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China wants to build an open source ecosystem to rival GitHub

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

#201
> “Gitee’s future depends on attracting quality open source projects onto its platform, from both in and outside of China, which in turn attracts developers from both China and elsewhere to collaborate and contribute,” Kevin Xu.

Many people (and I think including Xu) are not super optimistic about this.

What is stifling the Chinese software microcosmos from springing up great open-source projects like linux, reactjs, keras, ror, etc, is the 996 culture[1], bad wages, and backward management that are encouraged and enforced in (most) Chinese software companies. (Perchance a feature and not a bug under the current settings of the country's econcomical and political system?)

It'll be interesting to see many years down the road how much initutives like this will help to introduce a gradual paradim shift in the Chinese tech scene into a more liberaltarian one.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://www.zhihu.com/question/347979262/answer/1304823875

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

#202

> “Gitee’s future depends on attracting quality open source projects onto its platform, from both in and outside of China, which in turn attracts developers from both China and elsewhere to collaborate and contribute,” Kevin Xu. Many people (and I think including Xu) are not super optimistic about this. What is stifling the Chinese software microcosmos from springing up great open-source projects like linux, reactjs,…

The 996 culture might stop people working on opensource in their spare time... But it won't stop companies releasing opensource projects.

So far there isn't much opensource written in China. I suspect because by keeping everything "closed source but easily stolen", it advantages innovation within China but prevents US companies using the same tech.

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

#203

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…

“Seems to be entering the software industry” ... seems a bit arrogant no?

China has a capability to block arbitrary GitHub urls ... I don’t think this is that.

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

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's newfound prosperity is HEAVILY concentrated in ~100 huge cities. Smaller cities are poorer but livable like eastern europe. The countryside is basically a third world country. Traveling through US or Europe you won't find people living in cinderblock shacks with a dirt floor and no plumbing. In China it's still the norm outside of cities. There's not anybody starving to death, but I wouldn't consider China a…

I have distant relatives in a EU country who live in a mud shack with dirt floors. I think you underestimate how poor the poor parts of Europe are.

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

#205

> “Gitee’s future depends on attracting quality open source projects onto its platform, from both in and outside of China, which in turn attracts developers from both China and elsewhere to collaborate and contribute,” Kevin Xu. Many people (and I think including Xu) are not super optimistic about this. What is stifling the Chinese software microcosmos from springing up great open-source projects like linux, reactjs,…

The 996 culture might stop people working on opensource in their spare time... But it won't stop companies releasing opensource projects. So far there isn't much opensource written in China. I suspect because by keeping everything "closed source but easily stolen", it advantages innovation within China but prevents US companies using the same tech.

> So far there isn't much opensource written in China

There are lots of opensource written in China.

I think you have mistaken my stance on this. The Chinese open-source microcosmos are pretty cool. It's just that I have yet seen anything reactjs-great[1], let alone linux-great.

Here are some github repos by the big players:

Ant - https://github.com/ant-design

TaroJS - https://github.com/NervJS

Tencent - https://github.com/Tencent

Baidu - https://github.com/PaddlePaddle

...

There are also many pretty nice libraries written and maintained independently by devs (or small startups) in China.

dayjs - https://github.com/iamkun/dayjs

GPT2 in Chinese - https://github.com/Morizeyao/GPT2-Chinese

Wechaty - https://github.com/wechaty

vercel ssg - https://github.com/shuding/nextra

...

[1]: For example, vuejs (https://github.com/vuejs/vue) is closed to being reactjs-great. It is by Evan You who is now New Jersey-based (though looks like he's quite involved in the Chinese tech scene which is pretty intriguing)

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 expensive for China to be a cost effective exporter at the low end. That’s just it. It’s grown because it had massive amounts of cheap labour but now it doesn’t. Can…

There were massive amounts of cheap (and cheaper) labor elsewhere. What happened to those places?

They liberalised as they got richer

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

#207

It’s interesting how people focusing on Github representing the spirit of free information and an open internet, while the very same Github blocking Iran developers’ work, breaking every good ‘virtue’ it calls itself stands for, not even mention it’s just another American company, bounded by American laws, which means your data is forever at stake, if yourself, your country, being targeted by the USA, or the company…

GitHub is now available in Iran again: https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer-freedom-g...

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 996 culture might stop people working on opensource in their spare time... But it won't stop companies releasing opensource projects. So far there isn't much opensource written in China. I suspect because by keeping everything "closed source but easily stolen", it advantages innovation within China but prevents US companies using the same tech.

> So far there isn't much opensource written in China There are lots of opensource written in China. I think you have mistaken my stance on this. The Chinese open-source microcosmos are pretty cool. It's just that I have yet seen anything reactjs-great[1], let alone linux-great. Here are some github repos by the big players: Ant - https://github.com/ant-design TaroJS - https://github.com/NervJS Tencent - https://gith…

But it's still small when you look at the population of China, or the size of Chinas tech industry.

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't much to ask for. If you're making arguments based on really really shaky data you should not be making them at all. Comparing OECD regions to Chinese administrative metro areas is really quite absurd. The variance in Montréal for example depending on what you call a city can be almost 2x. For example, if you take the Tokyo Metro Area, you find a GDP per capita of 48k, with a PPP ratio of 0.98 we get 4…

> It really isn't much to ask for. If you're making arguments based on really really shaky data you should not be making them at all. Can you demonstrate your principles with your other comment [0], by using “a single source that contains the numbers” of many of the countries and claims you mentioned in that comment? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25840962

I asked for either a single source or many sources with an identical methodology.
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