Police reportedly raided the Moscow office of NGINX after a Russian search engine giant claimed ownership of its extremely popular web server code

• On Thursday, police reportedly raided the Moscow office of the web server company NGINX, and the authorities are said to have detained two of of the company's cofounders.
• NGINX was acquired by F5 Networks earlier this year for $670 million.
• This raid happened soon after the parent company behind Russian search engine giant Rambler reportedly filed a copyright claim over NGINX's web server code.
• NGINX cofounder Igor Sysoev wrote the original web server code while he was working for Rambler in the 2000s, and made it available as open source in 2004.
• An F5 Networks spokesperson said that "Russian police came to the NGINX Moscow office," but declined to comment further, saying the company is still gathering the facts.
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Earlier on Thursday, Russian police raided the Moscow office of NGINX (pronounced "Engine-X"), a web server company that was acquired earlier this year by F5 Networks, ZDNet's Catalin Cimpanu reported.

During the raid, NGINX cofounders Igor Sysoev and Maxim Konovalov were detained, ZDNet reported.Advertisement

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"Earlier today, Russian police came to the NGINX Moscow office," an F5 spokesperson said. "We are still gathering the facts and as such we have no further comments to make at this time."

The reported raid came a week after Rambler Group, the parent company behind Russian search engine giant Rambler, is said to have filed a copyright violation claim against NGINX, claiming full ownership of the company's web server code.

Sysoev wrote the original NGINX web server code while working at Rambler in 2000s, ultimately releasing it as open source in 2004. He ultimately left Rambler and cofounded NGINX, the company, in 2011. ZDNet reports that Rambler claims it's the rightful owner of NGINX's code because the project was created while he was still working there.

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NGINX is massively popular, representing the most widely-used web server technology on the internet, according to tracking firm Netcraft - outstripping prominent alternatives from the likes of the Apache Foundation, Microsoft, and Google. In March, F5 Networks acquired NGINX for $670 million.

Business Insider has reached out to Rambler Group for comment. Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.Advertisement

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