I guess this is the Mandela effect because I can remember a few instances in my lifetime of larger countries invading smaller ones in contravention of international law.

I’ve seen that happen a few times, but not in a war of territorial expansion.

Barring, you know, the current suspect.

I don't find it super convincing that our version is better because we merely aim to install a friendly government rather than annexing territory directly. We already did that. There isn't much more to annex.

>but not in a war of territorial expansion.

According to whom? According to Putin, they invaded ukraine to "denazify it". On the other hand "US invades country for oil" is a pretty popular narrative on the internet.

The argument is just a bit harder to make if you invade a country on your border, starting from your border, and expanding into the country.

Yeah, I guess if someone gets away with something bad you shouldn't care about it ever again.

Guy murders your kids anyone can murder anyone from now on, no big deal

You missed his point. The original comment said that territorial wasn't exactly the norm and that it's pretty unique situation. The person you replied to then said that they can recall quite a few invasions, disoroving that assertion. Nobody is justifying anything, there is no need to be so defensive about it.

So full in cancel culture?

Even if you want to support Ukraine, some things have certainly gone to far, like discriminating against anybody and anything with Russian origins (professor being told to not teach Dostojewski for example, as posted on HN a couple of days ago).

And demonstrating the international monetary system is not reliable at all, not sure it is a good thing.

RF propaganda claims West is an enemy and most of the population is brainwashed. 70% of RF population supports "special operation". RF rectors supports war. RF military can't even defeat Ukraine, it specifically bombs civilians causing terror, thousands dead, millions displaced already. It is threatening to nuke. Extraordinary cases requires extraordinary solutions.

Are these actions solutions, though?

I find it hard to attribute the sad state of the academic freedom in academia (as in, none at all) to anything to do with Russia. It was dead long before Putin decided to mess with Ukraine for the first time. Right now censorship is just being deployed for a newly fashionable cause, but before that it was dozens of other causes, and no doubt once Putin finds his ignoble end, it will find dozens of new causes to pursue.

So everything that's been happening in the Middle East is to be ignored? Do we only consider the norm disturbed when a non-brown country is invaded and destroyed?

The “norms” were rules which were developed after everybody saw what the alternative looked like. Humans have a lot of rules around conflict and fighting because it’s very costly for everyone to have an all-out war.

I hope Russian maintainers of open source publish disk wiping malware on a patch version for one of your dependencies.

That's the norm now, right?

Also we need to account for all Ukrainian software developers. Is it not their right to defend against Russian invasion by targeting Russian software development? Should they welcome Russian invaders with open arms and help them to write better software to occupy Ukraine?

Is it the Juba sniper's right to shoot American soldiers in the head while standing outside their vehicle in downtown Baghdad?

On the one hand, I cannot deny the right of Iraqis to defend their territory from a criminal war of aggression. But do I need to stand up for what he is doing? Should I put money in his paypal account? Do I have to agree that all soldiers are legitimate targets, even when there is no military objective other than "exacting a cost?" Can I ask who pays that cost? Is it the war criminal George Bush, or just some grieving American family somewhere? If twice as many families have sons, brothers, fathers taken from them, would a future George Bush think twice?

Back to the topic at hand. Of course we can understand the motivation but at the same time the question for us is whether we in the open source community want to preserve software as a humanitarian sphere which is not necessarily neutral in conflict but, at least, part of civil society and not involved in or drawn into cyber-warfare as far as possible.

That fact that hostilities have broken out does not mean that everyone has to camp at one ridiculous extreme (kill them all) or another (total capitulation) and it's perfectly reasonable to try to find a path between them which is consistent with our own moral and ethical code.

If it were a Ukrainian guy who did this I think it would be much less controversial. It’s good and proper for people being invaded to fight back with whatever means are available to them, but it’s a problem if we end up in a place where major conflicts have to escalate into global cyber war.

(I should mention that Russia already does tolerate destructive hacking against the West, and has been doing so for a while - that doesn’t change my opinion, but it would be unfair not to note.)