Why Were Nginx’s Founders Arrested? Inside Russia’s Web Server Ownership Fight

On December 12, Russian police detained Igor Sysoev, the creator of Nginx, and co‑founder Maxim Konovalov in Moscow, sparking confusion among developers about code ownership. Both were later released, but their phones were retained.

The raid was part of a criminal investigation launched on December 4, accusing unidentified individuals of massive copyright infringement of the Nginx web‑server code, which Russian authorities claim belongs to Rambler Internet Holding LLC.

Rambler alleges the alleged infringement caused a loss of 51 million rubles (≈ US $81.5 k) and threatens severe penalties. The company has assigned its claim to Lynwood Investments CY Ltd, linked to billionaire Alexander Mamut, which has asked police to assess possible copyright violations.

Russian civil code articles 1295 and 1297 are cited: article 1295 grants employers exclusive rights to works created within job duties, while article 1297 protects employees’ rights when software is developed outside official duties. Sysoev maintains he built Nginx in his spare time while employed as a system administrator at Rambler.

Media commentary notes that the copyright claim is likely time‑barred, as Nginx’s first public release was in 2004, well beyond the ten‑year limitation. Investors and former Rambler executives have dismissed the allegations as unfounded.

In an interview after their release, Maxim Konovalov described the police operation, the seizure of computers and documents, and expressed confidence that the case stems from Rambler’s desire for compensation following Nginx’s 2019 acquisition by F5 Networks.

Nginx Development History

Nginx is a lightweight web server, reverse proxy, and mail proxy released under a BSD‑like license. Igor Sysoev began the project around 2000 to solve the C10k problem for Rambler’s portal, releasing the first public code in 2002 and open‑sourcing it in 2004.

In 2009 he founded NGINX Inc. in the United States, providing commercial support and tools. The company was acquired by F5 Networks in March 2019 for $670 million. Today Nginx powers nearly 400 million websites and holds about 37.7% of the global web‑server market.

Source: compiled from Wall Street Journal, 21CTO, and other media.