As JetBrains we condemn the attacks taking place | Hacker News Reader

As JetBrains we condemn the attacks taking place

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590 pointslabrador107 comments

Context: JetBrains' founders are Russian. They have offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Free speech isn't really a thing in Russia. To openly condemn the actions of the Russian government could have serious repercussions for them, but they did it anyway.

Спаси́бо, JetBrains.

- Dylan Beattie

Bravo. Makes me proud as a happy IntelliJ user.

JetBrains is technically a Czech company though, as in the company is a legal entity in the Czech Republic.

Phew. That would mean they'll never be completely cut off by measures like the proposed ban from SWIFT of all Russian interests.

Most of their employees (by a long shot) are in Russia though.

Sadly they will have stay away from open windows now.

Nice defenestration reference. Slow clap.

Nothing gets passed you, huh?

It's going to be increasingly difficult to do business there over the coming few years. I can't see this situation becoming easier any time soon.

What steps can founders in Russia seek to reduce the risks that they're facing?

In terms of business risks, I believe Jetbrains are based in Czechia, so while there is risk for their founders, I'm not sure there's any business risk (whether Russian retribution or international sanctions) for JetBrains itself.

It might become difficult to pay Russian employees very soon.

Their presence in Czechia is really small, it's not a Czech company in normal sense. My guess it's just a way how to get better access to western markets.

The business risk is that they might not be able to transfer money to Russia (where they probably have most employees) and western companies might not be comfortable using what is basically just Russian software with "Czech" sticker on it.

personal moral or poltiical views aside, built software for the Russian market that aligns broadly with the national agenda. From the looks of it the decoupling is going to necessitate a lot of domestic infrastructure.

monero

> What steps can founders in Russia seek to reduce the risks that they're facing?

Honestly? Their best bet is to leave Russia for a neighboring NATO aligned country.

Using that logic, we don't have free speech in the US either. Ask the Dixie Chicks, phil donahue, etc.

> To openly condemn the actions of the Russian government could have serious repercussions for them, but they did it anyway.

Considering most of jetbrains business is in the West, to support the russian government would have had serious repercussions. Condemning the russian government is actually a smart business decision on their part.

JetBrains founders side with the West. Apple CEO sides with China. Saudi Arabia and Israel are our best friends. Wonder what the common denominator is.

Money?

> Using that logic, we don't have free speech in the US either.

Only if you are so monumentally stupid as to equate being murdered by the state with people not buying your albums, I guess.

> Using that logic, we don't have free speech in the US either. Ask the Dixie Chicks, phil donahue, etc.

Sorry, which Dixie Chicks were locked up, disappeared or physically assaulted by government officials?

> business decision

the tweet isn’t about business, it’s to support families of JetBrains employees

how could this impact JetBrains employees in Russia? I imagine I'd be worried if I were them

The band [formerly known as “Dixie Chicks”] said they had picked "that stupid name" as teenagers, and had wanted to change it for years; they said they were moved to change it when they saw the Confederate flag described as "the Dixie Swastika" on social media in June 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicks

I think OP's (exceedingly poor) point was in reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicks#2003%E2%80%932005:_...

The dixie chicks were never poisoned, imprisoned, and tortured.

"serious repercussions" means things like being murdered by the state, imprisoned on trumped up charges and your family members being in physical danger. It does not mean "marginally decreased album sales".

A Soviet anecdote for you:

An American meets a Russian and says: "You don't have a free speech! I can go to White House and shout that Reagan is fool!" Russian answers: "Well I can go to Red Square and shout that Reagan is fool too".

As for JB: guess why they are Czech company for years now? My 2nd employer and my first step in IT career was an integrator who provided a few Russian government bodies the maintenance of their infra and developed systems as well as building datacenters for Gazprom, and a few years after the next year they had quite a big profit there was a criminal case opened and CEO was chilling for 2 years in London.

Horrible comparison. In particular none of them faced government sanctions which are most likely in the pipeline now as Russia goes to war. No doubt dissent will be quashed harshly in the coming weeks. I wish all the people at JetBrains the best of luck with this. I don't think it was necessarily a good move on the part of leadership who I suspect aren't in Russia currently...

I'm blown away that JetBrains hasn't been acquired by any other company yet. I've seen universally positive reviews on here about every one of their products and they're never publicly made a PR misstep to my knowledge. Shame that they're all stuck in Russia.

They got some backslash when introducing the new subscription model a while back. But they listened and changed it to what it is today (if you stop paying you can still use the version you originally bought).

But yeah, I got nothing bad to say. Use their products every day and am a happy customer.

Supposedly, Google had tried to buy them many times. But the owner is sitting pretty and doesn't want to sell. Probably a good move.

Their head office is in Prague, Czech Republic and they're technically a Czech company... But point still stands, they're Russian and speaking against the war.

They have thousands of employees in Russia.

Didn't stay they don't.

True but I for one still think it's valuable additional information.

Not to detract from the importance of their statement today, but I’ve always thought that they were really a “Czech company” on paper only.

Take a look at their supposed Czech HQ office:

https://www.jetbrains.com/company/contacts/prague/

And then compare to their St Petersburg, Russia office:

https://www.jetbrains.com/company/contacts/st-petersburg/

Which one looks more like a HQ? The latter office is their largest [0] and also just happens to be where their CEO is based [1].

It’s always felt to me like their de facto HQ is in Russia.

I’m not trying to insinuate anything, I like their products and I’m pleased to see their statement today, but the “we’re a Czech company” thing has always felt a bit odd to me.

If anything though, it makes the stand they’re taking today even more significant.

[0] https://officesnapshots.com/2020/01/16/jetbrains-offices-sai...

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/mshafirov

Yes, they're mostly Russian. But legal status matters in that Russia can't shut them down...

them being a foreign company actually puts them at more risk, because they can legally be declared a foreign agent

Maybe not Russia, but sanctions can hit them pretty hard. They might not be able to transfer money to Russian and western companies might not be comfortable using what is basically just Russian software with "Czech" sticker on it.

Russia can shut down its operations in St Petersbourg.

I would imagine after this they will shut down all Russian operations. Putin is on war footing and he's not about to allow dissent for much longer.

There are thousands of employees in JetBrains offices in Russia. Looking at Belarusian events around PandaDoc, it takes several months to relocate employees, some resign for personal reasons, others land in jail.

Now that PandaDoc relocated mostly to Kyiv... they have the problem of relocating further on.

They are Czech company only on paper (probably for better access to western markets). They don't have any sort of real presence in Czech Republic, just offices for their global teams. Their products don't have Czech versions. Not even their website is available in Czech language. Highly unusual for a technical company. Even big global companies offer at least something in our local language.

FWIW last year I got an invoice from the Czech company and this year from a Dutch BV.

"Not even their website is available in Czech language."

Very interesting.

I'm sure there are better sources than just pictures of the offices :D. For my own employer, you could apply the same logic and you would be wrong.

Lots of Russian companies are nominally headquartered in Prague. Reveal Sound is another example off the top of my head. There are certain advantages for companies that want to do business internationally.

yes, people of HN need to realize what it takes for a Russian company to voice narratives not in line with the government (in this case supporting their war enemy)

for JetBrains this could mean losing contracts with other (pro-government) Russian companies, house searches for their own employees and executives and targeted “investigation” campaigns

they could be declared a “foreign agent” or “undesirable organization” which will make business impossible

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_undesirable_organiza...

for Russian government “a friend of my enemy is my enemy”

and if you’re still in doubt: one tweet is all it takes to build a case

they prosecute people for liking content on VK or blowing up houses in Minecraft

https://theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/russian-teenager-n...

> supporting their war enemy

Condemning the attacks is not the same as supporting their governments war enemy.

For the russian government? GP implies that this is the case.

> for JetBrains this could mean losing contracts with other (pro-government) Russian companies, house searches for their own employees and executives and targeted “investigation” campaigns

This can be true in many countries. Supporting people like Julian Assange, anti-colonial struggles for Kurdistan/Palestine, or opposing your State in any other way can get you in a lot of legal and para-legal trouble. All the more reason to be supportive of people and organizations taking a stand, wherever they are.

I hope this statement would not turn lives of their developers located in Russia miserable. The owners are insulated from this danger. From what I read Russia already arrested 1700 protesters.

This is a case of people putting their conscience before their wallets when it really matters–a true act of bravery.

People of JetBrains, I salute you.

Also, could be a way to tell their customers that JetBrains is not a Russian cyberwar asset. A supply chain attack using JetBrains products would be scary, given their penetration.

It could be a deceptive signal, then. Condemning this invasion is cheap if it allows Putin to hold onto such a strategic espionage/supply chain attack vector.

I like to think I would be brave enough to say something in that situation. But you never know until the chips are down.

Kudos to the Jetbrains folks.

Speech is cheap. In the end it is just a PR. I doubt they'll have any serious repercussions because the message is vague on purpose. But everybody in the comments already give them credit for it. Actions/money are all that matter.

Speech is cheap in the West.

JetBrains has a large Russian presence.

I hope the people in Russian cities will be okay after this. It's one thing to denounce it from outside the country if you don't have to suffer the consequences :( . Putin's operatives are known to disappear people without a whole lot of provocation.

Indeed, a very brave statement, which carries very serious risks. Respect.

When Putin threatens the families of employees of Jetbrains in Russia, they will put spyware in your IDE.

They probably already have done so.

Switch immediately.

The balls on these guys wow. It's one thing to do this from Palo Alto. It's different when the kremlin can snatch you. Support Jetbrains and purchase their tools.

They will be in a very difficult position: huge offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk and in Prague. Czech Republic just announced no new visa will be granted to Russian citizens (except for humanitarian reasons)

The OP's post praising JetBrains is not flagged. Interesting.

This post, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30453689, asking if JetBrains products are safe to use considering the current Russian Military attack against the Ukraine, is flagged. Also Interesting.

Will they leave Russia too like Telegram?

Their head office has always been in the Czech Republic...

I don't think I'd realized they were anywhere farther east than that.

That's probably due to the fact that it's easier to do accounting when working with other countries. Majority of developers are in Russia though, source - https://www.linkedin.com/company/jetbrains/people/

This is concise and yet hugely inspiring. I love seeing people and their companies publicly committing to their ideals. Software engineering is ripe for further movement toward self-awareness. This industry is one of the most powerful parts of our modern world, and placing oneself closer to a recognition of that impact on the real lives of humans is very welcome.

Thanks for the bravery JetBrains.

JetBrains is one of the bravest developer tools companies in the space. Please support them. Bravo!

I was literally looking at using Jetbrains space in a new startup and was wondering about their Russian ties.

Anyone have comments on how Space has worked out (or not) for them?

I STOPPED USING JETBRAINS. All fake profile responses can try some other sites.

No one should use Jetbrains. They have offices in Saint Petersburg and Moscow and when Putin threatens their families if they don't put spyware in your IDE, they will put spyware in your IDE. It probably has already happened.

Companies should not involve in politics

Companies do involve into politics because otherwise they negate their own existence.

Do you negate air and yet breathe? Pretty much the same thing.

To think that companies exist out of the political sphere is at best naive, at worst utterly delusional.

> To think that companies exist out of the political sphere is at best naive, at worst utterly delusional.

I'm not who you're replying to and don't necessarily agree with them but they did say that companies /should/ stay out of politics. They think it's better if they aren't, not denying that in the real world politics does have influence.

Almost everything interesting involving multiple humans can be described as politics.

In which case the word doesn’t mean anything.

Regardless of whether you agree, you know what the OP meant, because “politics” has a meaning, and it’s not “everything”.

Sure. But companies are inherently political. They survive because of guarantees from the political system in which they live, and different political systems produce different kinds of businesses.

I don't say that the OP produced an unmeaningful sentence. I say OP is incorrect.

Nope. In some cases not fighting against something is the same as supporting it. And the people behind those companies are human too, they have their own thoughts, passions, fears. I'd condemn my employer if they stood idly by a war crime literally impacting employees and their families.

Kind of off topic, but Russia hasn't comitted a war crime. They've committed an act of war. Not really the same thing.

They have bombarded civilian targets - there are multiple pictures and videos of civilian buildings and infrastructure such as roads being bombed, with civilians dying. That's very war crimey.

Furthermore, crimes against peace are a type of war crime.

There's a long road to calling that a war crime. Largely what has to be shown is that they meant to target civilians and that there is absolutely no case in which they're targeting Ukrainian forces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime

I suspect you're probably right, that they did so intentionally, but using the right words matters.

Well I guess we need to send every US President since Eisenhower to the Hague in chains, then.

Don't act like Russia is some sort of unique evil, here. The gallons of blood spilled in collateral damage to innocent civilians by US, US-led, or US-financed operations in countries we have absolutely no business being in can fill swimming pools.

Literally anybody writing, posting, tweeting, or writing column-inches about the horrible action by Russia from US soil needs to stop, notice where they are, and recognize that OUR government is orders of magnitude worse, and has been at it for far, far longer.

I will fault the Russians for one thing, here. The FSB should have fabricated evidence of WMDs held in Kiev, claimed that Zelensky was murdering babies, then went in under the banner of Freedom(tm).

This silly business of conducting military options unapologetically for national interests is so old-fashioned. Lying to the world through your media mouthpieces is the way to do it. You'd think there'd still be some of that Pravda spirit left over from the USSR, but I guess not.

Parent may not be a US citizen, and might bravely be saying their opinion within reach of Russia. No context of USA is necessary.

I'm not American, and yes, most US presidents and army commanders and CIA pieces of shit should be brought to The Hague for their war crimes.

I find myself possessed of this strange power to disdain the imperial ambitions of both the USA and Russia.

I'm not a lawyer, soldier, or diplomat, but by my reading of this definition of war crimes, they have.

> https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docindex/v1...

The ICC is what decides a war crime from a military action or act of war, and that takes in a lot of variables it would be difficult to account for. There'll be long investigations after this to figure things out, I'm sure. As I said in another reply, if I was a betting man, I would agree; however, I also dislike the popularization of the term war crime and just throwing it around.

War Criminal or simply Mass Murderer. The leaders who instigated the killing should spend their remaining years in jail.

Well, right now they've officially committed a "special military action" not a war - and there is plenty of stuff that was happening before even that weaksauce declaration came in.

That all said, they have been conducting mass detention of civilians in Ukraine so I think we've probably got some borderline war-crime actions. It'll take a long time to sort out exactly everything that's happened today and the last week - but I'd be surprised if war crimes weren't occurring.

That all said, war crimes are defined by the victor and their declaration and potential repercussions for them is an entirely political process. Countries exist at a scale where the "immutable definition of the law" isn't a thing that actually exists - unless we had a sole disinterested super-power that far surpassed every other power on earth and was able to serve as an impartial judge we can't really have the same concept of a legal system at the international level - this is why The Hague is usually focused on regional conflicts where China, the US, and everyone else has a little enough of a vested interest that they're happy to just score some PR points.

Yes the world is depressing, but it is the way it is.

> That all said, war crimes are defined by the victor and their declaration and potential repercussions for them is an entirely political process.

This is why I pointed out that what they're describing is not a war crime yet. What you're saying is not true, there is a court that deals with war crimes and they do have specific definitions. Unfortunately the term has been popularized and liberally thrown around since then, giving birth to this idea that war crimes are somehow only a colloquial term for bad things happening.

Check out:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_court The court that tries war crimes, and also defines them based on Geneva conventions.

The Liebor Code, Hague Conventions, and Nuremberg Principles all heavily influenced the Geneva Convention.

> not fighting against something is the same as supporting it

This is nonsense. This quickly leads to people putting all sorts of demands on companies to support causes they have nothing to do with, and assumes that everyone needs to have the same priorities you do. It's a fallacious, "my cause is more important than anything" argument. If a company's owners, for whatever reason want to get involved in politics, that's up to them. But this "silence is violence" nonsense is not just a low effort rhetorical device to make people shift resources to your cause.

I actually agree.

(I say this as a person who is 100% against this invasion).

However the circumstances is that the IntelliJ founders are Russian, and it’s important to point out that it is not the will of the Russian people to invade Ukraine. It is Putin.

It is the will of _some_ of the Russian people. It has to be. It's people doing the invading. If no Russian wanted to invade Ukraine, there would be nobody in uniform invading Ukraine.

Sure. Just like it’s the will of “some” of the UK to go to war with Iraq, despite over a million people protesting against that at the time.

That people follow the government does not mean they agree.

And anyway there’s been a steady stream of propaganda fed to the Russian population, it’s folly to say this isn’t Putins will being projected onto his people.

The same way that the nazis got power with 30% approval and managed to use that power to go to war with the rest of Europe.

I’m not saying it’s not dangerous, I’m saying it’s not all Russia. And IntelliJ are saying as such.

> I say this as a person who is 100% against this invasion

Thanks for clearing that up. There are commenters on HN who have a vested interest in Russia taking eastern Ukraine.

Yes, I agree. I don't think this is such an inappropriate stance to have. It's up to the owner in the end, but personally I don't agree in mixing politics with business.

Companies are literally political entities.

Companies make weapons, or tools to make weapons, even if not intended. An IDE could be used to develop a fighter plane control sw. Companies pay taxes that are used to also buy weapons that kill people. Everyone should be involved in politics, even companies.

I absolutely agree - now if only all of the companies in the US could stop lobbying for pro-business legislation we could have a fairer and more equitable world. I care a lot more about how twisted our legal system has become than companies declaring opposition to unjust wars.

Companies are comprised of people and should be allowed to speak on politics if they so choose to.

As sanctions are looming any company that is based on Russia, has offices in Russia or makes business with Russian companies are at risk of having these sanctions affect their bottom line.

They simply don't have the luxury of staying out of it. Some damage control is needed

Should say... I dunno, Alphabet provide un solicited commentary on their take of... Australia's refugee detention centres? Not really.

Should a Russian-based company make a statement on their country invading another as the world (of customers) looks on? Probably.

Politics is everywhere, avoiding it can sometimes be an unintended statement too. Sometimes you have to state your position or others will state it for you.

Yes, and perhaps later they can claim to just be following orders.

Then ban lobbying.

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