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Ask HN: Lists of Russian Software to Boycott?

16 points by oldshatterhand ↗ HN
Has anyone made a GitHub list yet for Russian (or Russian funded) software and/or SaaS services that one can/should boycott? It's difficult for simple folk like me to determine the actual beneficiaries of companies nowadays. From the tech sector I'm in, I've heard on Acronis, CloudLinux, Parallels, Virtuozzo and OnApp being Russian funded.

24 comments

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jacquesm
Kaspersky would be an obvious one.

There is a whole wikipedia page dedicated to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_companies_of...

oldshatterhand
Thank you, it's a start!
jacquesm
See my Ask HN for the other side, I'm wondering how many start-ups have taken Russian money and what they plan to do about this. That could get quite hairy if the assets of those shareholders are seized.
oldshatterhand
Damn, that could turn ugly for so many people. Now we're all playing Five Degrees of Vladimir Putin.
jacquesm
Yes, and don't underestimate about how much money we are talking here, some of those funds have moved billions. Wasn't there one of those Russians that pumped money into every YC company?
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isbvhodnvemrwvn
It's probably also worth noting that some companies are not Russian on paper, but have a ton of employees located in Russia (e.g. Jetbrains' Kotlin is named after an island near St Petersburg; the company is czech on paper)
neverminder
I really hope Jetbrains exits Russia. There are some good programmers in Russia, but there are plenty of alternatives in countries not led by homicidal dictators.
jklein11
Why are you taking it out on the people?
IntrepidWorm
The russian people are an economic casualty in this sense. In many ways they did not choose Putin as their leader, but they still serve to support him (intentionally or otherwise) as citizens of the country he sits atop of. The state apparatus has wide reaching access to the resources of russian citizens and businesses, and the means and motivation to squeeze for those resources if and when they are needed to further Putin's aggression. If the goal is to cut off Putin and the russian state apparatus, that unfortunately must include all of Russia as well.
GameOfFrowns
I wonder at which point this current hunt for (civilian) Russians only drives them into the arms of Putin. To me it feels petty and ultimately counterproductive trying to exclude every Russian from the world community.

If you seriously want to boycott "Russian" software, why don't you start with this Sergey Brin guy - sounds Russian to me /s

sinyug
> exclude every Russian from the world community.

Not the world community, only the West. Most of the world has no problems with Russia and Russians.

ukraineally
>Not the world community, only the West. Most of the world has no problems with Russia and Russians.

Russia hates asians. During the financial crisis in around 2009... Russians were killing racial minorities. There aren't many asians in Russia anymore...and there never will be.

India? Well Russians just killed some Indian citizens and were trying to prevent them from leaving Ukraine. Probably not going to go well for their relations. Historically certainly strong relations between the 2. India and Russia are long term friends. So are they with the USA. Not to mention, india is probably pretty uneasy about Russia and Pakistan becoming friends all of a sudden. Especially given it's entirely because of India. Hence why India has decreased the amount of military equipment coming from Russia. India sure is concerned about China lately as well. Multiple skirmishes with China. Then they have Pakistan becoming very friendly with Russia on the other side? India is probably seeing what Russia is doing to them. Smartly no side taken but is calling for peace.

Pakistan? Pakistan has hated Russia for as long as I have been alive and longer. Yet here we are today and Pakistan is urgently making friends with Russia. Pakistan even paid to fix their trade relationship. Why are they doing it? They fear India. They don't like Russia, the Russians know this because how many Russians have been killed by Pakistan? Hell, Pakistan boycotted the Russian olympics. Pakistan supports Russia in Ukraine? No... I would agree with you there. Pakistan is certainly gigantic friends with Russia all of a sudden.

China? China hates Russia. Russia owns chinese land and purged all chinese from the land. China wants Manchuria back. HK and Macau were justly given back to China. Was it really settled 15 years ago? You also can check out: https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-tells-xi-that-russia-wil...

It looks like China got blind sided. Russia used China as a shield for their invasion. China probably knew Russia was about to recognize the 2 new republics but didn't know about the invasion. Xi immediately picked up the phone telling Putin to start peace talks and Russia complied.What a gigantic slap in the face to China.

I think something being evaluated as well. Has all this talk about China being about to invade the USA, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan all been Russian propaganda? Is there reciprocal propaganda? Mind you, talk with any Canadian or Australian and we'll tell you how shit the USA is with their constant world police and warring. Lots of easy justification there.

Its basically public knowledge that Russian propaganda had gotten control of Canadian news media. Certainly seems likely that Australia was as well.

What do you think? You think China is about to invade the USA?

oldshatterhand
I have nothing against the average Russian.

I am a fan of some of the higher aspects of Russian culture, including hardbass. But this is about getting a message across to the Russian society, that their inaction on the political front is leading their country and the World into WW3.

EVERY TIME the average Russian decides to close their eyes to the horrors perpetrated by their leaders, something very bad happens and who suffers most? The Russians.

They got their act together in 1991, they must get their act together now.

type0
> They got their act together in 1991,

Not according to mr Putin, his view is that the whole Russian nation suffered humiliation by the West in the 90s and now is the time to retaliate by taking back Ukraine.

ukraineally
>I wonder at which point this current hunt for (civilian) Russians only drives them into the arms of Putin. To me it feels petty and ultimately counterproductive trying to exclude every Russian from the world community.

This is certainly an interesting point. For example, russian chess community for the most part has spoken out against the war. FIDE has withdrawn basically all chess out of Russia and I believe they are moving much of it to India. Which makes sense to me. Tons of awesome Indian chess players. Yes, Russia is attacking Indian citizens in Ukraine and has even killed at least one. Those Russian chess players impacted by the move of chess out of Russia will force them to ask wtf. This won't push them toward Putin by any means.

I suspect the same for other sports and interests will be true.

On the otherhand, the economic sanctions will effectively push the Russian people into demanding from their government to be sure. Economically they need their government to stabilize the situation. They are being pushed into the hands of Putin, but excuses of 'something something nazis' is not going to be enough.

>If you seriously want to boycott "Russian" software, why don't you start with this Sergey Brin guy - sounds Russian to me /s

I can get behind that, though I'm pretty sure Brin hates Russia.

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technikal
Yandex Cloud, Clickhouse, Altinity Cloud.
zX41ZdbW
ClickHouse is not a Russian software.

The company is incorporated in the US and have subsidiary in the Netherlands. The development team is distributed, most of the core team is located in the NL and there are employees in Germany, Spain, France, Croatia, Israel, Australia and the US. Major shareholders of the company are US citizens and VCs. ClickHouse is open-source product and has Apache 2.0 license. ClickHouse CEO - Aaron Katz is living in the US (CA) and CTO - Alexey Milovidov is living in the Netherlands (Amsterdam). Trademarks and IP are controlled by ClickHouse, Inc (Delaware).

ClickHouse has Russian origin but now there is no way Russia can affect ClickHouse.

hodgesrm
Altinity.Cloud is also not Russian software. We're a US company, all our services run out of US/EU locations, and our team is distributed across multiple nations, also including Ukraine. Like ClickHouse.com major investors are US-located.

I'm the CEO of the company. I'm a US citizen, ex-Air Force, and live in California. There's no possible excuse for the Russian government's invasion of Ukraine. The result is going to be a catastrophe not just for Ukraine but all of Eastern Europe.

Edit: added stuff about me.