Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers

Removal of kernel maintainers linked to Russia attributed to sanctions

Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Wednesday affirmed the removal last week of about a dozen kernel maintainers associated with Russia.

On October 18, Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman published a message to the Linux kernel mailing list showing that a handful of Linux developers in the MAINTAINERS file had been removed.

His explanation was vague. "Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements," Kroah-Hartman wrote. "They can come back in the future if sufficient documentation is provided."

Mailing list participants pushed back, asking for further explanation about the removed names, all of which appear to be Russian and most of which are associated with a Russian (.ru) email address. Russia is currently subject to US government sanctions related to its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and other concerns.

Those dropped from the maintainer list oversee various Linux drivers that provide interoperability with hardware from vendors like Acer and Cirrus Logic.

Torvalds responded to the mailing list challenges in the style for which he's become famous by attributing the blowback to Russian trolls.

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.

The driver code to which the dropped maintainers contributed remains in place.

The Linux Foundation, a US-based non-profit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ®