The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia has proposed creating its own community of developers based on the Linux operating system, focused on countries ready to cooperate with Russia. This proposal was a response to the recent removal of Russian developers from the global Linux community, which occurred after the dismissal of 11 specialists involved in developing the system kernel. The Ministry of Digital Development considers this discrimination and believes that creating an alternative community could contribute to Russia's technological sovereignty.
The removal of Russian specialists is due to recommendations from Linux community lawyers, taking into account sanctions against Russia. Linux founder Linus Torvalds and leading developer Greg Kroah-Hartman decided to terminate their work on the kernel. This caused concern among Russian specialists and IT companies, who noted the negative impact on mutual trust in the community and possible difficulties in maintaining Linux distributions in Russia.
Postgres Professional co-founder Ivan Panchenko believes that the global Linux community, rather than the Russian developers themselves, will suffer from this removal, as trust within it will deteriorate, and therefore the quality of the product. Russian companies will be able to continue making changes to their local versions of the kernel, but incorporating these changes into the main branch will become more difficult.
KasperskyOS Senior Technology Advisor Vladimir Slinko adds that the removal will complicate the integration of Russian patches, as the level of suspicion towards changes from Russia may increase.
Chief Architect of the "MSVSfera" OS, Evgeny Zamriy, suggests that the burden on Russian companies will increase, as their developers will have to monitor Linux updates bypassing official channels. He notes that, despite this, the community may use mirrors to circumvent restrictions.
The Ministry of Digital Development plans not only to create a local community, but also to establish a dialogue with countries interested in joint development. Panchenko believes that the project would be more successful if the community was organized by several countries, with Russia acting as a leader. However, he also notes the shortage of highly qualified specialists in Russia who can fully take responsibility for the OS kernel.
Sergey Kravtsov, a member of the board of directors of STC IT ROSA and the company "Rutek", expressed doubts that the changes proposed by the Russian community would be accepted into the official Linux branch. He added that although creating its own Linux fork in Russia is technically possible, it would require significant resources and access to accumulated international knowledge.
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