Several Linux Kernel Driver Maintainers Removed Due To Their Association To Russia

Quietly merged into this week's Linux 6.12-rc4 kernel was a patch that removes a number of kernel maintainers from being noted in the official MAINTAINERS file that recognizes all of the driver and subsystem maintainers.

Sent out last week by Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman was the patch dropping a dozen maintainers from the kernel. Greg simply commented in there:

"Remove some entries due to various compliance requirements. They can come back in the future if sufficient documentation is provided."

This includes the maintainer of the Acer Aspire 1 EC driver, Cirrus Logic CLPS711X ARM architecture, Baikal-T1 PVT hardware monitor driver, Libata PATA drivers, libata SATA AHCI Synopsys DWC controller drivers, ASCOT2E media drivers, MIPS Baikal-T1 platform driver, NTB IDT driver, PPTP driver, Renesas R-Car SATA driver, Renesas Super-H Ethernet Driver, and the UFS file-system. Just the maintainer entries are being removed and not the actual drivers themselves.

The commonality of all these maintainers being dropped? They appear to all be Russian or associated with Russia. Most of them with .ru email addresses.

In response on the Linux kernel mailing list it was asked by others what are the "compliance requirements" and "sufficient documentation" needed... So far there isn't any public comment by Greg Kroah-Hartman. Presumably this is due to sanctions on Russia involving the war in Ukraine.

This is just dropping Russian maintainers from the kernel but isn't clear if patches from them will be accepted moving forward. Similarly, the driver code remains within the kernel -- including for Russian hardware such as around the Baikal CPUs from Russia's Baikal Electronics. So right now it appears to be little more than just not officially recognizing any formal kernel maintainers that are Russian.

The patch was merged into Linux 6.12 Git over the weekend ahead of 6.12-rc4 and simply noted as "MAINTAINERS file updates" without elaborating on the removal or any new rules/restrictions on kernel development.

This wouldn't be the first time during the war in Ukraine that kernel development has been impacted. Last year Linux networking driver patches were rejected on the basis of being from a Russian individual/organization.

UPDATE: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted

UPDATE 2: Some Clarity On The Linux Kernel's "Compliance Requirements" Around Russian Sanctions