Keeping open source open
Doghouse – Kernel Maintainers
People contribute to the Linux kernel from around the world and a great range of circumstances – even during war, which raises questions about how to remain open and consider security.
Recently there was an issue where several Russians were listed as maintainers of the Linux kernel whose email addresses contained the ending .ru. These maintainers were removed from the list of maintainers and were told that they might be added back if certain documentation steps were taken.
This action seemed sudden and many people objected to the action because it seemed to go against the philosophy of open source. There were a lot of people who decried this, and some talked about "forking the kernel" and forming a project that would not "discriminate" against Russian people.
First of all, there has been no action that I know of that keeps Russians from using the free software of the Linux kernel. They may pull down the kernel code and use it for whatever they desire. This fits in well with the "zero law" of the GPL, which states that you should be able to use the code for any reason. There is nothing in the license of free software or even open source that guarantees you can work on the project or submit code to it. Allowing that would be chaos.
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