Russia says it might build its own Linux community after removal of several kernel maintainers

Russia has called Linux’s recent delisting of several Russian kernel maintainers “an act of discrimination” and pledged to establish an independent development community for the open-source operating system.

“We will strengthen cooperation and establish a dialogue with those countries that are ready to work with us,” Russia’s digital ministry said in a comment to local media, adding that they plan to build their own “alternative structure."

“It is important to create conditions for cooperation, which can help develop a unique product,” the ministry’s representative added. It is unclear whether the creation of an alternative Linux community has been discussed with other countries and whether it is even possible. Leaders within the Linux project have not publicly commented on the Russian statement.

Russia’s response came after the Linux community blocked  11 Russians from maintaining the Linux kernel — the operating system’s core code — citing “various compliance requirements.” Linux creator Linus Torvalds stated that this decision “is not getting reverted,” adding that as a Finn, he will not “support Russian aggression.”

One of the Linux maintainers later explained that the restrictions would apply to developers whose companies are owned or controlled by entities on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control list, designated as involved in activities that “threaten the national security, foreign policy, or economy” of the country.

Most of the delisted Russian maintainers were indeed associated with sanctioned Russian companies or organizations controlled or backed by the Russian government.

Russian cyber experts have criticized Linux’s latest decision, saying it will negatively affect trust within Linux’s developer community and the quality of the product.

An expert from the Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky, which has been sanctioned by the U.S., said in an interview with Russian media RBK that the level of suspicion toward patches from Russian developers may increase, complicating the process of integrating changes into the main version of the software, which is important for maintaining Linux distributions.

“The contribution of Russian developers to the Linux kernel is not that significant, so nothing critical will happen in this regard,” said another Russian expert, Ivan Panchenko, co-founder of a Russian company that develops an open-source database management system. 

He added that Russian patches for general software issues will likely continue to be accepted. Many Linux developers work on parts of the operating system that are outside the kernel. However, Panchenko said there may be new, separate versions of the kernel created by Russian developers — so-called forks.

This is not the first time that associations with Russia have caused problems for local developers. Last year, a Russian coder's account was blocked on GitHub, and his repositories were marked as "archived." The affected developer reportedly worked for a Russian tech equipment manufacturer sanctioned by Canada and the U.S.