Several Russian developers lose kernel maintainership status

Perhaps one of the more surprising changes in the 6.12-rc4 development
kernel was the removal
of several entries from the kernel's MAINTAINERS file. The patch
performing the removal was sent (by Greg Kroah-Hartman) only to the
patches@lists.linux.dev mailing list; the change was included in a char-misc drivers
pull request with no particular mention.

The explanation for the removal is simply 'various compliance
requirements'. Given that the developers involved all appear to be of
Russian origin, it is not too hard to imagine what sort of compliance is
involved here. There has, however, been no public posting of the policy
that required the removal of these entries.

Update: Linus Torvalds has since publicly
supported this action and said that it will not be reverted.

Update 2: James Bottomley has clarified the requirements:

If your company is on the U.S. OFAC SDN lists, subject to an OFAC
sanctions program, or owned/controlled by a company on the list, our
ability to collaborate with you will be subject to restrictions, and
you cannot be in the MAINTAINERS file.