Following intense backlash from the open-source and Russian tech communities, Russian internet company Rambler sait it would drop its criminal case against NGINX Inc, the company behind the world's most popular web server.
Instead, Rambler will pursue any ownership claims over the NGINX source code in civil court, a Rambler spokesperson told ZDNet today.
The decision was taken on Monday in a meeting of Rambler's board of directors. The meeting was called by Sberbank, one of Russia's largest banks and Rambler's largest shareholder, with a stake of 46.5% in the company.
Rambler faced a huge backlash in Russia
Sberbank summoned the meeting after a large part of the Russian tech scene protested against Rambler over the weekend, with some websites even staging a 30-minute blackout in support of the NGINX team.
The protests and backlash against Rambler come after last week Russian police raided the Moscow office of NGINX Inc.[1], the company behind the NGINX web server -- a shocking action not seen before in a copyright dispute over an open-source project.
During the raid, police detained and questioned two of the NGINX founders, including the web server's original creator, Igor Sysoev. Both NGINX founders were released on the same day, but had their smartphones seized by Russian police.
The raid was carried out after an investment firm acting with authorization from Rambler filed a criminal complaint, rather than a civil case, against NGINX, claiming that Rambler owned the NGINX project and source code. The main argument was that Sysoev had developed the project while he was working for the company.
Following the raid, the backlash against Rambler was unforgiving, harsh, and immediate, both internationationally and inside Russia.
The entire legal case, and its unusual escalation towards a criminal investigation rather than