Chinese developers fear the tech war will cost them access to GitHub

https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/chinese-developers-fear-losing-open-source-tech-trade-war/article/3011463?__twitter_impression=true

by indidea • 7 years ago

256 190 7 years ago

abacusnews.com

pjmlp• 7 years ago

Just like it happened on the past with PGP, this is just yet another step for countries to start thinking about whom they want their tech stacks to depend on.

EDIT: Just imagine this taken to the extreme, OS, programming languages, libraries, any product being developed by US companies.

Today is China, tomorrow who knows.

Boulth• 7 years ago

Out of curiosity what happened with PGP?

sah2ed• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...

zemanel• 7 years ago

that website has one really annoying ad system. For me, scrolling down the page scrolls down the ads, not the page ... the state of content in 2019 ...

beeskneecaps• 7 years ago

The fonts didn’t even render for me in iOS safari. Also they prevent the back button from working.

sschueller3• 7 years ago

This is absurd and if github decides this is the case I will delete all my repositories and put them somewhere else.

jfoster• 7 years ago

Difficult to imagine that GitHub would make that decision without being forced into it.

mtgx• 7 years ago

Depends how eager Microsoft is to "gain access to the Chinese market".

matz1• 7 years ago

Can't github fight back ? Like apple fighting the FBI?

est312• 7 years ago

What about Google blocking Android access from Huawei? Have they been forced to make that decision as well? I don't see them complaining, possibly to still have the government available as a possible customer and because they got harmed by the Chinese government's trade policies themselves.

Similarly, Microsoft has the US government as a customer too. They might instruct GitHub leadership to not complain and simply follow the requests by the US government.

aiCeivi9• 7 years ago

Why? It is not up to them to decide. It might be as simple as:

Google does not allow access to GAE from Iran in order to comply with sanctions

Are you going to stop using all USA based companies if USa adds China to sancions list?

smudgymcscmudge• 7 years ago

This seems like a promotion for gitee.

oconnor663• 7 years ago

Another recent article about GitHub in China: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-become-a...

sschueller3• 7 years ago

What is the name of the distributed github? I think it may be based on activitypub.

EDIT: https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed

tannhaeuser• 7 years ago

git?

vector_spaces• 7 years ago

Here's another based on the Secure Scuttlebutt protocol

https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/applications.html#git-ssb

hobofan• 7 years ago

git-ssb is pretty nice, and I'd recommend anyone interested to check it out! The last time I checked it out it suffered from some incompatibility bugs from different parts of the stack, though, which are sadly not unusual with a project with such a large surface area and high code churn.

ignaloidas5• 7 years ago

Git is DVCS, D means Distributed. Anyone can run their git and manage incoming contributions by email, which is distributed, and what git is built to use. See https://drewdevault.com/2018/07/23/Git-is-already-distribute...

sschueller3• 7 years ago

Yes obviously, but there is added functionality from a service like github/gitlab. Pull requests, issues etc.

We wouldn't be using and paying for a service like Github if git had all the features we want/need.

viach• 7 years ago

Especially that GitHub can be used as a collaborative wiki. So dangerous if you think about it.

Foober223• 7 years ago

Git and Github are are like philosophically opposed. Git is distributed. Who cares if a hosting server is lost? 5 minutes and you're up on a different server.

Arnt• 7 years ago

Distributed doesn't mean that noone makes choices.

If you want to file a PR you need access to whatever the maintainer chose. If the maintainer wants PRs via github and won't accept them via email, your alternatives are to access github, not submit the PR, or have a proxy access github for you. Possibly a human proxy.

dmos62• 7 years ago

For practically every distributed or decentralized tech we have, there is a tech that complements it and at the same time negates it. The banal example is cryptocurrencies and centralized exchanges. Part of the reason is that there's just so much money to be made from centralization and monopolization, but it's surely not the whole story.

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

There are many other parts to this story of centralization, not all of them bad. Centralized solutions are always more efficient than decentralized ones, for both graph-theory reasons and economies of scale. They also tend to be more convenient to use for typical use cases. Centralization of trust also has utility. Then there are the nefarious reasons to centralize - control and influence.

nsomaru• 7 years ago

Lots of people seem to derive value from Github, especially the social aspects and the exposure it gives to your project.

That said, I'd love a decentralised alternative based on IPFS or somesuch. There's probably something out there already, perhaps this may be impetus enough to cause devs to move? Seems unlikely.

omginternets4• 7 years ago

Tell me, how do you search and collaborate on code that's fully distributed (in the git sense)?

cheschire• 7 years ago

Git is not a search / discovery platform. Publish the same git repository to several platforms and you can collaborate in a distributed and decentralized way through each of those platforms.

Nothing stops you from publishing the same project to both github and gitlab.

suff• 7 years ago

Answer that question and you might have a startup company...

layoutIfNeeded• 7 years ago

Mailing lists?

konart2• 7 years ago

My vote is for IRC

DCoder• 7 years ago

Someone who needs to cooperate with you on your project cares.

Someone who needs to clone your repository (e.g. you're a dependency for their project) cares.

Someone tired of using an inactive repo and trying to get an overview of healthy forks cares.

Someone whose project uses GitHub for more than just a raw git repo (e.g. issues, wiki, releases with precompiled/crossplatform binaries) cares.

Someone searching for answers who encounters a link to some GitHub gist cares.

mcv4• 7 years ago

The first two can be done without github. You can also run your own publicly accessible git repository. It might not have the friendly web interface but it will do all the git stuff.

folkrav• 7 years ago

Your description of what GitHub is is simplistic and reductionary. These sites are not simply about git repositories, but providing features _around_ git, e.g. CI/CD, issue tracking, wikis, project management, user permissions, contribution insights, etc. Those don't really migrate "in 5 minutes".

jasode• 7 years ago

Git is distributed.

Git - the protocol - helps enable a distributed edit & merge ... but Git itself is not a Schelling Point. Github is a Schelling Point. (I made a previous comment about this conceptual difference.[0])

Likewise, the HTTP protocol can't be a Schelling Point but web nodes that use http like Facebook or HN can be Schelling Points.

(One can get pedantic and argue that pure protocols like git/http/tcpip can also be viewed as Schelling Points on a relative basis (compared to 1960s AT&T leased-lines) but we don't have to dissect that because the social congregation around sites like Github happens at a higher layer than the protocol.)

Who cares if a hosting server is lost? 5 minutes and you're up on a different server.

Google announced shutdown of Google Code on March 2015: https://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/google-code-disables-new-...

Microsoft announced shutdown of CodePlex on March 2017: https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/31/github-wins-microsoft-is-...

Not only did both Google and Microsoft abandoned their own public code collaboration websites, they also both tried to acquire Github.[1] As we now know, MS had the better offer to Github's owners in 2018.

Both corporate giants had the money to run their own git-protocol compatible servers and yet they abandoned them for Github. Think about why did that.

Maybe the reasons are social, not technical? Therefore, spending 5 minutes to move a git repo to an unknown server doesn't actually accomplish the same thing Github accomplishes.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14894128

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=google+tried+to+buy+github

rienbdj• 7 years ago

They are complementary.

GitHub provides an easy implementation of many things that are more difficult in a decentralised model.

paranoidrobot5• 7 years ago

Because, from FTFA - they're worried about Github, not git.

Huge amounts of OSS projects are hosted on Github - that's where their code is, their issues are. If you want to report issues or collaborate, you need to use Github.

The issue would also spread to other related tech, which integrates with Github.

Sure, there's ways around it, and more than likely Chinese devs would set up their own instances to work around the blocks - it would limit/reduce overall collaboration. A net-loss for everyone.

lagadu• 7 years ago

This is great. The US has effectively (if unwittingly) given the biggest step in history towards actually decentralizing some of the most critical web services away from being under the control of a single government. I legit hope they keep doubling down on this policy, as we all win from this course of action.

toxicFork• 7 years ago

Have they taken the step towards decentralizing, or are they creating more reasons for people to make that step instead? I guess in some contexts that counts as the step anyway...

heraclius2• 7 years ago

I hope that the outcome you describe occurs. However, it seems equally likely that a centralised alternative will appear in China, just as there are local Chinese variants of the services Google, FB, et al. provide. Indeed, this would be in the interests of the government, who would then be able to have GitHub without the political ructions that accompany it.

gmueckl• 7 years ago

A code hosting service that can be persuaded to not host projects that can inconvenience the government (or party)? I guess this sounds attractive to a certain kind of people.

decster3• 7 years ago

As a Chinese developer, my thoughts are:

Using technology/standard/service provided by US based private companies introduce risks. We are not just 'use/steal' these technologies/standard, we also heavily invest, enrich ecosystem, build services on top of them, that means if US government kill it at any time, those investments may lost too.

Based on my experience, Chinese government is so incompetent that it can't create an alternative, or initiate one, at least in the Internet industry, also China have to do business with other countries(other than US), so clearly create a private tech/standard stack is not an option. That means big companies like Huawei/Tencent/Alibaba/Baidu will start/continue to support&invest more in true open technologies, like linux/risk-v, perhaps favor true oss communities rather than google/fb owned oss projects(like android/arm/tensorflow).

Companies in countries other than China and US should also think about this risk, today US is banning Huawei, you may think it's all because China is evil, similar things happened for Japan 2 decades ago, and may still possible for India(if its population and GDP growth rate continues).

mcv4• 7 years ago

That, or it will bring everything under the control of the Chinese government.

horyzen3• 7 years ago

I wish the same. But the sad reality is probably more "segmented internet" instead of a "decentralized internet".

indigochill• 7 years ago

Thing is, even if countries go full-on isolationist and block all foreign websites, it only takes one hole in the dam for traffic to flow through. It's not like they're going to change the protocols so the separate networks are no longer compatible.

NotPaidToPost• 7 years ago

Perhaps people will start realising that using Github is both handing your code to a third party and hosting it in the USA, with all the consequences these choices entail.

archgoon• 7 years ago

As the article points out, Github remains unblocked due to it's economic importance to developers, despite it hosting material such as the 996 protest.

If Github were to be rebuilt in China, I do not believe that it would be redesigned with decentralization as a guiding principle. The Government would view this as a great opportunity to 'fix' issues with the current setup. The replacement would be receive funding from the Government and it would be designed with national interests (as defined by the Government) forefront in mind.

The good news is that according to @decster in a cousin comment, it may be the case that the Government is sufficiently incompetent that this may not be a risk. On the other hand, incompetence in Government hasn't stopped bad ideas from being forced on people in the past, so...

Gonzih• 7 years ago

Lots of languages do use github as centralized dependency service. This is scary.

omginternets4• 7 years ago

Jesus this scroll-hijacking is an abomination.

christi_meyer• 7 years ago

This might be how we enter full scale cyberwarfare.

chillacy• 7 years ago

Given how much infrastructure runs on old versions of XP (everywhere), that’s a scary thought

mensetmanusman• 7 years ago

A million fold improvement over real war.

inlined• 7 years ago

This may be controversial, but that would be one of the few parts of the trade war that I wouldn’t mind.

Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in the mainland. Many assume that this structure is intended to leak secrets and the Chinese company will end up taking over and competing.

To be a “fair” actor in the global economy, China should allow foreign businesses to operate in the mainland, subject to Chinese law.

Mary-Ellen4• 7 years ago

"China should allow foreign businesses to operate in the mainland, subject to Chinese law"

Foreign companies are allowed to operate in China , subject to Chinese law

wiggler00m• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Foreign-Owned_Enterpris...

atr_gz• 7 years ago

Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in the mainland.

I see this repeated a lot on Hacker News, but it's no* longer true. Search WFOE (wholly foreign-owned enterprises).

*Fixed a typo - thanks to below comment.

Mary-Ellen4• 7 years ago

I think you mean, by the context of the comment, that is no longer true, maybe is not an ortographical skip and I am mistaken on this one

Just to clarify, is not a misundertanding, usually in english if someone says " is longer true" it means it is true for a long time, but in the context of the comment, I guess what you want to say is that what many people repeat is no true for a long time, usually what you would write in this case is

" Its no longer true"

Or " Its long not true"

But no misunderstanding, just a grammatical litle note, the meaning of your comment is simple to see by the context, so just a little note

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

It was never true. Some industries required JVs, some still do, some never did.

threwawasy12282• 7 years ago

There are many countries in the world where this is the case though. Many countries also have similar constraints that a company operating in certain regions has to have so many native citizens on its board of directors. People often call out China specifically for this because it is successful but there are tons of countries that do this practice.

phkahler• 7 years ago

That's fine so long as nobody claims it's an even playing field.

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in the mainland.

That isn’t true universally. Certain industries require (required?) JVs, most notably the car industry but also energy resources.

Most industries are free and clear and don’t require JVs. Microsoft, for example, has always operated independently in China, nor does Apple. Starbucks started out as a JV but has been getting its own store, especially in 2nd tiers.

JonathanMerklin• 7 years ago

JV == Joint Venture

(I had to look this up so I figured I'd comment to note it for anyone else who might, since the term isn't used in full anywhere in the article or parent comment chain - barring future edits.)

comex• 7 years ago

However, Microsoft and Apple’s cloud services (Azure and iCloud respectively) are operated as joint ventures.

DiogenesKynikos• 7 years ago

As of last year, automobile manufacturers don't require joint ventures any more. As time goes on, the number of industries that require joint ventures is decreasing. The joint-venture requirement for automobile parts was removed in 1993, for example.

The thinking of the Chinese government was that as an undeveloped country, Chinese companies had no hope of directly competing against companies from the developed world. Chinese car manufacturers in 1990 would have simply been wiped out by Toyota, Ford, BMV et al. The Chinese government wanted foreign investment, so they created a middle ground, where foreign companies could exploit cheap Chinese labor and gain access to the growing Chinese market, but in which they would have to work with Chinese companies. This sort of policy makes sense for a developing country, which aspires to be more than a platform for cheap labor, but also to develop its own domestic capabilities. It actually follows in the tradition of a theory advanced by Alexander Hamilton, the "infant industry argument."

As know-how at Chinese companies has increased, however, these restrictions have started to make less sense. There are Chinese electric car companies (such as BYD) that can legitimately compete with foreign manufacturers now. As a consequence, JV requirements are also being scaled back.

CathayRe4• 7 years ago

It depends on its strategic interest. ARM, AMD all have JV.

Most industries are free and clear and don’t require JVs.

That is true only on paper. In reality they would still want a JV or some form of partnership. From Food Production, Restaurant Chains, to other part of the industries. If China wasn't desperate for Pork, ( Due to all sort of Pork disease ) they would not have allowed Danish Crown to operate independently after both have negotiate for years. You can try to register, but without some form of JV and somehow doing the "relationship" work for you. Nothing will get done.

fasthandle3• 7 years ago

Your comment is not controversial, it is incorrect.

tanilama2• 7 years ago

Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in the mainland

Not really. But it is advised to better have one, because that makes operating in China easier.

sehugg• 7 years ago

Is this just about Github Enterprise Server? If so, the article doesn't really make that clear, and it seems like a red herring. AFAIK Microsoft does not currently restrict access to Github.com to any country, and they even make a censorship-friendly version of LinkedIn for the PRC.

danarmak• 7 years ago

It could also be about Github private repos, which cost money, and therefore are a business relationship. If Huawei has a private repo on Github, is Microsoft now required to delete their account?

paranoidrobot5• 7 years ago

Perhaps, but also a huge number of public OSS projects.

To take an example of a large OSS Project hosted on Github: The Microsoft .NET Core framework[1].

If I want to contribute a code change - their guidelines require me to submit a pull request on github.

If I want to submit an issue - their guidelines also require me to log the issue on github.

This is not unusual for most OSS projects which use Github as their central collaboration point.

Today that's all A-OK for Chinese devs. The scenario discussed is if the trade-war extends, and either the US or Chinese governments block access to Github for Chinese users.

Now, perhaps it's easy enough for someone to set up a mirror copy of everything in China - but that's going to limit or block collaboration. Bug fixes, changes, issues - they're not going to get across as easily. I can't email a pull request to the .NET CoreFX team saying "Hey, I fixed this".

This is going to lead to fragmentation of popular OSS projects, and will be an overall net-loss for everyone.

[1] https://github.com/dotnet/corefx

yomly5• 7 years ago

Is anyone here a dev working in China? Would love to know a bit about what dev culture is like in China, for instance:

What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum? Is "post-agile" (sorry) scepticism a thing? What about TDD and CI/CD?

How about technologies, do people develop on Linux, are they using git, are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

How about things like FP and niche languages - is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages or are Python/Java the defacto choices for application work and everything else shunned?

Is there a Chinese-equivalent to GitHub - is engineering in China big enough that they can have their own independent OSS culture? (Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?)

EDIT: to add one last question - are developers seen as feature-factories or is the relationship between product and developers/tech more flat/harmonious than that?

horyzen3• 7 years ago

To answer your last question, there not a significant Chinese-equivalent to GitHub yet, partly because GitHub is still largely accessible in China. A lot of Chinese tech giants have been active on GitHub and have plenty of repos:

https://github.com/Tencent https://github.com/alibaba https://github.com/bilibili https://github.com/baidu

yomly5• 7 years ago

Had a quick skim - bit ashamed I didn't think to have a glimpse beforehand! Thanks for sharing these are great.

Just to add to it, I remember now that JD.com(?) made a library that targets the React API but is IE8 compatible:

https://github.com/NervJS/nerv

olodus• 7 years ago

I think there was a conference for Rust in China a month ago or something and it seemed to have ok turnout, but I have no real data on it. Just as a small answer to your "FP and small languages" question.

decster3• 7 years ago

Rust core dev Brian Anderson joined Pingcap, a Chinese company created TiDB https://github.com/pingcap/tidb

louismerlin• 7 years ago

From what I remember when I was debugging a vuejs project, the chinese community is big around this framework.

The vuejs development also is sponsored by chinese companies.

unmole4• 7 years ago

I work for Huawei (Audience gasps)... but outside China. I can answer some of your questions based on what I've seen.

What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum?

Yes. At least what passes for Agile in enterprises.

do people develop on Linux

Yes. Huawei even maintains its own distro called Euler OS.

are they using git

Yes. SourceSafe, ClearCase and SVN were used by different teams in the past but have now mostly converged on git.

are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

Yes. Although given the nature of the business, teams that can use a shiny new application framework are a bit of a niche.

How about things like FP and niche languages

Would you consider TTCN-3 to be a sufficiently niche language?

is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages

Containerization and micro-services took hold quite quickly.

are Python/Java the defacto choices

C is probably the most widely used language but then again it's down to the nature of the business. Java and Python are used a fair bit and Go usage is growing fast.

Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?

Definitely. Huawei is regularly one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle. Hadoop, Postgres, OpenStack, ONOS etc. see a bit of participation. There are also projects like Apache CarbonData and OpenSDS that are primarily driven by Huawei employees.

mxstbr• 7 years ago

I would love to know how the recent trade sanctions were received internally.

How has the recent drama affected morale inside the company? What is the general internal view of the future?

DataWorker• 7 years ago

“Huawei is regularly one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle.”

I find that alarming.

StudentStuff• 7 years ago

Why is Huawei dragging their feet on doing basic library updates on their LTE basestation firmware?

HCSEC asked your company to update to modern OpenSSL a year ago and implement reproducible builds. Neither issue has been handled, and these LTE basestations are extremely vulnerable due to the inaction of your employer.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/28/hcsec_huawei_oversi...

Combined with the poor engineering of your employer's Windows drivers, it is reasonable to cease use of Huawei developed software. Security is obviously not a priority, leaving users of Huawei software vulnerable to any person who can be bothered to look up a few CVEs and run Metasploit against your companies products.

Poorly written Windows Driver (priv escalation): https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-backdoor-huawei-...

fasthandle3• 7 years ago

Yes.

'Fake Agile' is a term. But I think this is global.

It is hard to find Linux/Unix people. Those that develop the skillset are hot property for the BATs. Universities universally use Windows as a platform (students bring their own laptop) with exception for '985' classed colleges who are the elite institutions. But experience and certification is always needed for a new job. There is little positive-feedback for self learning.

Java is predominant, C# number 2. There is not a lot of appetite for experimenting as company culture is largely, though not always, hours-based. Python is very thin. Front-end is quite easy.

Have a try yourself: Go to 51job.com and do a search for skills. You can see a ton of Java (5:1 vs C# and 20:1 for Go) and not a lot of anything else.

There is no equivalent to Github. Github was 'blocked' two years ago for a few days and then unblocked because development teams ceased to function, BAT, government, international.

There is a sharing culture but little understanding of licensing.

Your edit: It really depends on the company culture.

wingerlang• 7 years ago

> is engineering in China big enough

The feeling I've gotten is that there are internal communities in China, Russia and possibly Japan. Then there is the rest that clumps together in English. I'd love to get some confirmation of this though, as it is just my hunch.

yomly5• 7 years ago

Yeah so this is my hunch too (which I want to prove/disprove)

When you think about it, there is almost a unidirectional knowledge transfer: plenty of Chinese people will study and work abroad and then go back to China. By comparison, how many people do you know of who do the reverse - in terms of ratios, how do these numbers compare? Open source code and academic research is all out there in English for people to read and absorb, but China also has the scale and funding to then internally propel these ideas and then publish in Chinese (if at all).

Though it sounds like there is some degree of open source and that Github is mostly the defacto in China too.

fasthandle3• 7 years ago

I don't know about Russia or Japan. For China, there are clusters around key universities and their satellites, and spin-offs from those satellites either directly/partially owned or from alumni.

But it's haphazard. Most universities are incapable or unwilling of even running an email service and all emails go through QQ. That's not 'QQ for Domains' but just personal QQ numbers.

decster3• 7 years ago

Chinese dev here, currently at xiaomi, worked for VMware and Baidu > What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum?

Not full/standard practice I think, normally just standup meeting I guess.., when I was in VMware China, some projects used scrum.

Is "post-agile" (sorry) scepticism a thing?

What about TDD and CI/CD?

I'd say TDD and CI are common.

How about technologies, do people develop on Linux, are they using git,

Yes, all the time.

are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

Yes

How about things like FP and niche languages - is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages or are Python/Java the defacto choices for application work and everything else shunned?

Yes, go/rust is gaining popularity.

Is there a Chinese-equivalent to GitHub - is engineering in China big enough that they can have their own independent OSS culture? (Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?)

No, there are some github like services, e.g. gitee.com, but the scale and user base is not at same scale.

are developers seen as feature-factories or is the relationship between product and developers/tech more flat/harmonious than that?

There are lots of jokes about product&developer here in China, so you can imagine.

tanilama2• 7 years ago

Chinese devs I know are pretty versed with the rest of the world's developer community. Probably because they have to, it is way to get knowledge and acknowledgement.

One thing that is distinctly and decisively different though, is the cloud provider. AWS/Azure are operating under constraint there. While Alibaba Cloud is close copy of AWS, it is not quite the same thing, and indeed is developing into its own ecosystem focus on wholesale solution other than being the build block of internet.

With ongoing trade war and Huawei's sanctions, expecting Chinese government put raising domestic technology industry that mirrors to US technology at its highest priority.

cepp2• 7 years ago

I'll bite. Please note that I've worked for Alibaba and a startup (Video++) but both in research capacities so our practices will differ from the norm.

What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum? Is "post-agile" (sorry) scepticism a thing? What about TDD and CI/CD?

A watered down fork of Agile is really common. At both companies, I've experienced poor management. No one ever asked if I had blockers, needed more resources, etc. It was just expected there would be delays and we build them into the development schedule. This can lead to weeks of getting nowhere because no one is there to help you.

How about technologies, do people develop on Linux, are they using git, are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

In my experience, regardless of verbal ability developers can read and write English purely because they need to do so to succeed in their jobs. There are some sites similar to github/stackoverflow in China, but in general, you need to be able to read and write English to solve your problems. In short, in my experience, people use git, and all the frameworks/libraries you're thinking of.

How about things like FP and niche languages - is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages or are Python/Java the defacto choices for application work and everything else shunned?

Again, in a research setting, it was just like working in a US company. Lots of vetting and decision making before choosing a route, but never discouragement for some fringe tool or idea that might artificially limit our capabilities.

Is there a Chinese-equivalent to GitHub - is engineering in China big enough that they can have their own independent OSS culture? (Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?)

There is not a Chinese fork of GitHub. Companies do give back to OSS (see Baidu, Ali, etc) and often if the OSS product is valuable enough the company just acquires the team (see GRPC -> BRPC -> acquired by Ali for internal use). My team frequently collaborated with outside contributors and would pull from OS. This is because my lab also ran VLDB so we obviously care for the community and realize there's a lot we can't do.

EDIT: to add one last question - are developers seen as feature-factories or is the relationship between product and developers/tech more flat/harmonious than that?

IMO unless you're in research developers are just an expense, not people and they're there to fill desks. In China the average salary for a dev is much lower both because of the skill-cap but also the quantity. If you need someone to write an android app they're a dime a dozen. If you need someone to write a new framework, that's more difficult. So in general, getting people isn't hard, but getting good people is. Thus, the vast majority of people at companies are expendable. I think this can be distilled to one example. QQ the most popular messaging app from Tencent in the early 2000s had 6,000 Android developers (still does). WeChat (also run by Tencent but under a different management style) has only 50 devs. The difference is they realized quality > quantity in recent years and learned the value of ROI.

If you have more questions feel free to ask.

yomly5• 7 years ago

This is so informational thank you so much!!!

QQ the most popular messaging app from Tencent in the early 2000s had 6,000 Android developers (still does). WeChat (also run by Tencent but under a different management style) has only 50 devs.

This comment alone almost tells me everything I need to know - my impression is that tech used to be run like giant sweatshops or cost centre (like QQ) but progressively tech is more like a value generator.

A watered down fork of Agile is really common. At both companies, I've experienced poor management.

Have you heard of other peers in China faring better? Do managers believe in the whole "Organization Y" self organizing/autonomous philosophy that underpins agile?

As a foreign developer (who isn't a research-level programmer) do I bring valuable skills to the table? As someone who didn't do a CS degree would that be career limiting?

profalseidol• 7 years ago

Wait what? How would you lose access to Github? Ain't there a tone of ways to get something from the Internet?

singularity2001• 7 years ago

Blocking github would hurt the Chinese government more than it would help it: Unlike facebook, github contains very valuable content.

jaimex2• 7 years ago

I'm surprised the great firewall doesn't block github. There are bound to be github pages hosting information on Chinas government actions.

cududa5• 7 years ago

Guessing your a bit new to the dev world? They tried in 2013 then developers and companies lost their shit. However in 2015 China did ddos Github for its hosting of tools to circumvent the great firewall. Github was dead for an entire day

vectorEQ• 7 years ago

"Fears about losing access to GitHub might be overblown. Apache Software Foundation (ASF), another US-based organization that offers open source software, published an announcement on Wednesday saying that open source software and collaboration on open source code are not subject to the EAR."

just that. it says it on the article even.

and honestly, any of the chinese giants now using github would have plenty of resources and probarbly motivation to set up a similar service if worst comes to worst. then people collaborating with chines would just hop over to that as reverse direction should be just fine to collaborate.

jopsen2• 7 years ago

Lol, I doubt the trade war will block GitHub.

The Chinese will eventually do that themselves..

It would be hilarious if China asked for a website to be unblocked -- especially, if they end up blocking it later.

cududa5• 7 years ago

The concern is losing access to packages and repositories. Sure the code isn’t subject to EAR, but their distribution mechanisms sure as shit are (as in, their digital properties).

Worst comes to worse software in China is all built on old/ outdated packages they already have in the country.

clubm8• 7 years ago

Interesting considering China blocked them at one point

https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/21/the-chinese-governmen...

DevX101• 7 years ago

Github has already been blocked by China, albeit briefly. After Chinese bloggers posted 'sensitive' content on the site, Github was blocked for a few days in 2013 until there was a big pushback from developers in China, including Kai Fu Lee, who's well respected by tech and government in China. The outcry forced a backtracking from the government.

I wouldn't recommend this, but if a movement started where developers of highly popular projects started putting political content in their README.md, China would probably revisit the issue and consider blocking again.

jopsen2• 7 years ago

I'm surprised they haven't since lots of people use GitHub as a blogging platform.

KirinDave• 7 years ago

I would think the outrageous antics with the Chinese governmnt directly attacking Github and using attacks with extremely wide reaching effects (using Baidu analytics links as a javascript injection attack) would uh... be more likely to damage access to Github.

But ignoring that, it seems to me like increasingly we're wanting distributed (dare I even say: federated) code forges even outside of China as people realize quite how overly and dangerously centralized their infrastructure and company are over Github.

dijit3• 7 years ago

No love (or hate) for China or the US; but from a European perspective it does shock me how much we rely on the USA.

As a bit of a tangent, we recently learned that we couldn't provide service to people living in Crimea, because google cloud block them, because google cloud is beholden to US regulators.

Now, the EU doesn't have any sanctions on Crimea itself (because that would legitimise the annexation), but they have sanctions against Russia instead.

So, we're defacto instituting the will of the US by choosing a US operator- and I think this is true of basically everything we use today. I can't think of a single tech company outside of Spotify that is not owned by the US which is popular in Europe.

Not only do we not "own our data" our digital economy is entirely dependent on the US not being malicious.

cududa5• 7 years ago

Well, what in your mind might be the reasons people of talent leave Europe to come to the US to start their tech empires

yomly5• 7 years ago

Yep, much like Japan, Europe somewhat rested on its laurels in the tech boom...

I've heard various explanations - fragmented markets/culture means it's harder to scale.

There's less appetite/precedence for undermining regulation (ask for forgiveness rather than for permission)

Lagging perception towards "IT" sector

nradov• 7 years ago

SAP is popular in Europe and is not owned by the US.

notduncansmith• 7 years ago

I remember that incident.

Discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9275771

ilaksh• 7 years ago

There are three distributed approaches mentioned here https://github.com/axic/mango/issues/6

averros• 7 years ago

Oh, woes. How people ever managed to develop any software before github?

michaelmure• 7 years ago

As another data point, I've seen more contribution and feedbacks to https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug (distributed bug tracker) than I expected from the chinese community.

wybiral• 7 years ago

The censorship war is more likely to cost them GitHub access since it's been used to bypass state censorship so much lately.

tracer42014• 7 years ago

The trade war makes no sense to me. My conservative family members are all for free markets without government intervention. Now they’re all angry about China. When American jobs went to China, they would have had a heart attack if an American official tried to dictate what these companies could or could not do. They went overseas so shareholders could increase profits. Meanwhile, China propped up so many of its industries, which was well within their rights to develop their country. So how are the Chinese bad guys here?

If anything, corporate America was greedy, and now corporate America feels threatened that China is growing too fast. You threw American workers under the bus and sent the jobs to China, but you were hoping China would stay poor. For all of its huge faults and despite the human rights abuses, the Chinese government can actually get things done as opposed to here with our annual traditions of government shutdown threats and now extended periods of actual shutdowns.

Look at the progress China made since 2000. What was America doing? Greed caused a recession, we’ve fought endless wars, where one of the chief architects is now head of NSA instead of being in prison. Sure we have more technology, but is the average American better off if you look at wages? We’re more divided than ever. The jobs numbers look great in 50 years? Great job! None of those people will be ever able to retire and don’t have $500 for an emergency.

pbourke• 7 years ago

Do you think that corporate America somehow wants this trade war? I think it would have preferred to stay in the TPP trade deal and operate under a predictable regulatory environment.

tracer42014• 7 years ago

I don’t know. I do know my conservative friends and conservative personalities all seem to support the trade war.

mmsimanga4• 7 years ago

Not from the USA but I am intrigued you classify the relatives for the trade war as conservatives. Are they conservative in everything else or is this a position they hold. Do all conservatives hold the same position.

I am genuinely interested because I have always regarded myself as conservative even though I work in technology. I was one of the last to get a cellphone because when they entered the market they were too expensive so was airtime to make any calls. I tend to want to improve processes using current stack before jumping on a new technology stack. I am just not into the latest fashion, I literally wear the same two pairs of jeans to work every day (interchangeably). I am intrigued because in the US it seems being conservative has a "negative" connotation if I may say so. I have always seen myself as being more cautious and not jumping on every fad.

echlebek• 7 years ago

Hi, Canadian here. From what I've been able to gather, American conservatism is more of a tribe than an ideology, that holds many values under a big tent. Some of these values are at odds with each other.

I don't see much conservatism in republicans at all. They are not conserving the environment, they are not fiscally conservative, their politics has been starkly reactionary. At this point, I would say the label has lost all meaning.

Luckily, Americans can still vote for the Democratic party, a staunchly conservative party by all accounts.

kortilla• 7 years ago

Being pro free market usually means you want level playing fields for companies. Now when you introduce governments that alter that playing field by refusing to enforce IP or by having asymmetric tariffs, that government is interfering with the free market.

Given that, most people I’ve talked to that are in agreement with the trade war view it as a necessary evil to force China to level the playing field. They don’t want a long term trade war.

tracer42014• 7 years ago

Level playing fields is a gross simplification. Companies in the US have various advantages of the simple fact that they’re in a developed nation. Compare us to China 15 years ago. They wouldn’t get to where they are or stay on their current trajectory had their focus being in being “fair” to the West.

To be clear, American interests were grounded in asymmetric hegemony over Chinese market, not for some evil world domination goals but to fuel American profits. It didn’t turn out that way so now people cry about fairness.

andrekandre• 7 years ago

Being pro free market usually means you want level playing fields for companies... force China to level the playing field...

i think different people have different meanings of free market... for some, the idea would be “let china set its own rules and let others choose or not to play by them” (libertarian) and to some it would be “we should all play [1] by the same open rules” (fair market)

to add to this, i would also claim, that what the average person is advocating for in this trade war is not “free” but “fair” markets, and this (trump/trade war) represents a strong rejection of neoliberal “free market” policies [2]

[1] https://www.wattpad.com/2144357-fair-market-vs-free-market

[2] https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/05/26/comment...

gnomewascool• 7 years ago

If you believe that "intellectual property" is a "thing" (as many people do) then you may consider China's behaviour in this area (obtaining trade secrets illicitly, or forcing companies to reveal them as a condition for doing business in China, or breaking copyright law) to be theft and more than enough grounds for sanctions.

Even if you don't believe in "intellectual property", then you may still believe that a selective (not universal) and one-sided breaking of the relevant international and national IP laws, in favour of one country, is harmful.

In addition to that, there have been allegations (I'm not sure how true they are), that supposedly private Chinese companies have been supported by the Chinese government in ways that break WTO rules.

tracer42014• 7 years ago

No one is forced to reveal secrets. Play ball with their rules or don’t business in China. Our own government forced tech companies to do certain things. Why can’t China set its own rules?

Sure I believe in IP. I also think other countries will do as they please when they know they will get away with it. Nation states behave in self interest and can have their own interpretations of what are black and white laws to you or me, especially so when they’re in a position of power. Or they can completely disregard international agreements. Case in point - the Iran deal.

onetimemanytime• 7 years ago

One thing (might be many others) :Free markets are not free is the state subsidizes certain industries. They can dump the product for long enough to bankrupt others...

dev_dull• 7 years ago

For all of its huge faults and despite the human rights abuses, the Chinese government can actually get things done as opposed to here with our annual traditions of government shutdown threats and now extended periods of actual shutdowns.

A surveillance state can get a lot of things done. We could make our government work a lot differently here as well if you find their system better than ours.

Tepix• 7 years ago

Back when Microsoft aquired github, concerned users created "Teahub" which turned into Codeberg. It's a German non-profit with the website https://codeberg.org/

hartator• 7 years ago

Our parents warn us to not stand too close to the tv, never met online people in IRL, and never ride in a stranger's car.

Now we have Oculus, Tinder, and Uber.

I am sure whatever we are worrying now will be as irrelevant.

coin• 7 years ago

What is with that website? It’s barely usable on the latest IPad Pro. I wish articles would just stick to HTML.

tdaltonc• 7 years ago

You can't talk about GitHub in China without talking about 996. Github is the only western 'social network' that is allowed to operate in China with strong encryption. That means it's the only place to talk about politically sensitive issues without being censored or harassed.

https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU

Chinese developers fear the tech war will cost them access to GitHub

Related Stories