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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 N

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.

duelingjello 7y ago
I think the statue of limitations in Russia is under 10 years for most civil claims. Maybe someone can clarify what are the actual charges and what would the statute of limitations be? If statute of limitations ran out, maybe the corporate lawyer can get this thrown out quickly?
- ma2rten 7y ago
  I don't think it works like that. The supposed copyright violation is ongoing.
  - chupasaurus 7y ago
    I should remind you that there was a 1:342 ratio of "Not guilty" to "Guilty" decisions on the criminal cases in Russia last year, and the it's declining year-to-year.
    - Corazoor 7y ago
      I was interested in the ratio for the US, which based on a quick lookup seems to be 1:249 for federal cases... (Numbers taken from here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-f...) Just wanted to note that it is not a very good way to gauge opressiveness or fairness... In a perfect world, charges would only ever be brought against the guilty, and only the guilty would be found as such by court. In such a World the ratio would be 0:<division by zero error>...
      - chupasaurus 7y ago
        The corruption in judicial circles of Russia works this way: the police had opened the case, the defendant obviously isn't guilty, we state that he's guilty with a penalty of conditional term instead of a real one and free him in a court's room. If we state that he isn't guilty, then it would start the process of quality check in all parties involved in the development of the case which unavoidably ends with penalties or criminal cases upon the policemen, nah we don't need that. I agree on a perfect world scenario, but we in Russia have a big pile of ridiculous court decisions every month.
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        > Just wanted to note that it is not a very good way to gauge oppressiveness or fairness I would point out that the conviction ratio of the US is indicative of massive flaws in the powers that DAs have in most jurisdictions to force time limited plea agreements on defendants who have limited information and are under threat of charges with much higher penalties. This can usually be done without any oversight or approval from judges. > In a perfect world, charges would only ever be brought against the guilty, and only the guilty would be found as such by court. In such a World the ratio would be 0:<division by zero error>... That sounds like a world with complete surveillance, no privacy and a judicial system with absolute power. Doesn't sound like a perfect world to me.
- kelvich 7y ago
  > what would the statute of limitations be It is usually 3 years for such cases, but it counts since the moment of time when alleged infringement was discovered.
tssva 7y ago
To save anyone else having to look it up. 51M RUB is currently around US $810k.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Somewhat surprised this hasn't settled out of court then.
  - eps 7y ago
    I'd be surprised if it had been. I'd wager Rambler is after the ngnix itself rather than some cash.
    - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
      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.
      - jsty 7y ago
        If they're angling for a ruling that they've always had the copyright to the code (or at least core / original parts), then presumably any licenses (FOSS or otherwise) granted by anyone who isn't Rambler would be null and void.
        nybble41 7y ago
        Yes, and while the focus is on the Nginx project, there are probably other projects that used code from Nginx that would also be affected.
      - lolc 7y ago
        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.
vorot93 7y ago
A bit of context. Rambler used to be a somewhat successful and independent Internet company, but in dire straits recently because it's lost the market to its primary competitor - Yandex. So very much like Yahoo vs Google. Now it's been bought out by Sberbank - the largest state bank run by a good friend of Putin. Sberbank is looking at becoming at becoming an IT monster, being a provider of just about everything - from food delivery to banking, with huge amount of Big Data at its heart. Delusions of grandeur at taxpayers' expense. This lawsuit is the first big move of the new Sberbank's management team in Rambler.
- inoyakaigor 7y ago
  To be clear: Sberbank bought 46.5%
marcosdumay 7y ago
And that's yet another reason why copyrights can not last forever.

duelingjello 7y ago

I think the statue of limitations in Russia is under 10 years for most civil claims. Maybe someone can clarify what are the actual charges and what would the statute of limitations be? If statute of limitations ran out, maybe the corporate lawyer can get this thrown out quickly?

ma2rten 7y ago
I don't think it works like that. The supposed copyright violation is ongoing.
- chupasaurus 7y ago
  I should remind you that there was a 1:342 ratio of "Not guilty" to "Guilty" decisions on the criminal cases in Russia last year, and the it's declining year-to-year.
  - Corazoor 7y ago
    I was interested in the ratio for the US, which based on a quick lookup seems to be 1:249 for federal cases... (Numbers taken from here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-f...) Just wanted to note that it is not a very good way to gauge opressiveness or fairness... In a perfect world, charges would only ever be brought against the guilty, and only the guilty would be found as such by court. In such a World the ratio would be 0:<division by zero error>...
    - chupasaurus 7y ago
      The corruption in judicial circles of Russia works this way: the police had opened the case, the defendant obviously isn't guilty, we state that he's guilty with a penalty of conditional term instead of a real one and free him in a court's room. If we state that he isn't guilty, then it would start the process of quality check in all parties involved in the development of the case which unavoidably ends with penalties or criminal cases upon the policemen, nah we don't need that. I agree on a perfect world scenario, but we in Russia have a big pile of ridiculous court decisions every month.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      > Just wanted to note that it is not a very good way to gauge oppressiveness or fairness I would point out that the conviction ratio of the US is indicative of massive flaws in the powers that DAs have in most jurisdictions to force time limited plea agreements on defendants who have limited information and are under threat of charges with much higher penalties. This can usually be done without any oversight or approval from judges. > In a perfect world, charges would only ever be brought against the guilty, and only the guilty would be found as such by court. In such a World the ratio would be 0:<division by zero error>... That sounds like a world with complete surveillance, no privacy and a judicial system with absolute power. Doesn't sound like a perfect world to me.
kelvich 7y ago
> what would the statute of limitations be It is usually 3 years for such cases, but it counts since the moment of time when alleged infringement was discovered.

tssva 7y ago

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

tyingq 7y ago
Somewhat surprised this hasn't settled out of court then.
- eps 7y ago
  I'd be surprised if it had been. I'd wager Rambler is after the ngnix itself rather than some cash.
  - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
    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.
    - jsty 7y ago
      If they're angling for a ruling that they've always had the copyright to the code (or at least core / original parts), then presumably any licenses (FOSS or otherwise) granted by anyone who isn't Rambler would be null and void.
      - nybble41 7y ago
        Yes, and while the focus is on the Nginx project, there are probably other projects that used code from Nginx that would also be affected.
    - lolc 7y ago
      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.

vorot93 7y ago

A bit of context. Rambler used to be a somewhat successful and independent Internet company, but in dire straits recently because it's lost the market to its primary competitor - Yandex. So very much like Yahoo vs Google. Now it's been bought out by Sberbank - the largest state bank run by a good friend of Putin. Sberbank is looking at becoming at becoming an IT monster, being a provider of just about everything - from food delivery to banking, with huge amount of Big Data at its heart. Delusions of grandeur at taxpayers' expense. This lawsuit is the first big move of the new Sberbank's management team in Rambler.

inoyakaigor 7y ago
To be clear: Sberbank bought 46.5%

marcosdumay 7y ago

And that's yet another reason why copyrights can not last forever.