Comment on Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 3 weeks agoRussia represent Russian citizens the same way the US represent US citizens. If you’re an US citizen and you think US international actions look bad on you then tough luck. Being a citizen of a specific state comes with its own responsibilities and consequences. If Russian nationals have long moved out of Russia and migrated elsewhere and don’t support anything Russia does, why are they still Russian citizens? If they don’t want to get sanctioned and they’ve long migrated from Russia they should apply for citizenship elsewhere. If they choose to stay Russian citizens that’s on them.
As for nationality vs citizenship. Nationality is too vague of a term because it can mean both citizen of a state and originating from said state. I’m pretty sure in this case the discussion is about people who are Russian citizens, not people who originate from Russia but are no longer associated with them. Using nationality only muddies the discussion.
If they don’t want to get sanctioned and they’ve long migrated from Russia they should apply for citizenship elsewhere
Have you ever thought about doing this yourself? Don’t have to go far to figure that it takes at least 5 years of hard work in most cases, if possible at all. Citizenship unfortunately isn’t something you can acquire or renounce at will. Not without being obscenely rich, that is.
I never said it’s easy. I can understand someone keeping their citizenship out of convenience because the process of obtaining a different citizenship is difficult. However, I wouldn’t call it impossible. Based on my country the most time-consuming part about getting the citizenship is having to actually live here, which is at least 8 years under the residency permit. The language proficiency test and constitution (and citizenship act) examinations take an effort but are not insurmountable if you’re serious about getting a different citizenship. I haven’t gone through the process itself because I’ve never had the need, but based on what the legal requirements are I don’t see how that’s only for the obscenely rich. If you’re permanently settled elsewhere it’s a matter of time and effort.
I think my point still stands. If they have the option to choose a different citizenship and they choose not to, that’s on them. And when it comes to this specific instance I’m assuming some good will on from the rest of Linux maintainers. Hartman said “They can come back in the future if sufficient documentation is provided.” I assume if the Russian maintainers showed that they’ve passed the citizenship examinations and their different citizenship is only a matter of time, then that should be sufficient documentation to get them back on the list.
Is it any 8 years, or continious 8 years? In most places, the requirement is for continious, which is a tough ask. Imagine not being able to leave the country for almost a decade.
And you need a reason to get residence permit. In most cases there are few: living with spouse, reuniting with family, working, studying, or doing business. Of those, only work, study and business are the ones that are realistically achievable. For work, there’s usually also a requirement for employeer to prove that there is no native available to fill the role. This is a tough process, which takes a lot of time and no gutantee it’ll work, so not many employees even bother unless you have exceptional skills. For study, you would have to actually study to avoid expulsion, while somehow earning enough part time on some remote work to support yourself (or have enough savings to support yourself for years). And then, bachelors is not enough so you must go for PhD. Meanwhile, in both above cases you have to also learn local language. I’m sure there are people who could pull this off, but, again, it’s quite exceptional.
Last is business. Usually the requirement is to invest somewhere in the ranges of $100k to $500k into local economy. That’s not filthy rich, but, for context, for Russian it’d take 3 years of fighting on the frontlines to earn as much, with a wage considered good enough to risk dying for… And then the country can still deny you permit without any reason.
It’s because of this, most people I know, who chose to leave the countries, keep their passports and either settle in Armenia and Georgia with 182/365 days renewable visa-free entry, or run circles between Serbia-Montenegro or Thailand-Vietnam.
There are also interesting opportunities with digital nomad visas, but, again, the requirements out of reach for most.
I assume if the Russian maintainers showed that they’ve passed the citizenship examinations and their different citizenship is only a matter of time
It’s the other way around. You have to live for X years to be eligible for the test. Given a common requirement of 5 years, they would have to have started this process 2 years before the war broke out.
Russia represent Russian citizens the same way the US represent US citizens.
Lolwut. Russia isn’t even a democracy.
If you’re an US citizen and you think US international actions look bad on you then tough luck.
You really think Joe Schmoe Ignoramus from Shaboygan, Wisconsin just trying to buy gas is to be held responsible for the civilian deaths in Palestine? War in Iraq? Unhinged.
Being a citizen of a specific state comes with its own responsibilities and consequences.
No, because being a citizen of a state is not a choice.
If Russian nationals have long moved out of Russia and migrated elsewhere and don’t support anything Russia does, why are they still Russian citizens?
Because they may have family there and prospects of being able to visit otherwise aren’t great.
If they choose to stay Russian citizens that’s on them.
But that’s besides the fact actually getting a citizenship in another country is very very difficult. I’ve been in the UK for like 15 years, since 10 or so years old, and only just barely eligible.
Tell me you’re a westerner without the least bit of awareness of how immigration works without telling me.
Nationality is too vague of a term because it can mean both citizen of a state and originating from said state.
No it really doesn’t.
Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
In international law, nationality is a legal identification establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states.
Oh boy. I’ll respond only once and if you throw another wall of text I’m just fucking off.
Lolwut. Russia isn’t even a democracy.
Officially it is. I know in practice it isn’t but the only ones who realistically can turn it into an actual democracy are Russian people. I don’t think we should give them an exception just because their country has gone to shit.
You really think Joe Schmoe Ignoramus from Shaboygan, Wisconsin just trying to buy gas is to be held responsible for the civilian deaths in Palestine? War in Iraq? Unhinged.
Directly responsible? No. Indirectly? Yes. It’s like people have no fucking clue what a country is. It doesn’t just prop up out of nowhere. Someone somewhere defined a country and when it comes to democracies (even dysfunctional ones like Russia and the US) the people set up the country for themselves. It’s their country and whether they like it or not, they are collectively responsible for what their country does. If they’re not responsible then who is responsible for the US supporting Israel? The politicians? Who votes the politicians in power? The people. The Lobbyists? The lobbyists lobby to politicians and the politicians get chosen by the people. The masses being stupid and easy to manipulate is a different topic, but it doesn’t change that despite collectively making bad decisions the people are making those decisions.
No, because being a citizen of a state is not a choice.
It literally is. If it wasn’t a choice you couldn’t choose to become a citizen of a different state. Your initial citizenship isn’t a choice because you’re born with it but you’re also born with your initial sex, doesn’t mean you can’t choose a different sex as you grow older.
Because they may have family there and prospects of being able to visit otherwise aren’t great.
And that’s their decision to keep their citizenship. Just like it would be my decision if I chose to have a diarrhea takeaway today. Or should I blame my diarrhea on you?
But that’s besides the fact actually getting a citizenship in another country is very very difficult. I’ve been in the UK for like 15 years, since 10 or so years old, and only just barely eligible.
I can’t believe I took the effort to look up how UK citizenship works but if you’re only barely eligible after 15 years you are clearly leaving out some key information. The “don’t be poor” part of ILR is kinda stupid so if it’s that I get it, but beyond that you shouldn’t be barely eligible unless you’ve sloppy with your visa’s or have been regularly traveling in and out of the UK.
And my point is that while getting a citizenship can be difficult, it is not impossible.
No it really doesn’t.
It clearly was vague considering how many other comments are mixing up someone being born in Russia or having Russian heritage with someone actually being Russian. And to point to the exact same wiki page:
As such nationality in international law can be called and understood as citizenship,[35] or **more generally as subject or belonging to a sovereign state, and not as ethnicity. **
responds with wall of text “if you throw another wall of text I’m just fucking off.”
Cute.
I know in practice it isn’t but the only ones who realistically can turn it into an actual democracy are Russian people.
Don’t hold your breath. Russians are absolutely scared into submission and honestly they’re not wrong to be scared. Political prisoners don’t have any real human rights nor do their families. In a country where the average person can barely scrounge for a car, a well-funded, organized resistance is unlikely to accomplish anything on their own.
That said, it’s not like there isn’t anything at all being done:
…wikipedia.org/…/Opposition_to_Vladimir_Putin_in_…
Protests against Putin have been going on for a long-time, but Navalny’s death has slowed things down somewhat. More openly acts of anti-government terrorism and openly fighting for Ukraine have been happening also:
…wikipedia.org/…/Belarusian_and_Russian_partisan_…
…wikipedia.org/…/Combat_Organization_of_Anarcho-C…
These are far braver people than I, god bless and godspeed to them. But also, not something you can expect the average Joe Schmoe to be.
I don’t think we should give them an exception just because their country has gone to shit.
It’s not an exception, it’s the rule. People and governments are almost entirely separate. State is an oppressor of the people that exists to benefit the top 1% and corporations, more often than not it acts in complete opposition to the interests of the people and they have no power to change it, whether it’s outright a military dictatorship, one-party rule (China), practical one-party rule (Japan), two-party system (US), practical two-party system (UK) or otherwise.
It literally is. If it wasn’t a choice you couldn’t choose to become a citizen of a different state.
You can’t choose, you can try to become one but for 99% of people it’s not possible. You are in total ignorance of the realities of immigration. My parents were no oligarchs, but they were definitely really well-off, and if not for that I’d never have immigrated.
Not to mention:
Your initial citizenship isn’t a choice
doesn’t mean you can’t choose a different sex as you grow older.
Yeah, but it also is a helluva undertaking. Transitioning fully takes 10+ years easily in practice and either being very lucky and living in a country with nationalised healthcare and having the patience of a saint to not only wait the eternal waitlists but also fight through both the incompetence, the lack of understanding and outright malice or have tens of thousands of dollars burning a hole in your pocket.
When it comes to immigrating from somewhere like Russia to somewhere like the US or UK, even on top of the 10 years and enormous amounts of luck, talent and constant effort (education, job searching is 10x harder) the monetary figure gets up to hundreds of thousands of dollars easily.
Or should I blame my diarrhea on you?
No, but you should be a pragmatist and understand that it’s not realistic to suggest people never get takeaway at all, because it’s for instance - unhealthy - which is true in many cases.
People smoke, do drugs, drink alcohol and eat sugary foods despite all that, and self-control is kind of a myth, it has a lot more to do with one’s circumstances than oneself. E.g. for someone who’s only source of happiness in a dreary day is a bottle of a beer, it’s gonna be a lot harder to stop than for someone who didn’t care that much for it in the first place because they’re rich and their life is not very stressful.
The “don’t be poor” part of ILR is kinda stupid so if it’s that I get it
That part is a non-issue, because if you’re smart, self-disciplined and patient enough to get a skilled worker job in the first place and your job salary qualifies for the skilled worker visa by salary requirements then you won’t have any problems saving the £3k+. Compared to like 4 years of university at what, £14k a year, it’s barely anything.
have been regularly traveling in and out of the UK.
That was it for me. But I visited my parents for summer holidays when I was a literal child, long before I understood that Russia was not a place I wanted to be or the politics of it all, nevermind intricacies of immigration rules that would only concern me over a decade later, and it’s not like I had anywhere to live in the UK outside the boarding school.
Out of all my peers from that school that wanted to stay, I’m the only one that’s made it anywhere close, the others all have years to go for the same sorts of reasons.
And my point is that while getting a citizenship can be difficult, it is not impossible.
And I disagree. For most, it’s an impossibility. My childhood friends in Russia didn’t want to stay in Russia either, but being working class kids, they were lucky to even have a hacked PSP. Studying at some international boarding school is the only realistic route unless you’re exceedingly lucky and extremely talented and it requires being very well off.
In general a lot of your rhetoric speaks to a meritocratic, individualistic and christian-work-ethic capitalist mindset, which can be a good thing, people should try their best and work hard, and I did, but ultimately I only had the opportunity to because of my environment. It’s good to be conscious of such things as well.
As such nationality in international law can be called and understood as citizenship,[35] or more generally as subject or belonging to a sovereign state, and not as ethnicity.
Yeah, “belonging to a sovereign state” is just citizenship or “origin” in cases where no clear citizenship can be established.
When I tear up my Russian passport and burn it, I will no longer be subject to Russian laws, e.g. conscription, and instead be a subject of the British state in the eyes of the law.
Directly responsible? No. Indirectly? Yes. It’s like people have no fucking clue what a country is. It doesn’t just prop up out of nowhere. Someone somewhere defined a country and when it comes to democracies (even dysfunctional ones like Russia and the US) the people set up the country for themselves.
Please tell me you’re not this naive, or you’re not yet 18. This is not what countries are or how they came about, and the rest of your argument falls apart as a consequence of that. Please read up on the colonialist and early industrial periods.
Also, the dysfunctions of the US democracy are simply incomparable to Russian “democracy”, no matter how bad gerrymandering and electron denialism is, the fact that such things even need exist at all is the very proof of that.
If they’re not responsible then who is responsible for the US supporting Israel? The politicians? Who votes the politicians in power? The people. The Lobbyists? The lobbyists lobby to politicians and the politicians get chosen by the people. The masses being stupid and easy to manipulate is a different topic, but it doesn’t change that despite collectively making bad decisions the people are making those decisions.
Okay. I give you two options:
A) Shoot yourself with a shotgun B) Shoot yourself with a pistol
But if you shoot yourself, it’s a bed you made? That’s absurd. States give people a voice, there is no political model in existence that would actually allow the people to become the nation-state itself, for many reasons, including the fact it would be an absolute clusterfuck.
Even anarchist communes would have to have elected representatives to interact with each other and experts to elect to leave some decisions to on for instance, medical or climate policy, which would become a pseudo-state administration, and it’s inevitable that such people have their own agendas as everyone does that would become divorced from the people, the role of representation (democracy, consensus, e.g.) in such a political system is to provide a check and a balance on it.
In western nations voters are a key to power yes, but only one of many, and hardly the most important one.
You may want to run for president for instance, and given the choice, people might vote for you a 100% and you may be the best president the US ever had, but you’ll never be given that opportunity, plain and simple.
There’s a lot more I could go into, but I’ll leave it up to you to look more deeply into civics. Do it for yourself and for me, I’ve already fled one undemocratic shithole, please do not turn the west into a repressive populist junta and learn more about civics and history, thanks xoxo :)
dwindling7373@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Congratulation, you are part of the problem!
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
So what are we supposed to do?
Not sanction Russia?
Apply sanctions on an individual basis?
dwindling7373@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Are you under the impression I’m some kind of strategical genious of political negotiation? I have no idea.
My point is that holding everybody responsible for what the specific form of government of the specific country they happened to be born into is a confortable truth to push back on the much more controversial take of all of us being the very same thing.
And to get slightly more practical, it’s asinine to suggest that anybody that disagrees with a government has the means, or the will, or the duty to straight up move to another country (obviously to a flawless country, good luck with that).
YeetPics@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
The way you denigrate different opinions, it seems you may be the one to think that, actually.
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’ll ask differently. Let’s just assume there is a way to make sure there is no overreach of sanctions, but it’s going to cost millions of tax dollars or euros. Would you rather have that money spent on things that are close to you (education, healthcare, infrastructure etc) or would you want that money to spent identifying which Russians should or shouldn’t be sanctioned?
I agree, somethings shit just sucks. However, the other person said
Those people have already had the means, will or duty to move to another country. What’s their excuse for keeping the Russian citizenship?
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It’s besides the point because with the Linux kernel not only should it be a net-neutrality style project where we do not let geopolitics affect it (do you really want Trump’s America to have legal power over it?)
The solution here is simple, just do not kick the maintainers unless they have confirmed ties to the Russian state. It’s not always practical to make sanctions precisely targeted, but in this case it actually is easily so.
Petter1@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Let us all love Lain 😁
Other than that, can we still trust .ru and .su domains?
drathvedro@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Exactly. ACF has published a list of every single person responsible for the war. Most of them are not sanctioned because they are filthy rich and have already bought themselves passports in various EU countries. Targeting Russian passports does absolutely nothing to them as they can just use another.
Petter1@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Sanctions are to punish the whole country including individuals. Sanctions work because it makes lives of individuals worse so that they have reason to be unhappy and do something against the reasons the sanctions is put on them. It makes it harder for leaders to be accepted, if under their power live gets worse. And if a leader is not accepted by enough of their people, the chances of resistance is bigger. And the countries that have put sanctions on, want exactly that.