Over the last few weeks, we at Anaconda have watched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with horror and sadness. The destruction of human lives and cities is appalling, and the scale of the humanitarian disaster will be felt for generations to come.
As a company, we have discussed what we should, or can, do in response to this.
First and foremost, we have taken steps to ensure the safety of our team members located in Ukraine, by offering relocation assistance (for those able to relocate), and also offering them economic assistance. We have also donated to the Red Cross and local Ukrainian charities. We would encourage all Anaconda users to please also consider donating to such relief efforts, for instance at United Help Ukraine or the ICRC.
Secondly, we have been working to comply with US government sanctions against certain Russian entities and businesses. We are aware of sentiment within the tech community calling for a broader boycott of overall IT services to Russia, but we are not taking such action at this time. We are actively investigating appropriate frameworks for such actions, both for ourselves and to advocate for within the broader Python and data science community. We want our actions to be in solidarity with the community, but we are not afraid to be on the vanguard of doing what is right.
At Anaconda, our long history of promoting open-source data science fundamentally arises from a humanitarian mission: We believe that open source can bring about a more collaborative, democratic world, where more individuals can innovate faster, to improve humanity’s course. Ultimately, all of the services that we provide to the community, including package hosting and publishing, are meant to further such causes. Thus, we will continue to monitor the situation in Ukraine and in Russia, and look for more ways to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis, or to accelerate a resolution of the war.
We stand with Ukraine and all the brave Ukrainians, whose spirited defense of democracy and self-determination is an inspiration for the world.
