Friday, August 21st 2020
China is Working on Its Own GitHub Equivalent: Gitee
GitHub serves as a repository for collaborative work in software development, with numerous open-source projects available and worked on by numerous coders, would-be coders, and others. It has been a paragon for a more open internet, with more open standards, and allowing for actual community-based troubleshoot and development. And it does so for anyone around the world.
However, China's efforts to decouple from its dependencies on the Western world for anything technologically-related has been a reason for the country to invest not only on infrastructure and silicon manufacturing, but also in programming and all of the related branches of the technology tree. Recent events initiated by Microsoft (which now owns GitHub) via severing connections to its GitHub repositories for various US-sanctioned countries such as Iran, Syria and Crimea clearly showed what dependencies on foreign-guaranteed resources can do to technological development. China wants to have an answer to that.
it's now been made public that the country is hoping for its seven-year-old Gitee to become a GitHub equivalent for the Eastern world. This lines up nicely with China's apparent enforcement of a GitHub ban way back in 2013. The goal of Gitee thus stands to construct an "independent, open-source code hosting platform for China." Gitee claims to have hosted over 10 million open-source repositories and provided services to over 5 million developers so far in its seven-year run. For comparison, GitHub reported having 100 million repositories and around 31 million developers worldwide last November.
"If China does not have its own open-source community to maintain and manage source codes, our domestic software industry will be very vulnerable to uncontrollable factors," said Huawei executive Wang Chenglu at an event last August, shortly after GitHub acted to comply with U.S. sanctions laws. And doesn't Huawei know all about being exposed to uncontrollable factors.
Source:
TechCrunch
However, China's efforts to decouple from its dependencies on the Western world for anything technologically-related has been a reason for the country to invest not only on infrastructure and silicon manufacturing, but also in programming and all of the related branches of the technology tree. Recent events initiated by Microsoft (which now owns GitHub) via severing connections to its GitHub repositories for various US-sanctioned countries such as Iran, Syria and Crimea clearly showed what dependencies on foreign-guaranteed resources can do to technological development. China wants to have an answer to that.
"If China does not have its own open-source community to maintain and manage source codes, our domestic software industry will be very vulnerable to uncontrollable factors," said Huawei executive Wang Chenglu at an event last August, shortly after GitHub acted to comply with U.S. sanctions laws. And doesn't Huawei know all about being exposed to uncontrollable factors.
30 Comments on China is Working on Its Own GitHub Equivalent: Gitee
Freedom of people...
*snicker*
Usually the reason you want it public, is because you're aiming to create consensus among your people that there is a (common) enemy. Rather than asking 'if', I would personally ask 'when'. I don't share your optimism, I think it is wishful thinking and historically it has no basis whatsoever... unfortunately.
Microsoft denies access to multiple countries not on friendly terms with America.
Github no longer open-source.
China building its own version. What is the problem with that?
Espionage is one thing but when it's out in the open like this, the dynamic totally changes.
I compare this to the Cold War between the US and USSR. Even though it was hostile, it produced some of the most important innovations in modern history. People on the Moon and (even though not as known but probably even more important) the digital computer, among many other things, wouldn't have been developed at that pace or maybe even not at all in the case of the computer, had not especially the US government invested an incredible amount of resources into developing those things at the time for war purposes. The internet was something the military needed. Also, fast computers to break codes and for the Apollo Program among many other things, lead directly to the invention of modern transistors and integrated circuits. It was all about beating the other side and being better at everything. Exactly how it will be right now with the US and China. You know already that this can go way beyond just espionage and cyber attacks. It's a totally different thing now.
The optimism I have comes from the exact reason I described. And especially today a hot war is even less likely. Just a purely economic and innovation war between the two biggest global powers like that isn't the worst that can happen. Historically it actually clearly has more than enough basis, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with this.
It's not anything like the cold war. All China does is steal tech. They innovate nothing.
Espionage and stealing innovation only makes it even more like the Cold War, in my opinion. We don't even really know what secrets the US stole from the USSR and what USSR stole from the US because it was just a common thing and it definitely won't change this time around. I feel like China is only stealing more secrets because they are still way behind the US in tech. As this gap closes, or China even becomes superior, the US and other countries will start stealing from China. Stealing ideas and repurposing them for yourself is just part of human nature. As soon as something good gets invented, a million companies all over the world try to copy and sell it. It's not just China. China just does it on such a massive scale because of course their whole government does it and therefore every single company in China has to comply... Also very similar to the communist USSR. For me at least it's clear that history is repeating itself, as it often does.
Btw. China is already piloting self-driving busses that drive like trains only on certain lanes for mass transportation. I think they are doing many things on their own that people in the US don't even realize. So yes, stealing but also innovating is their game. The truth is, it doesn't really matter to them how they get ahead as long as they get ahead, even if it's sometimes unethical. I would never underestimate that kind of thinking. In fact, it could even work for them much faster, if people continue to underestimate them.
The best course for the world would be to isolate them completely. Not buy anything from China etc. But as long as people don't see China as a real threat to themselves, China has everything it needs. If you are a company and you are working closely with China, and you don't think China will stab you in the back and start selling their own improved version of your product for much cheaper soon, then you are delusional. But also if you are a consumer and continue to buy Chinese goods and services, you are basically paying for your country's companies own demise. This has been true for a long time but especially true now. The markets may not close completely because of many interests, but it's full-on cold war mode now between US and China. The Chinese probably already know this for a long time, their government at least. But people in other parts of the world are just realizing it.