Add-on Where do you stand on selling addons to Russian businesses?

For me, it's too much work to keep up with geo-political things. I have real life friends in Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Iran, etc. Do I judge them based on people running their country? No. And hopefully people don't judge me based on the retards running the United States.

Am I going to quiz someone about their political or religious beliefs before I sell them something? Also no... that's seems like it would just be making a ton of work for me so I can hopefully make less money?

Now if I saw an order from an individual that caught my eye, I'd cancel the order. Like if Kim Jong Un was trying to buy something... but an individual human being from North Korea? idc...

If you are going to go down the road of a blanket judgement against any human based on their physical location in the world, should I also ban selling to certain US states that have idiotic leadership? Again... just seems like too much work to me. If I'm going to judge someone, I'm going to judge them individually, not based on where they were born or live or religion. Too much work (oh ya, I said that).
 
Oh really?


And look who runs the world court:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is run by a panel of 15 judges elected for nine-year terms by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. The current President is Yuji Iwasawa, and the Vice President is Julia Sebutinde.
 
And look who runs the world court:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is run by a panel of 15 judges elected for nine-year terms by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. The current President is Yuji Iwasawa, and the Vice President is Julia Sebutinde.
Would ypu prefer it to be run by an Israeli so you could have a consistent narrative you could keep lying to yourselves and the world about?
 
Follow sanction and legal requirements, and generally ignore them on a personal level.

As far as add-ons go, most of what I have funded is allowed to be released, but the things that specifically give me advantage over competitors is kept strictly private to my communities.

As far as people having an issue with @Stuart Wright deciding who he will or will not sell his add-ons too... While he does recoup some of his investment (ongoing development is not cheap), him providing his products is a boon to the community. I just find it hilarious it is always people who have never provided any value to this community are the ones who take issue with things 🤣.
 
And look who runs the world court:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is run by a panel of 15 judges elected for nine-year terms by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. The current President is Yuji Iwasawa, and the Vice President is Julia Sebutinde.

You've pasted a slight rephrasing of wikipedia's article on the ICJ. If you're trying to make a point, you're going to have to say it.
Wikipedia said:
The Court is composed of a panel of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms. The composition of the bench is required to represent the "main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world," and no two judges may be nationals of the same country. The ICJ is seated in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, making it the only principal UN organ not located in New York City. Its official working languages are English and French.
 
Don’t want to get political but I always vet the forums I sell my addons to and I don’t feel comfortable doing business with a Russian organisation. I’m inclined to decline their request to purchase.

Where do you stand on this?

(FYI I won’t sell licenses to use our addons to competing forums or forums doing dodgy things like sharing stolen login credentials. That’s why vet all purchase requests.)
I’m Russian. In 2022 I left Russia and moved to Istanbul, where I still live. In the very same building where I live, several Ukrainian families who fled the war in 2022 are renting apartments. We greet each other every day, chat in the elevator, and yes, we all speak Russian, because for most of us it’s the native language we grew up with. The Ukrainian guys from my building even cut my hair in their barbershop for money; we laugh, talk about life, and everything is perfectly normal.

So while you’re sitting somewhere in the UK feeling “uncomfortable” about selling an addon to someone just because their forum is in Russian or has a .ru domain, spare a thought: a Russian-language forum is not “Russians only.” It’s Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, Armenians, Georgians, Baits, and half of the former USSR. You’re refusing all of them too with your “ethical stance”?

Discriminating against customers based on their nationality while crying “I don’t want to get political” is peak hypocrisy. Congrats, you just admitted you’re doing exactly what you pretend to be above. Own it.

I was born and raised during the USSR era, back when the countries that are now part of the European Union (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) were still part of the Soviet Union.
 
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Are you actually allowed to sell to Russia due to sanctions?

I asked ChatGPT to summarise my position when selling addon licenses to a Russian company and it said that I am ok provided I ensure the purchaser is not on the sanctions list and that I don't provide any support.
  • If you want zero sanctions headache: do not sell to them.
  • If you do sell, the only relatively safe way is:
    • Confirm they are not sanctioned,
    • Make it a pure, off the shelf licence sale with no customisation or consulting,
    • Keep all support generic, not bespoke IT services.

If you cannot or will not operate under those constraints, then from a sanctions point of view, you should treat the answer as “no, do not do the deal”.

I’m Russian. In 2022 I left Russia and moved to Istanbul, where I still live. In the very same building where I live, several Ukrainian families who fled the war in 2022 are renting apartments. We greet each other every day, chat in the elevator, and yes, we all speak Russian, because for most of us it’s the native language we grew up with. The Ukrainian guys from my building even cut my hair in their barbershop for money; we laugh, talk about life, and everything is perfectly normal.

So while you’re sitting somewhere in the UK feeling “uncomfortable” about selling an addon to someone just because their forum is in Russian or has a .ru domain, spare a thought: a Russian-language forum is not “Russians only.” It’s Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, Armenians, Georgians, Baits, and half of the former USSR. You’re refusing all of them too with your “ethical stance”?

Discriminating against customers based on their nationality while crying “I don’t want to get political” is peak hypocrisy. Congrats, you just admitted you’re doing exactly what you pretend to be above. Own it.
You couldn't be more wrong.
You asking me the question about whether I would deal with Ukrainians etc. because they speak Russian reveals how you have fundamentally misunderstood my post.
It's nothing to do with the language the forum is in. It's the location of the business (Russia) and how I feel about working with them. Also, and though I didn't mention it in my first post, it's important to consider the ramifications of the UK sanctions law which we need to carefully follow as a UK business.
If you read my thread properly, you will see that I asked about Russian businesses. In the thread title, no less. Not Russian individuals or people who speak Russian.

I hoped that my question would not turn political, but this thread turned in to a **** show very quickly. At AVForums, we made our politics forum private because, though we appeared in position #1 in a Google search for politics forum, it's not what we're about.

To conclude, the person running the forum based in Russia is a private individual rather than a business, so I am inclined to sell the addon to him.
Thanks to those people who gave useful advice and opinion.
The mods can now put this thread out of Xenforo's misery.
 
Discriminating against customers based on their nationality while crying “I don’t want to get political” is peak hypocrisy. Congrats, you just admitted you’re doing exactly what you pretend to be above. Own it.
Well it's called "consequences" but as true USSR you are trained to blame only others and not yourself or your government.

countries that are now part of the European Union (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) were still part of the Soviet Union.
This has nothing to do with the topic. Those countries were occupied by USSR.
 
Difficult queston. The most obvious thing to check would be if the sale would be affected by official sanctions against Russia anyway. Apart from that: While not all people in Russia might agree with the country's actions the idea of sanctions is to generate pressure by making life less comfortable for people in Russia. A lot of companies worldwide have stopped selling to Russia and if I was in your situation I would clearly consider to join them.

I would also check, if payment would be possible at all (are things like paypal etc. still possible from Russia?) and it would also be interesting how i.e. XF themselves handle sales to Russia.

As someone who's grown up in sanctions - and protested against the government - I can confirm that sanctions mostly punish the normal people and nothing else.

Politicians who impose them know that very well - but the general public is brainwashed into believing that sanctions do something for the good.

Not that I expect this post to change anyone's mind - but that's my stance on doing business with "from country X" (whichever country it is).
 
As someone who's grown up in sanctions - and protested against the government - I can confirm that sanctions mostly punish the normal people and nothing else.
I don't know whether this is the case, but I think most people / goverments would prefer regime change to be driven by a country's people. And if they understand that it's the fault of their goverment, then motivating them to drive forward that change may not be a bad thing. I believe that many Russians believe their state propaganda lies.
 
I don't know whether this is the case, but I think most people / goverments would prefer regime change to be driven by a country's people. And if they understand that it's the fault of their goverment, then motivating them to drive forward that change may not be a bad thing. I believe that many Russians believe their state propaganda lies.
Well, as a U.S. citizen, I'm 100% down for a regime change. I'm hoping one of the zillions of countries we invaded to force regime change will return the favor soon. 🤞🏻

As far as if Russians do or don't believe the state propaganda, exactly ZERO of the Russians I know believe it.

Thank God citizens don't have to align with the beliefs of the leaders of their country. I most certainly do not... in fact if I'm being honest and I could waive a magic wand, I'd remove everyone who ever came to the United States as an immigrant (and their descendants) and return it to the Native Americans and just find a new geographic place to live. Clearly, I'm no patriot... the place I live is nothing more than that... a physical place. If it gets too much to your disliking, you can just move (no different than moving to a different street or city) to a place more suitable.

Best to not judge a human being based on where they live on the planet. If you want to go down the road of judging people before you sell something to them, judge them individually, imo.
 
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