OPINION
CONFLICTS
Jon Masters is a kernel hacker who’s been involved with Linux for more than 22 years, and works on efficient ARM servers.
"I try to keep certain contentious topics out of this column as debate can quickly become heated. Yet we can’t live isolated from the real world, where terrible things happen that can impact all of us, even in the world of open source software. Especially in these times of conflict. This was the case when a developer associated with (sanctioned) Russian company Baikal Electronics tried to post patches to the Netdev Linux networking development list. His post was greeted tersely by a maintainer: “We don’t feel comfortable accepting patches from or relating to hardware produced by your organisation. Please withhold networking contributions until further notice.” The thread ended there, but not the follow-on discussion about the potential implications. There does not appear to be an official policy of the Linux kernel community pertaining to patches posted by developers connected with Russia, yet it doesn’t feel unlikely that there would never be. Others have written about the cost of contribution and the implied benefits a contributor gets from ongoing maintenance. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that maintainers might have valid objections. It will be interesting to see how this evolves."