
Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim - ameshkov
https://twitter.com/AntNesterov/status/1205086129504104460
======
chupasaurus
My bad translation of a related part from Sysoev's interview to a russian
journal "Hacker"[0] made in 2012:

 _\- Interesting: you were working at Rambler while developing nginx. Did
Rambler had any rights? That 's a subtle question. How did you manage to keep
the rights for project?_

Yes, that is a subtle question. It interests others beside you, and we
thoroughly worked on that. Russian law works this way: the company has the
right on anything which was in employee's field of work or by it's own
contract. So there has to be a contract with someone with purpose "to make a
software product". _In Rambler I was a system administrator, I 'd developed in
my free time, product was distributed under BSD license since the beginning,
as an open-source software._ Rambler started using it after the main features
were ready. More than that, _even the first usage was outside of Rambler, it
were Rate.ee and zvuki.ru websites._

[0]
[https://habr.com/ru/company/xakep/blog/136354/](https://habr.com/ru/company/xakep/blog/136354/)

~~~
chupasaurus
And the same quality translation of a commentary by Lynwood Investments CY
Ltd, the company which initiated the case, given to the online magazine The
Bell [0]:

The Rambler Internet Holding (edit: it's legal name is Rambler Group LLC)
company found that it's exclusive rights on NGINX web server, which was
developed by it's employees with use of corporate resources, were violated by
third parties. The company gave the right for infringment claims to Lynwood
Investments CY Ltd (named A&NN Holdings Limited at the time of the deal),
which has a competence in this type of cases.

Lynwood Investments CY Ltd had appealed to law enforcement bodies for the
evalution of this situation. They recognized Rambler Internet Holding as
victim of actions by unidentified violators (sic!) and initiated a criminal
case.

Lynwood Investments CY Ltd would not comment the case until the court's
decision. Wherein we would try to restore the justice with all ways possible
and we reserve right to file lawsuits in any jurisdiction where it's needed to
protect our interests.

[0][https://t.me/thebell_io/4315](https://t.me/thebell_io/4315) (NB: yes,
Telegram)

~~~
chupasaurus
The commentary[0] of Igor Ashmanov, who was CEO of Rambler when they hired
Sysoev, on the document in tweet:

 _Sysoev was developing in his work time, in the office, with company 's
equipment._ _(quote from the order: edit)_

1\. Bullshit. There isn't anything on that in our laws. You have to very
accurately prove that there was an assignment on that. "In his work time" or
"with company's equipment" \- doesn't work. Everything's allowed - and IP is
within authors.

2\. Besides, when I hired Sysoev - it was in 2000 - we have talk specifically
that he had his pet project and he'd have the right to work on it. It was
called "mod_accel" or something, he renamed it in 2001-2002.

I can make a statement about that in court, if needed. And my partner in my
companies, Dmitriy Pashko, then-CTO of Rambler, could, I think.

3\. He had worked as a system administrator. Software development wasn't in
his responsibilities at all.

4\. I think, Rambler cannot provide any paper, more so an assignment, on
development of a web server.

I asked our advocate, ..., to look what's going on. The lawyers of Runa
Capital (edit: early investors of Nginx Inc.) already work in the case, so
probably our help wouldn't be necessary.

I think, skunks would fail.

[0][https://roem.ru/12-12-2019/281134/rambler-
nginx/#comment-292...](https://roem.ru/12-12-2019/281134/rambler-
nginx/#comment-292045)

edit: link to the source

~~~
walshemj
Not sure I would buy that system administrator's don't write code and writing
a webserver which is closely related to a sysads job.

~~~
dunkelheit
Ironic thing here is that it probably doesn't matter because Russian law
regarding copyright assignment is very different and much more employee-
friendly than the US law. It will be interesting to see how the case develops
but my understanding is that unless there was a very specific and documented
work assignment from his boss to write nginx code, the copyright still belongs
to Igor even if it was developed on the company equipment and on company time.

~~~
walshemj
But its a trade secrets, breach of contract case.

I am surprised Russian law is that pro employee - would wreak havoc for
offshoring

~~~
cnst
> I am surprised Russian law is that pro employee - would wreak havoc for
> offshoring

I think it only seems that way because we're so used to the US model where
software you develop in your spare time at home with your own equipment might
still be owned by your employer or even a university (even if you're just an
undergraduate student already paying many tens of thousands in tuition fees).
I read a few IP policies over the years, and, if they are to be believed,
apparently, even if you're simply using WiFi to work on your student project
in a university building, they may claim to own the whole copyright and patent
rights to any resulting work; I don't quite understand how everyone else
doesn't find it as demotivating as I do.

If you look at the actual reasons for Rambler not owning nginx — this
situation is actually better for offshoring because anything developed for the
client per the spec would be owned by the client, yet anything that employees
work on in their own time, they could package as their own offering (e.g.,
separate packages and/or modules) and ramp-up work for more than one client
without violating anyone's IP rights.

TBH, I don't actually understand how software craftsmanship consulting is
supposed to work in the US. As an IC SWE consultant, I was negotiating a nginx
consulting project with one relatively big company, and the sample MSA I got
from them basically would have precluded me from ever working on nginx again
had I signed it as-is. I think it's really amazing how more folk don't get
sued in the US for these sorts of things; I can only imagine that it's merely
for lack of trying on part of most of these corporations, not for lack of
standing (unless all these terms everyone agrees to are somehow unenforceable
in reality).

------
vorot93
9.5 rules of doing business in Russia

1\. Keep your servers abroad.

2\. Register your domains abroad.

3\. Register your company abroad.

4\. Keep your money abroad and don't put all eggs in one basket.

5\. Seriously, don't put all your eggs in one basket!

6\. Keep your database abroad.

7\. Document everything regarding your office setup.

8\. Split the risks and assets.

9\. You can give youself up voluntarily. Find a large patron or manage law
enforcement protection yourself.

10\. Leave the country.

~~~
f311a
That could happen in any country. That's a corporate dispute.

Rambler sold their NGINX "copyright rights" to a shady law firm (Lynwood
Investments CY Ltd).

~~~
iavael
That's not a corporate displute. It's probable cause in criminal law. Ngnix
founders are already detained btw.

~~~
chupasaurus
They are currently being interrogated, not detained.

~~~
blackearl
If you can't walk away from an interrogation, you've been detained.

~~~
chupasaurus
Maximum continuous time for an interrogation in Russia - 4 hours, after which
there should be a pause of at least an hour. Maximum total time is 8 hours
within a single day.

Maximum time for a detention is 48 hours until the court's decision. The
difference is how much time one would have to actively prepare his defence
themselves, not via advocates.

~~~
iaml
You could use those 'rules' instead of toilet paper - not even half a year ago
a ton of people were detained longer and without proper accommodations like
food, water and place to sleep. Nothing happened afterwards, maybe in a couple
years un human rights council will make government give those people some
money, but that's it.

------
punarinta
Oh my, I still see people in the comments who naively think this is a
copyright issue. Seriously? 15 years after the alleged event? With physical
violence against software developers?

It's only one among thousands of cases when putinists rob successful
companies. The world must put more pressure on putinism, because eventually
all the stolen resources turn into imprisonments of people in the country and
deaths of people in the countries attacked by that putinist machine.

~~~
lolc
But this is absolutely a copyright issue! If a company has copyright on
something I use, I need a license from them. Now we don't know what Russian
courts will decide here, and we also don't know whether courts in other
countries would respect that. What could happen as a worst case "robbery"
scenario is that the developer is forced to agree they never had copyright!

So whether or not the claim was unjustified, it might become a huge problem
not just for the individual developers of Nginx but for everybody distributing
it or using it. And that has a lot to do with how copyright works.

~~~
shkkmo
I am not sure why this is being downvoted. If a Russian court determines
(and/or the developer is forced to agree) that the BSD license was issued by
someone who did not own the intellectual property, doesn't that create a
significant legal issue for anyone who is using nginx under that BSD license
since that license would no longer be valid?

Doesn't the potential for this exact sort of issue point out a flaw in how
copyright law works (especially under international law?)

~~~
punarinta
When you say "if a Russian court determines" this sounds like an insult to me.
Simply check out how recently lots of people have been convicted for nothing,
for a poster, a like, for jogging, for trying to get elected, for a youtube
video.

I kindly ask you to stop believing that Russia is a place where unicorns shit
with rainbow and courts work. No, they do not. And by not acknowledging
putin's terror against us you literally deprive us of a right to become a
normal country again one day.

(just in case, I didn't downvote the post above)

~~~
shkkmo
I am not claiming anything about the justice or fairness of Russian courts,
you are reading far more into my comment than was present. This is precisely
why I mentioned that the developer may be forced to agree.

From my understanding of how copyright law works, if the local court
determines that who a copyright holder is, international courts are required
by treaty to uphold that determination.

------
duelingjello
Best practices for side projects (US):

\- Never give work full rights to everything you make on your own time.

\- Never use company hardware, software, time or offices to develop a side
project you might want to monetize commercially later.

\- Charge work a "1 node license fee" of $1 with an invoice and a standard
commercial software EULA if you intend to try your creation at work. Also
specify that it includes maintenance for the duration of your employment and
that all modifications, including those made on work time and on work
hardware, are your property and that they are granted a license to them for 1
node.

IANAL.

~~~
neltnerb
I think you will run into conflict of interest issues with having your
employer pay you to use your product. It might fly at some places, but I would
be hesitant of running afoul of all manner of issues if there could be a
perception that you are leveraging your employment position to profit your own
company. Especially if your employer accepts money from the government.

I agree with the first two though. I personally am leery of suggesting the use
of my own products and services to a current employer, and would only do it if
it's very clear that there's both not other great options and that there's not
a conflict of interest (decision maker is in another department for instance)
and recognize that I may need to quit my job to avoid the perception of a
conflict of interest or legal issues with government grants or other awards
that may prohibit employees from also being vendors.

It's definitely riskier than just not using your personal projects at work
unless your employer is actively pursuing using it fully independently (ex:
your project is the only good solution to a problem and it's unreasonable for
your employer to be the _only_ people who can't use it). But even then, I'm
largely unable to do work that only I can possibly do (i.e. I worked on two
projects as an independent contractor for my current employer before they were
my part-time employer) for people in another department despite being part
time simply because it's too much of a mess to get it approved. I could
probably get it done, but it's a huge hassle and not worth it for $1.

But your current employer might also take major issue with you having a side
business selling to their competitors stuff that they want to use, regardless
of the technical legality... at the least you might get fired even if you've
done nothing legally wrong it might be against their employment guidelines to
do this if you're a full time employee. I specifically chose to be part time
because I still do contract work on the side (and make more money doing that
than I do at the part time job, but I really enjoy my part time job so I don't
mind).

~~~
mlyle
> I think you will run into conflict of interest issues with having your
> employer pay you to use your product. It might fly at some places, but I
> would be hesitant of running afoul of all manner of issues if there could be
> a perception that you are leveraging your employment position to profit your
> own company.

I think when it's literally "pay me one dollar for a company-wide license, so
there's mutual consideration for license and it's clear what the arrangement
is"... one does not need to worry about a substantial fiscal conflict of
interest or appearance of impropriety.

I mean, it's a whole lot of work to squeeze one more dollar out of your
employer ;)

~~~
neltnerb
It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of
selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current
employer just sounds like a whole bag of nasty waiting to drop.

What happens when you leave the company and try to increase the price to make
a business out of it? Did you create a situation through the course of your
employment such that the company you left is now dependent on your products?
Would they have made different choices in what tool to use if it cost more at
the time? Will even bringing up the idea of charging your employer cost you a
lot of social capital with your supervisor and make you look like you're
aiming to resign soon to work on a new project and aren't fully committed to
your job?

Will they expect you to offer software for a $1 indefinite license including
free updates for life or not including support or upgrades? Will they balk
when your support or custom features cost $200/hr and cry foul? Companies are
led by MBAs. They don't want to spend money and are very good at avoiding it
at your expense.

Will they use their vastly larger capital to sue you for it, if indeed it is
critical to them, arguing that if you felt it was useful enough to the company
to sell it to them then it was part of your job responsibilities to work on it
(excepting the case where you did the project prior to starting work at the
company). Will you somehow be able to prove that it was done outside of work
hours and relied in no way on your confidential knowledge of what the company
does?

It's just messy and the potential for really really messy. You might manage to
pull it off, but I personally would not try this unless the case was extremely
clear cut and everyone involved knew everything so that no one could
retroactively claim it was done in an underhanded way. But I was a boy scout
so I learned that if you aren't willing to be totally transparent in your
approach you probably actually don't think it's ethical. Clearly not
applicable to today's top business schools, of course...

~~~
mlyle
> It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of
> selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current
> employer just sounds like a whole bag of nasty waiting to drop.

The discussion here relates to open source stuff. You give your company a
bypass to the license agreement (attribution requirements, etc) in exchange
for $1. That's a small business benefit, and in turn you create a clear
papertrail of ownership with consideration. Yes, everyone would do this eyes
wide open.

You can set the terms however fits the requirements of all involved. If you
leave, they are an open source user like any other. Maybe they are allowed to
redistribute without attribution, etc, indefinitely. Maybe it includes giving
you the right to say that <employer> is using the package.

You do this when your employer already knows you tinker on open source, and a
project is getting serious enough that it deserves to have its IP rights
explicitly protected.

> Will they use their vastly larger capital to sue you for it, if indeed it is
> critical to them, arguing that if you felt it was useful enough to the
> company to sell it to them then it was part of your job responsibilities to
> work on it (excepting the case where you did the project prior to starting
> work at the company). Will you somehow be able to prove that it was done
> outside of work hours and relied in no way on your confidential knowledge of
> what the company does?

That's the whole point here-- you demonstrate that the company considered it
_yours_ at that point in time, and entered into a license agreement for it.

I have been on both sides of deals like this. Not all employers will do it,
but it is a not-unreasonable way to protect everyone's interests and record
what the parties considered the ownership to be at the time of employment.
I've also sold company-owned code to an employee for $1 and an indefinite
license because we didn't want to maintain it anymore.

~~~
neltnerb
I think we basically agree then. It just needs to all be transparent. There's
just an awful lot of different ways things can go wrong and it's hard to know
which ones will end up being relevant. I agree that it could be a good method
for establishing clear separation. Just very tricky.

------
strenholme
_This_ is why I am very glad to be an independent contractor without the pesky
“inventions” clause. With “inventions” clauses, if I worked on my open-source
MaraDNS while on the clock, a company could make a reasonable legal case that
they own it.

Even in California, where a company can not own inventions done on one’s own
equipment in one’s own time (as long as it’s not related to their day job),
before signing an “inventions” clause, I am very careful to tag my GitHub
repos with a date stamp before the date I signed the inventions clause, and
_only_ use versions of my open source software at work which I wrote before I
started working for them (e.g. I have a secure password generator shell
script, and when I use it to generate the dozen or so passwords I need to do
my work, I use a version which existed before I started work at the company).

~~~
strenholme
Replying to myself: Did you know that the website hosting this blog entry is
using nginx as their server:

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-
pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/)

There is something very ironic about a blog posting claiming that a company
owns all of the software a developer makes in their free time, running on an
open source server initially developed in Igor Sysoev’s free time while he was
working for Rambler.

------
light_eye
This is all because of the purchase by Sberbank (This is the largest Russian
bank reporting to the government) of Rambler. In Russia, the chance of a fair
trial in this case is very small. Sberbank simply “collects assets” and wages
an unfair fight for money. It is a pity that the man in Russia and now he will
be so pressured.

Given that almost all media in Russia are subordinate to the state, a very
small number of people find out about this situation and this is very sad.

First, lawmakers are crashing Yandex stocks, now this. It is sad that I live
in Russia ...

------
ameshkov
Igor Sysoev developed Nginx while working in Rambler (a Russian search engine)
back in 2002-2004. Now, 15 years later, Rambler filed a copyright claim
against Nginx and Igor, and demands (allegedly) 51M RUB from them.

~~~
tssva
To save anyone else having to look it up. 51M RUB is currently around US
$810k.

~~~
tyingq
Somewhat surprised this hasn't settled out of court then.

~~~
eps
I'd be surprised if it had been. I'd wager Rambler is after the ngnix itself
rather than some cash.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
But even if they "owned" nginx - what does it get them? The community would
immediately fork it and change the branding.

The same happened to MySQL when Sun was bought by Oracle when MariaDB was
forked - though I concede MariaDB isn't as popular as I hoped.

~~~
lolc
If they indeed have copyright then you cannot legally fork it without them
giving you licence to it. Just because you have the code doesn't mean you have
the licence. All the other licences would be void.

~~~
PudgePacket
If you contributed to nginx, do these new owners own your contributions if you
submitted them under what turned out to be false pretenses ? Shouldn't all the
community contributions be void because of that? That would significantly
reduce nginx's worth.

If not, what's to stop other companies doing this in a predatory way? Start an
"open source" project, gather years of valuable contributions from a
enthusiastic community, then pull the rug?

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> what's to stop other companies doing this in a predatory way? Start an "open
> source" project, gather years of valuable contributions from a enthusiastic
> community, then pull the rug?

Pulling the rug would mean revealing that your company never really owned the
copyright, so at the very least you make yourself look bad.

Also, I don't imagine courts take a favourable view of transfers of ownership
which are essentially fraudulent. I'm not a lawyer, as you can doubtless tell,
but I presume it wouldn't be good for you if they could _prove_ you'd planned
the thing from the start.

There's an analogy outside of copyright: stolen goods. Sale of stolen goods
isn't a legal transfer of ownership, but you don't want to be caught knowingly
selling stolen goods, much less proven guilty of it (and the whole point of
'pulling the rug' is that things play out in court). I presume a similar
principle would apply with intellectual property.

------
ivan4th
I see it this way (being a Russian): it's not a copyright claim issue, but
rather a hostage situation with bandits involved (a.k.a Russian authorities),
and what they want is ransom so that top #1-2 nginx contributors don't go to
jail for some 10 years.

~~~
auiya
It feels like an intelligence shakedown. Nginx has a rather large install
base. FSB would love to have an entry point in it I'm sure, or maybe they
previously had one and are trying to gain it back?

~~~
anonymousjunior
This is what's really concerning. If FSB was able to actually implement
something and shell all nginx boxes (and thusly obtain SSL certs, intercept
communications, etc..) imagine how much access they'd have.

~~~
account73466
Then they would definitely advertise it by attacking the company so that the
whole world would know about their secret backdoor. Very smart, indeed!

~~~
kick
Physical access is easier to get than remote access when you have a baton and
the intelligence of a cop.

~~~
dsl
FSB/GRU are more than just thugs with batons, they are professionals who could
easily slip in to a building at night and access computers without anyone
knowing. Basically the Russian CIA.

~~~
golergka
GRU have been severely embarrassed quite a few times in the last few years. It
does seem that they're much closer to thugs with batons.

------
gbuk2013
Apparently some company called "Lynwood Investments CY Ltd" has bought the
rights for copyright enforcement from Rambler Group - I guess this is classed
as "copyright trolling"?

Looking at the search warrant[1] the claim is that Nginx was developed while
the author still worked at Rambler and during work time.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/AntNesterov/status/1205086129504104460](https://twitter.com/AntNesterov/status/1205086129504104460)

~~~
onetimemanytime
do you think Russia is such a law and order country ? Let's wait and
see...this isn't it.

~~~
gbuk2013
I try to stick to the facts and keep my biases out of the conversation and I
wish the same to you.

------
smartynov
I wrote a short summary on the situation for my English-speaking friends and
would like to share here too.

Introduction

nginx is one of the most popular web-server software, used by hundreds of
millions of websites worldwide. It was written by Igor Sysoev in early 2000s,
was released and is maintained as an open source software.

At the time of initial release Igor was working for Rambler (a Russian
internet company). In 2011 Igor and his partners founded a BVI company Nginx
Inc. to provide commercial products and support for the software. The nginx
software remained (and still remains) open source. They raised some VC
financing and in 2019 were finally acquired by a public company F5 Networks,
Inc. for an impressive $670 million.

What has happened?

Today Igor and his partner Maxim Konovalov were arrested in Moscow and are
being interrogated. A search is performed in Moscow office of the company. It
became public that Rambler filed a lawsuit for breaking its IP rights on
nginx.

It might look like a typical IP ownership conflict, but there are details: a)
Worldwide internet infrastructure relies heavily on nginx. b) People are under
arrest, which illustrates a serious intention and may lead to unpleasant
consequences. c) It all happened some months after a successful acquisition,
while Rambler was aware of nginx for more than 15 years since the date of the
initial nginx release.

What's next?

It is extremely unlikely that Internet will meet any short-term consequences.
No, there's no way to turn down nginx remotely, there's no backdoors, etc – so
Internet is safe.

No, there is no chance that Russian secret service or someone else will use
this situation to introduce some backdoors to nginx server. As any popular
open-source software, nginx is developed by hundreds of independent
individuals from various countries. The source code is always publicly
available, and each developer is highly aware about security.

Long-term consequences are possible, including decline in nginx popularity and
development of alternative software. If nginx will be forced to change its
licence or shut down, it's very likely that community will instantly make a
fork and/or a complete rewrite of this webserver under a new name (which has
happened before to MySQL, for instance).

We all hope that this conflict will be resolved, and Igor and Maxim will be
safe and sound. All we can do now is spread this information in as straight
and clear way.

~~~
jimjag
If nginx has dubious copyright, you cannot fork the code, since not being open
source, it is legally not-forkable. Yes, you could do a complete rewrite, but
that would require doing so in a "clean room" fashion, which would be very
difficult.

~~~
incosta
In any Western court an entity who forked it, would win a copyright lawsuit if
Rambler sued. You cannot claim it was your proprietary code all of a sudden
after it's been openly available for 15 years.

------
Dim25
Igor Ashmanov (the guy who hired Sysoev, and was a COO at the Rambler at the
time) said that the Ngnix (under different name) was indeed a side project
started before Sysoev joined Rambler. Moreover this was properly disclosed,
and green lighted by Rambler executives at the time.

Source: [https://roem.ru/12-12-2019/281134/rambler-
nginx/#comment-292...](https://roem.ru/12-12-2019/281134/rambler-
nginx/#comment-292045) (Russian)

------
SergeAx

      location / {
        add_header X-Supports "Igor Sysoev" always;      
      }

------
ckotinko
Hello from Russia.

I've read documents provided by nginx employee Igor Ippolitov, and I'm
convinced Rambler is commiting a offence under article 306 of criminal codex.

In brief, in Russia an employee retains all rights on his/her/it's
intellectual property if he/she/it was not instructed to do this job. Former
Rambler CEO confirmed that Sysoev has no instructions to create a web server.

At the same time, Rambler claims that: "unknown person at an unspecified time
acting within the scope of his duties and on behalf of management".

unknown person cannot have a scope of his duties. management cannot give
orders to an unknown person.

------
helloer
More context (in russian): [https://thebell.io/v-ofise-startapa-nginx-obyski-
osnovateli-...](https://thebell.io/v-ofise-startapa-nginx-obyski-osnovateli-
zaderzhany-delo-initsiirovala-kompaniya-aleksandra-mamuta/)

google translate:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fthebell.io%2Fv-
ofise-startapa-nginx-obyski-osnovateli-zaderzhany-delo-initsiirovala-
kompaniya-aleksandra-mamuta%2F)

------
iaml
Some guy on the internet claims this case has no leg to stand on, and the
whole reason the office was raided was to scare them into cooperation or
revealing useful information. Then they'll catalogue that and say 'not a
criminal issue'. The trick is, those materials could then be used in a civil
case. This is full text, in russian:
[https://habr.com/en/company/itsumma/blog/479942/#comment_209...](https://habr.com/en/company/itsumma/blog/479942/#comment_20999346)

------
mariopt
Article:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fvc.ru%2Flegal%2F97058-rambler-
group-zayavila-o-narushenii-ee-prav-na-kod-nginx-neskolko-istochnikov-
rasskazali-ob-obyskah-v-ofise-razrabotchika)

------
killjoywashere
Having read Red Notice, I strongly suspect the plot is _much_ thicker than a
simple copyright violation. The fact that NGINX now runs the majority of web
traffic would be a clear signal to the Russian oligarchs that this NGINX is a
valuable commodity to control and Sysoev needs to be moved aside. I'm guessing
they don't have a deep understanding of BSD licensing terms, but they
understand the value of controlling the contributors, and the log files.

------
geerlingguy
F5 buys Nginx, then months later there are suddenly copyright claims and raids
relating to the founder having left a former company in 2012...

~~~
Eikon
Playing devil's advocate, I could see how something like that could
legitimately take place in a similar situation as the previous employer may
feel abused / betrayed, rightfully or not, once he sees a success that he may
believes not being possible if it were not for giving some slack to his
employees.

------
zelon88
So this is what happens when successful ideas in Russia gain market share? Why
would anyone want to execute their ideas in Russia?

~~~
Dim25
They may not have a choice?

~~~
chopin
Or just don't do it. Russia has around the GDP of Italy this might have to do
something with it.

------
nathancahill
Nginx Moscow office, rather than one of their other 6 locations (or F5 which
now owns Nginx).

------
asdf2233
"It seems that someone has already adapted to the system from police searches,
or simply to support NGINX!" [https://pari-match.club/](https://pari-
match.club/)
[https://monosnap.com/direct/JM4VGPga3PaV7Z4pQEdQgiMEIwi0ub](https://monosnap.com/direct/JM4VGPga3PaV7Z4pQEdQgiMEIwi0ub)

------
aaron695
If they own copyright.... Which isn't crazy...

Then the licenseing Igor put on it is null and void I assume, so everyone's
instance would become illegal upon that court decision?

~~~
pkilgore
It's a little more complicated than that. One might have equitable defenses to
infringement. Its doubtful a violation will be considered criminal (USA).
Certainly if you are worried keep an eye on the Russian trial and hire a
lawyer!

------
ChuckMcM
Sad times, I really like nginx. Maybe its time for nginy a web server
developed in an extradition proof country with strong privacy protection and
shell company laws. I could imagine saying that in jest but as these things
get more common (a non-equivalent other than power imbalance story is the
Apple suing its employee for starting a server chip company) its going to take
a lot of planning to develop something and "keep" control of it.

------
dottedmag
Rambler board has asked the management to ask the police to close the criminal
case, look into the situation again and file a civil lawsuit if needed:
[https://www.interfax.ru/russia/688213](https://www.interfax.ru/russia/688213)

------
ChrisMarshallNY
The company I worked for made photo equipment, and had a lot of creatives on
staff.

As such, they did not have the typical "We own the ideas you came up with in
the shower" clause that most companies have.

Because of that, I was able to develop a fairly popular OS package (popular in
a limited demographic, so it's not "A-List").

------
robert_tweed
Slightly easier to read:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1205086129504104460.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1205086129504104460.html)

TLDR: Igor Sysoev started Nginx while employed by Rambler, who did not then
claim copyright, but now they have. The police raid is a result of that claim.

~~~
DanTheManPR
Russia has absurd IP hijacking rules that are being exploited.

~~~
anticodon
On the West there wouldn't be even a chance for this business: nginx would
belong to employer by default.

~~~
wavefunction
By default but if you have enough leverage you can get all sorts of allowances
from an employer. I always have any clause struck about the employer owning
anything I produce outside of work for example. (I don't necessarily consider
this to be an example of significant leverage just common-sense.)

------
inzeppelin
More info:
[https://habr.com/en/post/479968/](https://habr.com/en/post/479968/)

------
xfalcox
With the original open sourcing license of nginx in doubt, it is prudent for
open source projects to look into alternatives?

~~~
arminiusreturns
Besides the standard Apache, may I suggest the underdog favorite of mine,
Hiawatha? I was dissapointed when the license moved from GPL to MIT, but it's
still awesome. [1]

There is also Caddy, a go based webserver, which is Apache licensed I think.
[2]

Then there is also lighttpd, which is small and fast, but 3-clause bsd. [3]

[1][https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/](https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/)

[2][https://caddyserver.com/](https://caddyserver.com/)

[3][https://www.lighttpd.net/](https://www.lighttpd.net/)

~~~
strenholme
Not to mention thttpd, which was updated as recently as last year:

[http://acme.com/software/thttpd/](http://acme.com/software/thttpd/)

------
OrangeUnicorn12
This is exactly why Apache still rocks.

Software developer got greedy, rich and robbed by state actors.

Should have contributed to Apache instead.

------
rolph
considering this thread and a host of others, regarding mobile phones being
rousted, I think its time to start looking at developing systems that have a
"panic mode"

as in "we would comply if we could but you guys scared the system and it hid,
we have to wait until it comes out again"

------
vermontdevil
So what are the long term impact if any can opine here? Doesn't sound good for
the founder.

------
coolic
Making business in Russia, rule #1: \- run!

~~~
appkate
Or don't run business in Russia at all.

------
aneutron
This is a new level of copyright trolling.

------
kp98
always wondered, is it pronounced 'en-gin-ex' or 'N-ginx', there was a debate
in my office

~~~
symlinkk
I was told that N-ginx is a curse word in Chinese, so I pronounce it En-Gin-
Ex. I think the former is more intuitive though

~~~
gwd
> I was told that N-ginx is a curse word in Chinese

Don't know that many swear words in Chinese, but I know that that "ginks"
isn't really pronouncable in Chinese. You could do "ging", but the "k" and the
"s" would then need to be separate syllables; the best you could get is "en
ging ke se", which isn't really close enough to "N-ginks" to be dangerous.

(Similarly, "golf" ends up as three syllables: "gao er fu", plus "qiu" added
to the end to clarify that it's a game involving a ball.)

------
SergeAx

      location / {
        add_header X-Supports "Igor Sysoev" always;      
      }

------
FpUser
Damn. And I've just switched to it less then a month ago.

------
stevefan1999
real life Pied Piper...

------
dial8gue
KGB wants their piece of cake. Classic

~~~
rvense
The KGB was broken up in 1991.

~~~
conistonwater
It's the same people under a different acronym, this is not a meaningful
difference for most people.

~~~
tomlong
Especially for the Front Side Bus crowd

~~~
vincnetas
For unaware, FSB stands for (Russian) Federal Security Service which is direct
successor of KGB :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service)

