51–60 of 70 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I believe the blocking is directly related to an automated train ticket polling plugin that had brought down Github just days ago. Due to upcoming Chinese New Year, newly released train tickets are sold within minutes. That plugin introduces huge traffic to already crumbling ticket vending site, and it has obviously made railroad bureau angry. Blocking Github makes that plugin immediately malfunction because it makes…
Do you have a link to a news article or something that explains all this?
http://www.techinasia.com/negotiation-miit-orders-chinese-br...
Indeed there seems to be one plugin which hotlinks a js file from Github: http://www.ce.cn/cysc/tech/07hlw/guonei/201301/21/t20130121_...
But of course, blocking Github didn't affect any of the other plugins. So Phoenix TV is reporting that most other plugins are still actually working:
http://tech.ifeng.com/internet/detail_2013_01/21/21406667_0....
I don't want to go out of my way to make it so they can allow access to it despite a horrible censorship system, but I'd prefer not to put all my eggs into one giant basket either.
This is a downside to using a code hosting site. Joel Spolsky once said that "politics are orthogonal to software". I might not care if Chinese censors block my blog, but I want my code to be available to as many as possible. The smaller the site that holds the code, the easier it is for them to selectively allow it. I don't want to go out of my way to make it so they can allow access to it despite a horrible censors…
I'm not sure how any developer survives in China without a VPN, so this is probably one of the least vulnerable groups. On the other hand, any deployment strategies that depend on github are going to be hosed. I no longer live in China. Internet issues are a bit reason for that.
I believe the blocking is directly related to an automated train ticket polling plugin that had brought down Github just days ago. Due to upcoming Chinese New Year, newly released train tickets are sold within minutes. That plugin introduces huge traffic to already crumbling ticket vending site, and it has obviously made railroad bureau angry. Blocking Github makes that plugin immediately malfunction because it makes…
Doesn't GitHub ban people who hotlink to assets? I remember reading this somewhere.
It's kind of ironic, as open source is a pretty socialist idea in the first place (not that China is socialist, but it's supposed to be).
Is it really? The author of code owns that code. It's not like the workers using the factory (the programmers using the languages) owns it, they are just licensed to use it way more freely than it the owner did not give any freedoms. In a communist society then the governemt would take ownership of all code (of factories). That's not Stallmans idea. Saying that 'socialism == sharing' is too simple.
Example: programmers who work at Microsoft don't own the source code and can't use it for their own benefit, while Microsoft makes money from it and only pays wages, which are below the value of source code to the company. This is the old model of Capitalism.
Open Source is very much a Communist idea. People who work on open source, even if they are payed for it, still have access to their work and can use it independently of the company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really? The author of code owns that code. It's not like the workers using the factory (the programmers using the languages) owns it, they are just licensed to use it way more freely than it the owner did not give any freedoms. In a communist society then the governemt would take ownership of all code (of factories). That's not Stallmans idea. Saying that 'socialism == sharing' is too simple.
One of the core ideas of Communism - workers own the means of production. Source code is means of production for software. Capitalism is when the source code is owned by the "factory owner", i.e. corporation, and not by the people who actually produce it. Example: programmers who work at Microsoft don't own the source code and can't use it for their own benefit, while Microsoft makes money from it and only pays wages…
On the other hand, given the terrible outcomes communism produced in the 20th century, it has a well-deserved bad reputation. I'd therefore hesitate to link it to open source without noting why open source is different: Code, once written, can be copied infinitely for free (or at a very low cost), so the model can work.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post.