91

FREE AS IN us-foreign-policy

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] glans@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago

Yikes. I recommend reading this linked article too: Several Linux Kernel Driver Maintainers Removed Due To Their Association To Russia

This includes the maintainer of the Acer Aspire 1 EC driver, Cirrus Logic CLPS711X ARM architecture, Baikal-T1 PVT hardware monitor driver, Libata PATA drivers, libata SATA AHCI Synopsys DWC controller drivers, ASCOT2E media drivers, MIPS Baikal-T1 platform driver, NTB IDT driver, PPTP driver, Renesas R-Car SATA driver, Renesas Super-H Ethernet Driver, and the UFS file-system. Just the maintainer entries are being removed and not the actual drivers themselves.

Here's the actual patch and some ensuing discussion on the mailing list: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. - Greg Kroah-Hartman

I am surprised they are able to do this... is there not some sort of licensing requirement of attribution? I don't know the details of what "maintainer" status indicates. It sounds like they are being removed from the credits though. Or are they being removed from decision making power or ability to contribute going forward?

[-] mbt2402@hexbear.net 26 points 2 months ago

they are removed from their position of being publicly responsible for said drivers, which is separate from code attributions in the actual code files and the actual git commit log.

[-] glans@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago

Ah thanks.

I wonder if they were polite enough to give the fired maintainers a private heads up before firing off the patch.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 18 points 2 months ago

They probably wouldn't do that for security reasons. Chance of an unhappy person doing something.

this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
91 points (92.5% liked)

libre

9654 readers
8 users here now

Welcome to libre

A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.

The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

libretion

Resources

  1. Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
  2. Switch to GNU/Linux! If you're still using Windows in $CURRENT_YEAR, flock to Linux Mint!; Apple Silicon users will want to check out Asahi Linux.

Rules

  1. Be on topic: Posts should be about free software and other hacktivst struggles. Topics about general tech news should be in the technology comm or programming comm. That doesn't mean all posts have to be serious though, memes are welcome!
  2. Avoid using misleading terms/speading misinformation: Here's a great article about what those words are. In short, try to avoid parroting common Techbro lingo and topics.
  3. Avoid being confrontational: People are in different stages of liberating their computing, focus on informing rather than accusing. Debatebro nonsense is not tolerated.
  4. All site-wide rules still apply

Artwork

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS