GitHub Has Become a Haven for China's Censored Internet Users(npr.org)
npr.org
GitHub Has Become a Haven for China's Censored Internet Users
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-become-a-haven-for-chinas-censored-internet-users
21 comments
Wouldn't this just add more fuel to the fire for China to crackdown on access to GitHub and ultimately make it even harder for engineers there to use and contribute to projects? Only asking because I recall a time where they did indeed block GitHub because of some of the projects hosted and I'd imagine this might potentially cause a similar course of action.
I don't think they could afford to block it because China's tech sector is dependent on lots of American-developed open source projects hosted on it. They could set up their own git service and fork them, but they wouldn't get the benefit of ongoing development; they'd be on their own. It's almost like connecting with the rest of the world has tangible benefits...
Yup the PRC's approach so far has been to force the rest of the world of kowtow, company by company, to their ridiculous petulant insecurities and autocratic fascism. That way they get the best of both worlds - a connection to a wide world the paranoid, boot-black politburo need not fear.
Is that not what most countries would do if they had the power to?
I was recently told on HN that Russia is trying to set up something like that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19521584
Or just have a separate instance that automatically forks all pre-approved projects while blocking off the rest, similar to how Google does it.
Honestly I don't see how Github will remain unaffected by the Chinese Government.
Honestly I don't see how Github will remain unaffected by the Chinese Government.
that was for shadowsocks I think (e.g. a powerful tool to escape the chinese firewall).
they even tried to DDoS github as far as I remember.
they even tried to DDoS github as far as I remember.
Text-only version: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=709490855
Also, previous discussion of 996.icu: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507620
and about Chinese-made browsers blocking the GitHub repo (not 996.icu itself): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553681
Also, previous discussion of 996.icu: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507620
and about Chinese-made browsers blocking the GitHub repo (not 996.icu itself): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553681
I think all this will do is eventually lead to China copying repositories from github that they agree with, make their own internal repo system and block access to the actual github.
Github's has also become a haven for starred repositories gamed from China.
Could you please explain what you mean? Or what the benefits would be?
If you have a 1k+ star repo, you might get a higher salary when finding a new job
Sometime in 2018 or '17 I've read that GitHub is again blocked and programmers have to switch jobs because it's pretty hard to do programming without GitHub now. So, they can come after your repos too.
(The source of the info was a Chinese redditor who makes Arduino-like robots, so I hope she knew what she was talking about.)
(The source of the info was a Chinese redditor who makes Arduino-like robots, so I hope she knew what she was talking about.)
Prior discussions (didn’t notice these when I submitted this story):
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=996
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=996
I'm surprised Microsoft-owned GitHub hasn't started censoring yet. I suspect it's only a matter of time.
Headline from next week: "GitHub Was a Haven for China's Censored Internet Users".
Microsoft is in a really awkward position with this now, curious how it will play out
I subscribe to a couple of newsletters that send the most popular repositories in several languages to my email every week. There's been a trend of increasing Chinese activity for months now. The problem with Chinese programmers is that they very rarely bother to use English, as the rest of the world, rendering their technically "open source" code largely useless for most of us. There's clearly a niche for a Chinese language counterpart of Github, and I suspect it's going to be filled soon.
Chinese programmers use English at about the same frequency as programmers from other non-English-speaking countries, but there are so many of them that the minority using Chinese for everything is still very visible.
FWIW, most of the Chinese-only repos I've seen on GitHub are tutorials, other study materials or social gathering places like 996.icu, so I don't think you're actually missing a lot of relevant open source code.
The most likely contender for a Chinese-language GitHub-replacement is probably the hosted GitLab instance offered by Alibaba: https://code.aliyun.com/explore
FWIW, most of the Chinese-only repos I've seen on GitHub are tutorials, other study materials or social gathering places like 996.icu, so I don't think you're actually missing a lot of relevant open source code.
The most likely contender for a Chinese-language GitHub-replacement is probably the hosted GitLab instance offered by Alibaba: https://code.aliyun.com/explore