Astra Linux developer will bring to market an analogue of GitHub

Astra Group (Astra Linux OS) by the end of the year intends to bring to market its own platform for joint development of open source, which is designed to replace GitHub and GitLab. Astra Group has already acquired a 26% stake in Resolut, the developer of the GitFlic site, for this project, planning to increase its share to a controlling one. Thus, the company is joining the race to launch the Russian analogue of GitHub, in which Rostelecom, DIT of Moscow and the Ministry of Digital Development are already participating. Experts confirm the relevance of the project, but note the “risks of investing in young platforms.”

Astra Group JSC (the parent legal entity of Astra Linux OS developer Rusbitech-Astra LLC) on August 24 acquired 26% in Resolut LLC, the creator of the platform for storing open source code and joint development of GitFlic, discovered “Kommersant” in SPARK- Interfax. The Astra Group clarified that this is the first stage of the transaction, according to the results of the second stage, the company will receive 51%, the remaining shares will remain with the founders of Resolut.

This deal is part of a project to create an analogue of foreign repositories GitLab, GitHub and BitBucket, Ilya Sivtsev, CEO of Astra Group, explained: “The company is already working on a platform that will be a complete environment with a combination of source code management tools, testing, automation, documentation , framework, development patterns”. The group plans to bring the platform to market before the end of the year. Resolute added that “with the support of a major vendor” they plan to increase the pace of product development, as well as “to offer the market boxed solutions, including those with information security tools.”

According to SPARK-Interfax, Resolut was created in March 2021 and provides a repository for working with open source. Among the clients is VK-controlled RuStore. LLC revenue for 2022 amounted to 1.1 million rubles, net profit – 31 thousand rubles. After the first stage of the transaction, Alexei Sinitsin had 37.74%, Maxim Kozlov and Timur Mironov had 12.95% each, Denis Ramazanov had another 3.7%, and OM LLC had 6.66%.

The parties did not disclose the amount of the transaction. Taking into account the nominal value of the acquired share of Resolut LLC of 26%, it can be about 5 million rubles, and in case of gaining control – 10 million rubles, says Alexei Gorislavets, CEO of AFI Capital. But a Kommersant source familiar with the course of the negotiations claims that these figures are “significantly underestimated.” The top manager of a Russian IT company believes that the purpose of the deal was “purchase of a development team”, and estimates 51% in Resolut at 50-70 million rubles.

In 2022, due to sanctions, Russian developers began to restrict access to GitHub. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, GitHub blocked the accounts of a number of companies, banks and private users (see Kommersant dated April 15, 2022). The project to create an independent repository appeared back in 2020 at the initiative of the Ministry of Economy, in 2022 the Ministry of Digital Transformation returned to this idea, but even the composition of the official participants in the experiment became known only in 2023 (see “Kommersant” dated June 5).

“In the light of restrictions from Microsoft and Atlassian, investments in the development of development tools look like a logical step,” says Sergey Gordeychik, CEO of CyberOK. “Now the set of tools that have become the standard is de facto officially unavailable in the Russian Federation, and most companies look for workarounds.”

“Astra Group” “actually joins the race” to develop a Russian open source repository, which is already involving DIT Moscow (Mos.Hub), Rostelecom (RTK-Phoenix) and the Ministry of Digital Development, says the CEO of Web Server (developed Russian analogue of the Nginx engine) Zaur Abasmirzoev: “The idea is clear: the company wants to develop a repository, the community of which will be involved in finalizing their products. In addition, the project can provide state-owned companies with a cloud service for storing code.” Also, he clarifies, Astra can develop a product for state-owned companies on the basis of the project as a domestic solution for open source management.

However, Dmitry Parshin, director of the Artezio development center (part of Lanit), emphasizes that investments in young platforms carry a number of risks that must be taken into account, including technical problems or flaws that may scare away users: “In addition, as soon as the platform begins to grow, there are scalability issues that require additional investment.”

Tatiana Isakova, Nikita Korolev