There's the issue of neutrality, on which I think Linus' attitude is acceptable - as someone pointed out on the mailing list, the linux foundation does have to be legally situated somewhere.

What is not acceptable is the lack of transparency - the reason for removing maintainers should be stated clearly and plainly, not hidden under weasely terms like "various compliance requirements" that communicate nothing.

Are the "compliance requirements" anti-Russian sanctions, or is it a new legal theory by Microsoft that it is illegal for anyone who has used Windows 11 to contribute to FOSS software, but we don't get to learn how the law is being applied, because the people that should be shedding light on it are instead hiding it.

In short, do we want the law to be public, or secret? Any time vague terms like "legal reasons" or "compliance requirements", are used, it becomes a little more secret.

Related discussions:

- (177 points, 1 day ago, 245 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41919670

- (10 points, today, 1 comment) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41938281

I think software should be neutral, otherwise why not implant an NSA backdoor in the Linux kernel to fight the Russian invasion?