Maksym Dunin, one of the two key developers of the nginx web server, announced the creation of FreeNginx, its own fork of the project. Dunin disagrees with F5 managers who “know better how to develop open source projects.”

In his letter, Maksym Dunin said that he has not been working in F5, which owns nginx, since 2022. Since the company closed its office in Moscow. After that, Dunin agreed with the managers that he would continue to develop the web server as a volunteer.

Now, he says, new non-technical managers have started to meddle in nginx development, thinking they know better how to develop open source projects. In particular, management is trying to make changes to the security policy of the web server. At the same time, the opinion of the developers is not taken into account.

Dunin notes that product owners can make any changes to it without asking anyone. But recent management actions violate his agreement with F5. Also, it can no longer monitor changes made to nginx.

In response, Dunin stated that he would no longer participate in the development of nginx. Instead, he created FreeNginx, a fork of the project that he invites other developers to join.