I don't think Yandex invaded Ukraine, or murdered civilians.
Probably most people at Yandex are suffering along with the people of Ukraine. Much less, of course, but they, among Russians, probably are the least approving of the invasion. Russia is a dictatorship, and what Yandex employees think makes no difference.
So, sending them money would be a kind of violation of trust. But using their code, or even improving it, is ethically unimpeachable.
By the numbers, Russia succeeds in causing less net harm than Exxon or Cargill, however hard it is trying.
This is not another war between two powers. Yandex is heavily involved into their E-Government processes, and right now almost fully controlled by the government. There are no 100% private company in that country anymore.
Supporting their open source projects, you giving Russians away free hours of testing, development.
Don't compare open aggression to eliminate nation of the biggest country by territory in Europe to a company that run for profit. And you use product of Exxon directly on indirectly. Up until last 10 years no one even consider evil. They considered a company that help to run the country as energy is crucial for any economy.
I made no statement about Yandex having anything to do with the invasion, causing anyone harm, or questioning the morality of people interacting with them. I made a statement of fact, that they are a Russian company, in response to a question asking why they were being called Russian.
The phrase "X is a Russian clone of Y" means someone in Russia made a clone of Y called X. It has everything to do with the country.
So yes, saying "Rust is an American clone of Pony" would be equally valid, if the assertion is that Rust is a clone of Pony, and if the people who made Rust were in America at the time.
What you should be annoyed by is not the "Russian" part but the "clone" part.
The "[Country] clone of [technology]" only really works if said technology is cloned by or for the state. If a Russian copies some code of an American, it's not a Russian clone of American code, it's just a guy copying another guy.
>The "[Country] clone of [technology]" only really works if said technology is cloned by or for the state.
No it does not. It gets used for technology created by companies as well.
Random first-page-of-Google results for "American clone of":
>An all-American clone of an app like TikTok is little better than the Chinese version imo.
>Production cost of a hypothetical American clone of basic ETA [...] if an American company wants to make a genuine fully American-made automatic watch, it's certainly possible for them to make a clone ETA
>An American Clone of the GPS-PHONE found!
>What is the value of a nasa entertainment computer system ( nes clone) [...] From what I know it’s some kind of american clone of the Nintendo Nes Console.
> The "[Country] clone of [technology]" only really works if said technology is cloned by or for the state.
This is your claim, which doesn't seem to apply when the results, IE actual usages of the term, do not have to do anything with state effort or funding.
Of course they searched for that term. Usually you search for things you are looking for, unless I'm missing something.
It's better to be direct and share concerns about the fact that it is a Russian company, just like you did, instead of the passive-racism, wich only encourages naive questions like mine, wich i don't think was his goal
