mean Russian state-sponsored spam.
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.”
It’s not as if the Russians are simply going to throw up their hands and start using Windows 11. This promises to be the Mother of All Forks, and given the recently expressed position of BRICS on the illegality of Western sanctions, I doubt any of the BRICS countries are going to stick with the original Linux version.
This is where the fatal flaw of having a weak central figure like Torvalds in charge inevitably comes into play. Succession plans are difficult enough for strong Alphas to accomplish successfully, but when a mild-mannered Delta is the man in charge, some sort of future debacle is all but guaranteed.
Linus, it’s not that anyone thinks you’re supporting Russian aggression. It’s just that we assumed you wouldn’t be retarded enough to publicly endorse the division of the global Linux community and the creation of a Sino-Russian alternative operating system. But we were wrong.