sev1
It doesn't really bother me personally either way, but I understand peoples' concern. I didn't mind the wget and curl aliases. I find myself autopilot typing 'ls' in PS quite often and I'm glad they aliased it to 'dir'.
Only you are saying anything about malice. Everything is easily explained by greed (or the desire to simply gain if you prefer softer language).
The report mentioned that their LinkedIn profiles changed from showing Moscow to Tbilisi. I'm sure I could also change my location to Tbilisi on my LinkedIn profile. How is that a meaningful argument? I don't want any amount of my money going to the Russian economy if I can avoid it, even if it's merely pennies as you say.
Why do you care to defend them so much?
As far as a connection to Putin's regime, you should read up the thread and note that nobody here mentioned that. Regardless of their supposed affiliations or lack thereof, I'm not interested in sending money to the Russian economy by purchasing a product from a Russian company. It's that simple. I think others would want to know that same information so thanks to pnw for mentioning it.
>Our team was originally formed in Neuron Hackspace by collaborating with industrial design and manufacturing experts Design Heroes.
A quick Google search for Neuron Hackspace and Design Heroes shows their location as Moscow. I'm inclined to believe the detailed report from that blog post and am glad I did not end up buying the device.