Why Russian Police Raided NGINX’s Moscow Office – Who Owns Open‑Source Code?

Russian police raided the Moscow office of NGINX, the company behind the popular open‑source web server, and detained co‑founders Igor Sysoev and Maxim Konovalov.

Sysoev, who created the original nginx project, and Konovalov were taken away, according to employees.

Earlier, Rambler Group had sued NGINX for alleged copyright infringement, claiming full ownership of the nginx code. Rambler, the parent of Russia’s largest search portal rambler.ru, argues that Sysoev developed nginx while serving as the company’s system administrator.

Rambler’s claim was illustrated by a search warrant posted on Twitter, and Sysoev had previously acknowledged creating nginx during his tenure at rambler.ru.

F5 Networks, which acquired NGINX, confirmed the raid but said it is still gathering information and offered no further comment.

Sysoev open‑sourced nginx in 2004, later founded the commercial NGINX company, and this year the company was bought by F5. The raid raises a contentious question for developers: does code created by an employee and released as open source belong to the employee or to the employer?

Some observers even joked, “If a child is born in the company, does the company own it?”

What’s your view on this issue? Share your thoughts in the comments.