Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

restofworld.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 228 posts

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#41

Post by beerandt »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #7

They want to block Github entirely because Github allows for the free flow of information (politically sensitive information, not just code) and they don't have a way of doing currently without just blocking all of Github... Which would be bad for business, and China also seems to be entering the software business in a bigger way. Actually, if you want to send large amounts of text information to users in China right…

I assume it also has just as much to do with Microsoft buying it.

See also: skype.

Not just because they don't want Chinese code stored on foreign servers, but because they want it on servers they have easy access to.

Even if this is far-fetched, it's not about what we think, but the risk China perceives.

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#42

Post by goldforever »

meiraleal wrote: post #9
giancarlostoro wrote: post #2

This is weird, considering Mongo changed their licensing because of Chinese cloud providers if I remember correctly. I don't know if people will merely blindly trust a GitHub rival ran by a foreign government as opposed to an organic startup, the only upside is for people in countries that are not allowed on GitHub.

The problem is that this organic startup is now a enterprise behemoth that can be trusted as much as CCP: Microsoft.

Correct!

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#43

Post by adventured »

worker767424 wrote: post #31
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #7

They want to block Github entirely because Github allows for the free flow of information (politically sensitive information, not just code) and they don't have a way of doing currently without just blocking all of Github... Which would be bad for business, and China also seems to be entering the software business in a bigger way. Actually, if you want to send large amounts of text information to users in China right…

How long before this strategy backfires? When does the CCP hurt itself because it stifled innovation? When does it have political problems because it suppressed the wrong thing? I can't tell if this style of governing is super robust or a house of cards.

China is through the period of easy gains in their economic expansion from the days of early developing nation status. The next 10-20 years will answer your question (including, critically, what Xi does from here forward and what comes after Xi). If their model stifles - and or to the extent that it does - it'll become apparent as economic gains get increasingly difficult going forward and the segments they begin to compete in are much more challenging (the US in software, Germany in high-value manufacturing, going after semiconductors, aerospace, building quality automobiles, et al.). There have been potent signs all across their economy for numerous years now that growth has become far harder and more expensive to acquire, how innovation maps to that context will be interesting to watch.

Their style of governing is very clearly not super robust. If it were they wouldn't need to so extremely tightly control their people in every possible manner. They regularly reveal how fragile the system is in their behavior, including how very easily their party ego is injured (which partially reveals how fragile they view their own position, that they're so obsessed with maintaining the facade of omnipotence; they fear any cracks). That also doesn't mean it's a house of cards, the CCP has proven they have staying power, even if it's expensive ground to hold.

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#44

Post by jxramos »

Symbiote wrote: post #33
430scuderia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I can't believe there are people on HN cheering on the CCP for strengthening its censorship. I guess those are the very people that also support it on American soil.

This is a flamebait comment. Not one comment on this article is supportive.

flamebait, that is a great word mashup that conveys a lot. Clickbait for starting a comment flamewar, never saw that one before. Gonna keep an eye out for these things with this lens.

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#45

Post by africanboy »

hehehaha wrote: post #18

Can someone point me to a significant open source effort spearheaded by China? Is Open Source active and embraced among developers in China?

Baidu and Alibaba have open source projects (RocketMQ has been donated to Apache by Alibaba http://rocketmq.apache.org)

Chinese developers are the second largest group of contributors on GitHub

there's also a billion and a half of them, most of them don't speak english (edit: not all of the Chinese people are developers of course)

Anyway, GitHub itself it's not OSS and it's owned by Microsoft

AFAIK open source contributions are not usually rewarded in China by employers, but that's true in general in Europe as well

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#49

Post by hehehaha »

africanboy wrote: post #45
hehehaha wrote: post #18

Can someone point me to a significant open source effort spearheaded by China? Is Open Source active and embraced among developers in China?

Baidu and Alibaba have open source projects (RocketMQ has been donated to Apache by Alibaba http://rocketmq.apache.org ) Chinese developers are the second largest group of contributors on GitHub there's also a billion and a half of them, most of them don't speak english (edit: not all of the Chinese people are developers of course) Anyway, GitHub itself it's not OSS and it's owned by Microsoft AFAIK open source contr…

Thanks for that info. I knew about Baidu and Alibaba repos but I was more curious how open source was culturally perceived.

Re: China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

#50

Post by dheera »

temporalparts wrote: post #34
worker767424 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long before this strategy backfires? When does the CCP hurt itself because it stifled innovation? When does it have political problems because it suppressed the wrong thing? I can't tell if this style of governing is super robust or a house of cards.

I'm sure it's hurting CCP right now. Being closed off from the rest of the world does have its consequences. It probably just doesn't hurt CCP enough to matter in the short term. It'll probably take closer to half a century before we can truly understand if the cumulative effects of the pain will amount to anything significant.

Well yes and no. If they are open to the rest of the world a lot of money would end up in Silicon Valley.

If Facebook and Google ran ads all over China, a nice big cut of that revenue goes to the IRS instead of China's government.

Post reply on HN