Ukraine president namechecks software giants to end support in Russia

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the world's largest software vendors to end support for Russian customers, companies and government organisations. Oracle stated on Twitter that it is ending support for Russian users, while German application giant SAP and Microsoft look set to continue supporting …

[AMBxx]

What about open source?

Has anyone seen any announcements from open source project sponsors?

[BOFH in Training]

Looks like the Russians escape from Oracle!

Looks like the Russians will manage to get away from Oracle, which many companies have been trying for decades without success.

It may be only a matter of time before they get away from SAP and Microsoft as well.

Since open source does not have any restrictions, I guess thats where they will be moving to eventually. Maybe without commercial support.

I do wonder when Russia eventually "rejoins" the world in the future, will we be seeing a future with more alternative open source software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Looks like the Russians escape from Oracle!

>Since open source does not have any restrictions

This is only partially true. The major open source foundations - ASF, LF, CNCF et al - are all based in the US and therefore required to comply with sanctions including export controls.

If you think anything "open", or indeed anything positive for the people of Russia, is going to come out of this neo-Stalinist pariah state then you're a buffoon.

[PriorKnowledge]

Open source is the way

Projects like Debian have mirrors all over the world and if you want to guarantee you can’t have your freedom yanked away (pun intended) then just avoid SUSE, Red Hat and other commercial vendors. Export controls do not apply to source code either, as PGP proved decades ago, meaning you’re fine to contribute if you’re from Russia too.

What we do know though is that Russian developers will have little choice but to contribute to open source if they want to sell anything internationally, as nobody will trust them with anything proprietary because of this pointless war their leader started.

[steamnut]

They need the gas!

I am not surprised that German application giant SAP is still offering support as, thanks to Merkel, 55% of their energy comes in the form of Russian gas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They need the gas!

You mean, thanks to the German Green Party...

[David 132]

Re: They need the gas!

And that shameless Putin apologist Gerhard Schröder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft providing support as normal? Couldn't think of anything they could do that was more damaging to Putin

[David 132]

Maybe we should start a petition?

“Dear Microsoft,

As concerned citizens of the civilized world, we call upon you to help the struggling people of Ukraine by immediately donating Teams/Sharepoint licences to the Putin regime.

Do the right thing.”

[NoneSuch]

The one thing you can be assured of is Microsoft is hoping for a way to make more money from this situation.

Their silence is hoping the storm passes with them doing nothing.

[Plest]

Interesting to see that difference.

Normally a war is fought by two groups of sad old farts ordering young men to lay down their lives for the "greater good". This time we have one old fart and his cronies lurking in a bunker in Moscow and on the opposing side a group of people in Ukraine who are on average half the age of the Russians.

The Ukraine's are middle aged men and women who've grown up with technology, a president who knows and is prepared to call out Oracle and SAP, names only know to IT techies, as needing to pull out of Russia to support his cause. The IT tech minister for Ukraine is something like 25 years old! The Ukraines are tech savvy, they're milking social media and using the technology to run rings around the sad old farts in Russia who's best idea so far is to "stop this Facebook and Twitter thing". Putin still considers controlling TV and radio as the pinnacle of full comms control, like he and his sad old mates are still stuck in 1978.

I think that relative youthful spirit is what's making a difference in this war fought of several fronts, being very aware of the role technology is playing in the various battlegrounds.