Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
A week ago we found very few reports about Russia's plan for Linux. About a week has passed and a couple more reports trickled in (even in English [1, 2]).
Meanwhile, Yandex apparently surges to new highs in Russia while Google falls:
Fines and penalties (even if partly a PR stunt) can't be too helpful to Google in Russia right now. For the time being, GNU/Linux is still used by millions of Russians on their desktops/laptops, but ChromeOS is near zero. Chromebooks with ChromeOS are spying machines.
Is Russia leaving GAFAM?
The largest OEMs in China already move people to domestic operating systems. Is Russia next?
It should be noted that some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'. To quote: "The removal was from direct trusted commit access, not from being able to contribute via other means. Huawei employees also cannot commit directly, but can (and do) send in public patches via the mailing list." [1, 2]
A decade ago developers from Russia and China could work as equal (peers) along with Western folks. Sure, it was a "bro" club (almost all male), but nobody was discriminated against based on nationality (i.e. based on the behaviour of one's government, not personal behaviour). █