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that's not going to happen, too many security experts constantly monitoring nginx. That's the beauty of it being a high profile open source project.
Just like too many security experts monitoring crypto standards so NIST wouldn’t try to slip in a backdoor?
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wow, I would have thought those dudes would have moved to a more friendly country years ago given the fame and profits from creating nginx.
Some say Igor didn't move because he's a patriot. Ironic, isn't it?
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.
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?
Clandestine ops have an extremely low probability of success using this strategy and nobody who does them is this incompetent. Especially not Russia.
With the original open sourcing license of nginx in doubt, it is prudent for open source projects to look into alternatives?
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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 mi…
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…
Source: I'm from Russia.
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wow, I would have thought those dudes would have moved to a more friendly country years ago given the fame and profits from creating nginx.
Some say Igor didn't move because he's a patriot. Ironic, isn't it?
So in that respect it isn't that impressive that he stayed in Russia even when (mostly non-state) news became more and more disturbing. Probably even less so if you assume a line of reasoning that nobody would bother with relatively small foreign company built around open-source product, a company that's already sold to larger foreign company (conveniently forgetting about the price that F5 paid for that company).
(edit: s/american-registered/foreign/: Nginx Inc. was registered in British Virgin Islands)
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.
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NGinx is owned by F5 Networks [1]. F5 customers could probably open a case and ask what contingency plans are in place. [1] - https://www.f5.com/company/news/press-releases/f5-completes-...
NGINX still has separate support from F5 Support.
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 patr…
11. Have a battalion of armed bodyguards? A little bit on that Alexander Mamut guy: http://rumafia.net/en/dosje/12 . One of the "7 banker" group. He is the one who racketeered Euroset into selling itself at 990% discount. Evroset was the largest retail network in Russia, built from scratch buy a man with a lot of talent, but no mafia connections. Alexander Chichvarkin was pretty much the most renowned businessman of…
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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…
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. Everythin…