
Chinese developers fear the tech war will cost them access to GitHub - indidea
https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/chinese-developers-fear-losing-open-source-tech-trade-war/article/3011463?__twitter_impression=true
======
KirinDave
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.

~~~
dijit
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.

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

~~~
dijit
Probably because US companies buy European ones.

See Skype, Nokia, Shazam.

China’s doing it too. They bought ARM shortly after Brexit.

I don’t doubt that there is a migratory factor, though I don’t believe it’s
primarily due to salary or other compensation as I assume you’re inferring- a
cornucopia of tech giants is going to attract talent from the world over.

So a consequence of centralisation is more centralisation.

~~~
steevdave
I thought SoftBank is Japanese, not Chinese? SoftBank bought ARM, not a
Chinese company, otherwise it would be a bit weird for ARM (assuming they're
Chinese now) to cut ties with Huewai.

~~~
cududa
Correct.

------
yomly
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?

~~~
unmole
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.

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

I find that alarming.

~~~
unmole
My colleague contributes to OpenSSL. We have probably already compromised the
TLS session you're reading this on. Run. Run for the hills! /s

------
lagadu
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.

~~~
heraclius
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.

~~~
decster
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).

~~~
frequentnapper
it's not all black and white like that. Chinese govt has been encouraging
violating patents and corporate espionage for decades now. At the same time,
it's threatening all its neighbors. The issue is not the population/GDP
growth. The issue is that China wants to run the world, and USA doesn't want
to give up its mantle.

------
DevX101
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.

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

------
pjmlp
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
Out of curiosity what happened with PGP?

~~~
sah2ed
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation)

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

EDIT:
[https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed](https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed)

~~~
vector_spaces
Here's another based on the Secure Scuttlebutt protocol

[https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/applications.html#git-
ssb](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/applications.html#git-ssb)

~~~
hobofan
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.

------
oconnor663
Another recent article about GitHub in China:
[https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-
become-a...](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-become-a-
haven-for-chinas-censored-internet-users)

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

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

------
clubm8
Interesting considering China blocked them at one point

[https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/21/the-chinese-
governmen...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/21/the-chinese-government-
appears-to-have-completely-blocked-github-via-dns/)

------
vectorEQ
"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.

~~~
cududa
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.

------
tdaltonc
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](https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU)

------
smudgymcscmudge
This seems like a promotion for gitee.

------
jaimex2
I'm surprised the great firewall doesn't block github. There are bound to be
github pages hosting information on Chinas government actions.

~~~
cududa
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

------
singularity2001
Blocking github would hurt the Chinese government more than it would help it:
Unlike facebook, github contains very valuable content.

------
sehugg
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.

~~~
paranoidrobot
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](https://github.com/dotnet/corefx)

------
Tepix
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/](https://codeberg.org/)

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

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

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

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

------
hartator
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.

------
christi_meyer
This might be how we enter full scale cyberwarfare.

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

------
Foober223
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.

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

~~~
cheschire
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.

~~~
paranoidrobot
No, but it makes it more difficult.

Why would a project that's already happily working with the Github ecosystem
want to also have to support publishing to a platform that doesn't block
China? Lots more work on project maintainers.

------
inlined
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.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> 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.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
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.

~~~
CathayRe
It is basically the standard with all developing countries joining the WTO
where by they are allowed and even encourage to do this as an under developed
country.

The problem is China is no longer one, or at leats most countries doesn't
think it is anymore. And has failed to abide by what they promised when they
joined WTO. Or you can blame it on US for letting them joining without clear
cut rules and terms in the first place.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China has plenty of developing and even in developed countries inside its
borders, along with its mostly developed areas. It is kind of difficult to
classify a country that is so huge and heterogeneous with respect to
development levels.

~~~
CathayRe
Yes, and surprisingly enough, even in US and many part of Western Europe.

The problem is China has been playing their developing country card for far
too long, and if we have to argue a Country with GDP that is either 1st or 2nd
by different way of measurement as developing country I think we can agree to
disagree.

------
tracer4201
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.

~~~
gnomewascool
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.

~~~
tracer4201
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.

~~~
whatshisface
> _Play ball with their rules or don’t business in China._

If you don't manufacture in China, you can't compete with companies that do.
As a result, every company is forced to sell out their future 20 years from
now so that they don't go under today. Whether you think it's a good idea or
not, government intervention is often necessary to coordinate industry-wide
strategic things like "don't put poison in milk" and "don't take the sweet but
deadly embrace of technology transfer."

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

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

------
omginternets
Jesus this scroll-hijacking is an abomination.

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

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

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

~~~
luckylion
And how eager they are to be on good terms with the US government, I suppose.

