China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by hungryhobo » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

stunt wrote: post #79

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…

No, I don't think it's about blocking Github. Many of their tech companies are using open source. For China it's safer to have a Chinese Github ecosystem. Just imagine if Github suddenly decide to block Chinese users like they did for Iranian users. It's also strategic for their government and some critical private sector to not put their source code on an American platform. So there are enough incentives especially…

this is the correct answer. I think this is China's response after seeing Huawei getting blocked from using Google Services.

Github is still owned by an american company and it has shown that it needs to comply with whatever foreign policy that washington enacts. It's reasonable want to have a contingency plan that would allow the Chinese domestic software industry to continue to function when things turn sour between the two powers.

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

#112

Post by phkahler » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

nr2x wrote: post #16

korethr wrote: post #4

I can't help but wonder if such an attempt would even work. Unless I am misunderstanding the culture that makes an open source ecosystem work, a free and open exchange of information and ideas is one of those fundamental things. When a thing is broken, sometimes you have to tell an authority the horribly embarrassing fact that the thing is broken. With the CCP controlling all information flows and what is or is not f…

If you go back to the rhetoric of the Clinton-era the belief was that the Internet and Capitalism would "free" China from authoritarian rule. Instead, the authoritarians managed to co-opt both and gain further leverage abroad. They can't do everything, but don't bet against the Chinese accomplishing a lot of what the West thinks is based on "free and open exchange" via responsive authoritarianism.

>> If you go back to the rhetoric of the Clinton-era the belief was that the Internet and Capitalism would "free" China from authoritarian rule.

That was just a cover to enable outsourcing american jobs to a country without a level playing field.

Corporations and government sold out the US. The only guy to stand up to that just got run out of office and deplatformed.

The dems had Tulsi, but shes getting dissed by her own party already.

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

#113

Post by fy20 » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC

seniorivn wrote: post #106

vgchh wrote: post #80

Thing is that in the big picture, it's not just that China is building a replacement for GitHub. China is building a replacement for everything that matters and accelerates their transition to be the Super Power. And they have been doing so for last 30 years, just that now it's hitting a critical mass and world is waking up to it. And I think, we, The West, have been getting it wrong. We are looking at China like a j…

the last time the west only managed to "win" the moon race because it was competing against financially poor and poorly managed soviet state(all key brains behind soviet space program were released from gulag just to work on it and knew that if they will not please their masters they will go back to gulag and die. the greatest motivation of all time) china now is a lot more sane people that don't mess with politics/p…

Has anyone heard from Jack Ma yet?

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

#114

Post by zarkov99 » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

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.

They do not need their own innovation, that would require pesky freedoms, they can just steal it from freer societies. China has been been very good at keeping their cake and eating it for 30 years.

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

#115

Post by heratyian » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

wow. they even copied the contribution map. Is it also cloning github repos and hosting on gitee? Why does US gov put up with this crazy wholesale censorship and copying?

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

#116

Post by addicted » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

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.

It's already hurting them greatly.

If the US hadn't retreated from diplomacy in favor of acting more like a mob boss, China would have been hurt far more. Most countries are looking to move away from Australia, but the absence of a countervailing power is what's stopping them.

Alternatively, the CCP got more aggressive with their suppressive tactics because of the US's diplomatic retreat, but I dont think this is the case. I think the CCP's behavior is a natural consequence of Xi Jinping basically giving himself a life term. With no opportunity to ever lead the party through a peaceful transfer of power, all the leadership hopefuls will probably be looking for alternative solutions. And even if they aren't, Xi is almost certainly gonna be paranoid that they are, and that would mean increasingly severe crackdowns on the people of the country.

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

#117

Post by evidencebased » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

cbozeman wrote: post #92

ausbah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a very distasteful analogy

[flagged]

No, Charlie. For the hundredth time, Jewish people were not sent to vocational training camps for violent extremism during WWII. Uyghur are also not being killed. Nice "backbone" tho.

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

#118

Post by Renaud » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #37

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.

They seem to be doing pretty well, economically-speaking. I suspect, so long as they can continue to provide good lives for their professional class, the country will continue to grow in world influence. The professionals that drive growth and innovation probably desire to live in a less authoritarian society, but life is generally good enough for them to remain complacent, and turn a blind-eye to injustice.

The Chinese people are not less ethical than any others and their government knows that. The way they keep people blind to injustice is to filter all narratives through the systematic surveillance of communications and push for more technology to control people's lives under the guise of convenience or the promotion of "social harmony".

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

#119

Post by easterncalculus » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:28 AM UTC

liquidify wrote: post #105

Barrin92 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably very long. Given the success of the Chinese ecosystem compared to other regions on the globe, including a lot of democratic countries without significant limits on expression, it doesn't seem to be very important. The first answer is that innovation can be channelled towards military or surveillance technology instead. The government has no problem with research into facial recognition, enterprise software,…

If China's system is really "open source" then this is really dumb. Basically, they give out any innovations they create, while shielding themselves from any external innovation. I don't see how this could possible benefit them over any measurable amount of time. Sure, they can do private repos for sensitive stuff, but the benefit of an open system like github is not in the closed off stuff... it is in the openness a…

> If China's system is really "open source" then this is really dumb.

I get the sense from reading this that we're both aware that with China that won't be the case.

> Basically, they give out any innovations they create, while shielding themselves from any external innovation.

In a sense I feel like this relies on an exaggeration of the benefits and requirements of open source that most people in the west would have. Thinking about it right now I can see two questions.

1) Do we really need a free and open (as in free speech) internet to bring many people's code contributions and skills together?

2) Is having a walled off system actually better, on the reasoning that developers in China make the best "chinese software" (meaning software that will do well in or be useful to China)?

I think the answer to the first is that the need for free speech for open source at first seems necessary, and is certainly still helpful, but not ultimately needed for this to work. China can block topics like on any other site and chances are the people that still want to contribute ultimately will, just like people still use Wechat, Baidu, etc. I would think that as it stands you can still have a large group of hard-working contributors without some 'sensitive' topics coming up. I really think that the benefits of the open source model aren't as tied to the principles of western countries as a lot of people would initially assume, myself included.

The second question might be worth looking into some more, in terms of market research and what is successful in China. Plus Chinese developers are probably more used to having to work with the government in regards to censorship and surveillance, which GitHub could shut the doors on pretty fast.

Either way I don't think that having restricted topics is going to cripple the benefits of having a much larger contributor/talent pool and open source code. Not having freedoms isn't as good of course but I don't think open source software depends on them as much as some might say.

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

#120

Post by dcolkitt » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #96

dcolkitt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They seem to be doing pretty well, economically-speaking. This is all relative. In an absolute sense, China's level of economic development on Bulgaria, Mexico or Kazakstan. They've had a long period of high growth, but that's only because of the abject poverty the Maoists left the country in. Before Deng's reforms, the country was essentially North Korea. China's prosperity is much more of a "most-improved award"…

> There's no reason to believe that Xi Jinping thought can produce an economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy. Isn't it already? Speaking broadly of economic trends for the past 30 years, China has dominated manufacturing, at levels of increasing sophistication. To the extent it's running into issues, it's been a victim of its own success: laborers in China are increasingly too expens…

You're confusing having a very large population at middle income for being a developed country. China is four times larger than the largest developed nation. Even at Bulgaria-level income development, that guarantees that they'll "dominate" most aggregate measurements. Doesn't really say anything about the success of their economy.

Even within their area of strength, manufacturing, China severely lags the liberal democracies. On a per capita basis, its manufacturing output is more than three times lower than Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Sweden or the Netherlands. It even produces less than half per capita as the US or UK, who don't even specialize in manufacturing. China is barely above Brazil or Turkey on a per capita metric.

And outside manufacturing, China's level of development is abysmal. It produces virtually nothing competitive in the service sector. China exports essentially zero financial services, media, software, professional services, or travel services. China has internally developed barely any internationally successful pharmaceuticals, Internet properties, film or television franchises, marketable brand names, banking franchises, auto models, jet aircraft, or microprocessors.

The success of China's tech companies is almost certainly because the Chinese government doesn't allow much stronger American competitors to enter the market. The reason Europe doesn't have a Baidu is because Google was allowed to compete in Europe. The entire Chinese tech industry's sole global success has been TikTok. The inability to compete on the global market proves that the Chinese tech industry does not measure up to their American counterparts. This is corroborated by the fact that not a single major software project has ever come out of China.