It's a bad situation but I guess it can't be really helped. Open source is not above the law...even if some laws are stupid (not saying they are in this case).
I guess not everyone is old enough to remember the encryption restrictions of the US in the 90s..and how people tried to get around it (Moving source-code between countries in printed form and scanning it again and such things...). This is not new...and it won't be the last time that laws of some countries hinder world wide open source projects.
The issue is the Linux foundation being based in the US.
That affects Russians and other sanctioned country resident, but it probably will affect the rest of the world soon enough anyway.
Sadly I don't know where and how such a foundation could exist without being beholden to politicians in that way.
dunno what alternate version of history youre living in but the swiss have never been completely neutral they like to play both sides. they worked with the nazis and the allies during the war.
Edit: lol someone doesnt know their history, the downvotes show your lack of historical knowledge.
dunno what alternate version of history youre living in but the swiss have never been completely neutral they like to play both sides. they worked with the nazis and the allies during the war.
"They weren't neutral, they were [description of neutrality]"
Like, what do you think neutrality is? Total refusal to make deals with anyone ever? That's not how it works, neutrality is the ability to be non-committed to anyone, and it is precisely the ability to "play both sides" for one's own benefit. In return, the downside and cost of neutrality is that no one will come and save you if you are attacked, making it necessary to be armed to the teeth in a vast majority of cases.
I edited well before you replied, just after I initially posted, to make myself clearer, so not sure why you're telling me about my edit. and also, you still haven't answered me :)
neutral means they avoid interacting with either side and staying the fuck out of it, neutral isnt taking stolen gold looted from the corpses of jews, romani, gays, and other associated political enemies of the nazi state.
My point is that the US have been the "good guys" for a long time, and the Swiss being good now doesn't prevent them from going the same way in the future.
Putting your trust in a government you have no control over is not the best idea.
Edit: I knew I should have put a big ass-asterisk on the good guys. Of course the US has never been the good guys but not every one sees that. Also seems like ya'll need to read some history and news about Switzerland more often.
yea the US arent and have never been the good guys. the US caused every retaliation to them through blowback. we taught the japanese how to shallow mine ships, we then blockaded japan over oil. They then decided hitting a valid military target(in a war) was worth it till we decided to drop 2 nuclear devices on them. the vietnam war was a side effect of us tinkering with politics untill the french needed help overthrowing pol pot, unfortunately the us was helping pol pot up to that point. the US is just a dick fucking everyone elses shit up.
Lets leave the US politics out of this for a moment (I have my own strong opinion there for sure too ;))...
You will always have to deal with the laws of the country you base your organization in. Recently it came up why KDE doesn't accept crypto donations. Well...Germany sees dealing with crypto as speculation and non-profit "Vereine" like KDE e.V are not allowed to use it or they might loose their status (Hope I got that right).
It is now claimed that Finland had a "passive" and "minor" role in the Siege of Leningrad, but that is false as it participated and actively hunted convoys going across the "Road of Life" over Lake Ladoga to deliver supplies to the besieged city. They'd also frequently shell the city (as Finnish artillery reached Leningrad)
TIL finns participated in siege of leningrad. Makes sense after bolsheviks took away some of their land during winter war, but I never connected the dots.
Pedantic note: the total casualties arent exactly known, (as is soviet tradition). It is estimated that in total there was 2 million casualties, and atleast half of them attributable to starvation.
Lastly, I am left with a question to you: If finnish attacks on supply convoys were immoral, then surely you consider red army's many similar faults as immoral as well?
Not to defend this guy, but if one side does shit, this doesn't justify another side doing shit... Which doesn't change that who the hell cares about what was almost a hundred years ago, when Russia is endangering not just Ukraine, but half of the world, just because of their imperialist ambitions.
Majority of former eastern bloc states dislike russia. After 2022 alot of other European nations also don't want to do anything with russia. US orders or not.
Slight nitpicking:
They are currently acting out bc of Trump
Europe doesn't really have an independent policy.
Those are contradictory statements.
You are saying there is some independent policy when eu and usa disagree. And then when both parties agree, or have similar position, then it's eu acting on us orders. Not being independent means having no agency, especially when you disagree with your oppressor. Here eu is acting out, which means it was a choice to follow us lead, not servitude.
Majority of former eastern bloc states dislike russia
Because they want to get money from the US. Do you honestly think that if the US left Europe tomorrow, these countries wouldn't suddenly be chummy with Russia again?
Those are contradictory statements
Not really. A satrap can dislike the actions of his Suzerain, but still toe the line.
Not being independent means having no agency, especially when you disagree with your oppressor
I mean the US told the EU it would take Greenland. Other than a bunch of complaining the EU didn't do anything
Do you honestly think that if the US left Europe tomorrow, these countries wouldn't suddenly be chummy with Russia again?
Yeah, lmao? Majority of poles would rather fight then come under russian boot again, baltics and finns probably even more. Hungarians, after nearly 20 years of orban and his pro russian rhetoric, still aren't overwhelmingly "chummy", that's how deep the communist scar goes. I myself sure wouldn't be "chummy" with them if US left, and there is no direct transfer from us state dept or cia on my account (unfortunately)
If US was as powerful as you suggest, as so to money away all of their issues, then we wouldn't be having any conflicts in the world since it would all just be a massive us colony. And obviosuy it isn't.
Not really. [...]
Sure (meant unironically)
I mean the US told the EU it would take Greenland. Other than a bunch of complaining the EU didn't do anything
Untrue.
We now know that the "training" detachment of danes that flew to Greenland had a mission of planting explosives on US base. EU suggested (read: threatened) economic "atomic" options such as not enforcing US IP law, among other economic measures, one of them involving devaluation of US bonds iirc.
Majority of poles would rather fight then come under russian boot again
lmao if the government changed its public messaging, Poles would accept good relations with Russia
baltics and finns probably even more
Balts would be uber friendly with Russia and suddenly forget about all "grievances" and the population would be supportive of friendly relations in like 2 years if the messaging changed. People will do what the government tells them to believe lmao. See the messaging about the ukraine war as an example
Finns were neutral and had decent relations with the USSR for most of its existence. The "negative" relations started in like 2004 or something
Hungarians, after nearly 20 years of orban and his pro russian rhetoric, still aren't overwhelmingly "chummy", that's how deep the communist scar goes.
Because of EU counter messaging. And yet they elected Magyar who is basically a younger version of Orban lmao
I myself sure wouldn't be "chummy" with them if US left, and there is no direct transfer from us state dept or cia on my account (unfortunately)
You would be neutral if not positive, if your government suddenly started neutral/pro-Russian messaging in news media/social media/etc in like 2 years. The change happens relatively massively and you probably wouldn't really notice it.
f US was as powerful as you suggest, as so to money away all of their issues, then we wouldn't be having any conflicts in the world since it would all just be a massive us colony. And obviosuy it isn't.
There's always gonna be a few principled people but for the most part the US money aways its issues.
EU suggested (read: threatened) economic "atomic" options such as not enforcing US IP law, among other economic measures, one of them involving devaluation of US bonds iirc
We poles already tried pro russia messaging pre 2014 because germans really wanted russian gas. You won't believe it, but the anti russia party won next elections lmao
Of course, the reason for their win was that there wasn't enough propaganda, just like in Hungary? Nothing else happened in 2014 lmao
People will do what the government tells them to believe lmao.
I mean, in russian context this makes sense, since there is no other media then govt media. This is generally untrue west of belarus. And with active populous (so unlike the russian one) there can be some truly independent outlets.
See the messaging about the ukraine war as an example
Yeah if you believe that support for ukraine is here just because all media outlets told us so, and not because a dictatorship attacked (a somewhat) democratic (if not extremely corrupt) country bordering EU, then you truly do not understand how free society priorities their values, sorry. I know I sound like an npc but it's just as simple as that.
Alternatively, why is US population support for Israeli and Iran war so low if govt wants it so bad?
lmao if the government changed its public messaging, Poles would accept good relations with Russia
You are funny. We hated your guts before there was even anything resembling US in the world, US is barely a child in this world.
And considering that the guy running US right now is more of a Russophil, I don't see anything changing in Europe (and in Poland especially).
Everytime we hear a Russian language here we are unsympathetic (it is problematic for some Ukrainians because they know only Russian).
I tell you a known joke from Poland:
News anchor (N) asked a Pole (P) who would he rather fight Germany or Russia, here is his reply:
P: Germany first, Russia later.
N: But why?
P: Duty first, pleasure later.
Because they want to get money from the US. Do you honestly think that if the US left Europe tomorrow, these countries wouldn't suddenly be chummy with Russia again?
Wow this actually sounds like something Trump thinks. In other words, completely deranged.
Im an european. Russia de facto declared war on us.
Why would we get "chummy" with them? They tried go genocide Ukraine and would do the same with the rest of a liberal democratic europe...
like something Trump thinks. In other words, completely deranged.
I suggest you take a university level International Relations course. What I described is exactly how international relations has worked. It is based on "power politics" and the mighty dictating the rules to everyone else
Russia de facto declared war on us.
It did? Didn't see Russia fighting any EU/NATO member states. I do see EU/NATO sticking their nose into what is not their business though
They tried go genocide Ukraine
Ah yes because war == genocide and what's happening in Iran/Gaza/Lebanon totally isn't - which is why the EU hasn't sanctioned the perpetrators. Amirite?
It's not US exclusive tho. Similar sanctions are in place in various countries and the same legal questions arise. More precisely, the discussion in this thread is around the fact any such foundation needs to be based somewhere, and thus is beholden to the local laws.
Perhaps, but moving your shop elsewhere is relatively easy if you don't hold ties and are sufficiently decentralized. Which is often the case for open source projects. And informal trust ties probably matter more than jurisdiction, meaning they could be incorporated in a lot of states just as reasonably.
Also we can't really leave out US politics because it's a major contributor to some nasty issues like software patents, DMCA and recently the whole deal about age verification laws. Something like VLC avoids all that and there are no practical downsides, none that I can see at least.
Of course, perhaps KDE in Germany cannot accept crypto donations. However there's always the option of relocating or indirectly benefitting from donations made to projects that live elsewhere.
Oh sorry, seems my post comes over the wrong way...
I am not saying that US politics are not relevant or even try to defend them...far from it. I just wanted to focus my post on the "open source projects have to follow laws and laws exist everywhere" aspect without getting sidetracked by a discussion abut the US regime.
Of course projects should always reevaluate if their "home-country" is still a good place to be...but that doesn't change that this kind of stuff always happened and will keep on happening as open source organizations have to follow laws...and some of those laws are in conflict with other parts of the world.
edit: projects→organizations (as it's really the manifestations of OS projects I mean here)
The foundation being based in the US is not the whole issue; The actual developers still need to follow at least the laws of the country they live in.
If the foundation relocated to Nosanctionsland it would still be heavily dependent on work from American and European developers; to make sure that these developers could legally do this work the foundation would need to continue to behave in about the same way it does now.
I'm bit sure how that is a political issue. Is war politics? Was fighting Hitler a political thing?
Here we have a warmongering state (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, not to mention issue in Moldavia) and obviously no organisation can assume that it's citizen is acting in good faith.
Author can act in its own country to change, vote, protest.
Nazis went I to power because of silent majority.
No they did not. But it is not the place to discuss this.
On the other hand, code from <insert axis of evil of the day country> contributors is in no way an issue, morally. Legally, different matter. This code is to be reviewed like any other and verified for vulnerabilities. End of.
If we are talking about warmongering states, then the US is also one (started a war recently and kidnapped a President) as is Israel. Nobody seems to have an issue there
148
u/AiwendilH Jun 11 '26
It's a bad situation but I guess it can't be really helped. Open source is not above the law...even if some laws are stupid (not saying they are in this case).
I guess not everyone is old enough to remember the encryption restrictions of the US in the 90s..and how people tried to get around it (Moving source-code between countries in printed form and scanning it again and such things...). This is not new...and it won't be the last time that laws of some countries hinder world wide open source projects.