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In 1997, Eric S. Raymond predicted in the book “Cathedrals and Markets” that freelance developers would win in the stratified world dominated by traditional closed source software.

It turns out that he is right.

Today, the digital networks we are in are almost all built from open source code. According to a Gartner survey, 99% of organizations use a lot of open source code in their IT systems, and the “market model” shows an unprecedented boom.

And in the open source world, there is a saying that “the community is more important than code.” What it expresses is the iron law of software, that is, a healthy community is more important than good code.

And in the global competition of the open source community, from the followers, contributors, to leaders, what new problems and new opportunities are China facing?

Destroy copyright “tyranny”, the world belongs to open source

In 1998, Netscape Communications opened up the source code of its own browser, which is the first time that “open source” has been on the stage of human history. Now more than 20 years ago, open source technology has been integrated into all aspects of people’s lives.

We will not go into details about the growth history of the open source community. All in all, open source technology proves that it is far more effective than private network technology through the aggregation and amplification effects of the open source community, and global developers are also showing a passion for open source projects. Most typically, Google is relying on the open source Android system to seize the industrial highland of the mobile Internet innovation ecosystem, and now even closed as Apple OS, open source Swift.

As the birthplace of global software products, if the development of the open source community relies solely on the idealism of free development, it is difficult to explain the decline of a number of old code platforms such as sourceforge, google code, codeplex, etc. There are miraculous effects, otherwise the Microsoft mobile operating system will not lose in the face of Google Android.

What is the secret weapon that the open source community wants to grow and sweep across the globe? At least for the moment, it’s notOpen the “unification” of the three elements:

1. Unification of infrastructure. The primary indicator for developers to choose an open source community is whether there are a large number of excellent technologies and frameworks that can quickly rely on the power of the community to improve development efficiency and quality. In the face of global developers who have different demands, abilities and habits, and want to lower the collaboration threshold while keeping the code style quality consistent with the original project, it is crucial that the platform provides a unified infrastructure to achieve service governance. For example, Google has made a framework like Suite and unified service. Facebook’s open source platform PyTorch1.0 is also a combination of PyTorch 0.4 and Caffe2, and integrated ONNX format, in order to let developers unify in a framework. Research and production.

2. Unification of development scenarios. In the actual development process, the needs, capabilities, and realities of different companies and developers are different. This requires open source platforms to meet different scenarios through flexible expansion capabilities.

For example, many companies have deployed log collection systems, trace systems, etc. New software system development must be deeply integrated with these existing systems; for example, different software and functional implementations require multi-language support, and the framework needs Compiling and developing in various languages ​​such as C language, VB, and Python are important indicators for measuring the quality of the community.

3. Unification of business value.

Implementing the service value of developers and open source software, and opening up the commercialization of free communities is the “Achilles’ heel” for every open source community. Therefore, it is very important to have mature market expansion and feeding ability. Only when an application can be used more and more with the development of the platform to gain business value, the community can move toward attracting a positive cycle of creative and innovative talents around the world.

We know that open source community construction has long been regarded as the weakness of China’s software IT industry. Standing in this critical period of overtaking, can we discover the new possibilities of the Chinese open source community?

The open source of China’s open source community

Before answering this question, you may need to think about it first. Where is the shortcoming of the Chinese open source community?

First, there is a lack of voice on consumer hardware. For a long time, the new form of digital terminals, whether it is the underlying technology or the market application level, are concentrated in the Western technology giants. Developers can only be in Windows/MFollow-up and play under the ac system directly limits the development of China’s open source ecology.

In addition, the overall technical level is lacking. In this context, the operating system and software ecosystem, as well as the continuous optimization of related technologies, Chinese developers naturally play more role as learners. Under the community mechanism of contributing heroes, it is normal to have no sense of existence. .

And all of this may be due to the fact that China has not succeeded in commercialization through open source for a long time. The public does not see the direct value of promoting open source, and many technical experts cannot find a job. Some domestic open source projects also have more marketing implications than actual ones, and talents and experience are hard to settle.

The situation has changed, and the situation facing the Chinese open source community has also changed, and it has come to a new competitive plane.

The most typical, many of the world’s top open source projects are Chinese or corporate participation or even leading, such as Meizu, Ali and other manufacturers have made a lot of contributions to the core field, Huawei is directly in many international open source communities. Occupy the board of directors, the number of Linux developers is also booming.

From the solid contribution to the overseas community, to the core technology leadership, the key changes in ecological value output, will also help the Chinese open source community to stand on the new era.

Variables and Challenges in the Era of the Times

What is the real problem of the industry in China’s open source community construction? is the key to its strategic value.

Overview, today’s software environment, the value of open source software applications and services has not been widely explored.

The main open source software is concentrated on the application layer, such as desktop systems, server operating systems and databases, and the collaborative development of a large number of new intelligent terminals brought by the Internet of Everything is still blank. How to help developers break the wall between different devices and realize ecological sharing and collaboration across terminals is a key challenge for the open source community.

Another key opportunity is the rapid deployment of technologies such as 5G and cloud computing. How to realize the development, control and operation of software and hardware in the cloud environment is also an important indicator to test the strength of the open source platform.

In other words, the ecological dividends that Wintel and Google enjoyed during the previous technology pioneering period will be reimagined under the scouring of ABCD5.

So the question is coming. For the Chinese open source community, what are the specific opportunities for the competition of other countries’ communities?

The first is the rapid exploration of the pan-AIoT industry in the Chinese market.

For the software ecosystem, only the increasing number and level of participants will make it possible to quickly identify problems, fix problems, and even overtake in corners. From this perspective, China’s huge population and market is the best open source ecological incubator in the AIOT industry. There are many new hardware products that can be imagined and applied, and generate ecological soils that are open source technologies.

Second, it is the industrial structure of the upper, middle and lower reaches.

Before we mentioned that the globalization of the open source community is inseparable from the unification and standardization of many key elements, and the expedition path of the Chinese open source community has been marked by the national organization, the giants, and the manufacturers from the very beginning. the whole idea.

For example, in terms of software and hardware compatibility, the government promotes neutral standard certification and testing, standardizes the threshold of the entire industry, and directly improves the stability of the product; the technology giant represented by Huawei, establishes a hosting platform, and opens the open source software from The combination of technology and business will promote other companies to develop corresponding overall solutions for different vertical industries and application scenarios.

This three-dimensional development of the upper, middle and lower reaches will also give China’s open source ecology a unified, usable and comprehensive healthy development trend.

In addition, the “grounding gas” of Chinese developers and enterprises in the interactive experience can also help the open source community to seize the advantage in international competition.

In some mature open source communities, it is common for systems to have problems in terms of functional integrity and interactive experience due to the differentiation of millions of developers. Huawei engineers analyzed Android phone Karton problem and found that 21% of the incentives came from third-party applications, 15% from mobile phone internal coding, and 11% from hardware resource issues… This is 80% of the components in the Android system architecture are from various open source programs. “Get it” has a direct relationship. At this time, Chinese developers’ attention to user experience and product details, such as Huawei’s “magic change” to Android system, has become an important force in its development ecology. Under such a premise, the Chinese operating system and even the open source community want to achieve “independence” faster, and the future can be expected.

In the cultivation of the open source community, the combination of industry and education in the Chinese technology giant has added a weight to the whole incident. Huawei, Ali, Tencent, Baidu, etc. all promote university students to participate in the construction and education of open source communities from the source code level, master the most advanced open source technology, improve code quality, and deliver high-end talents for the industry. China’s own innovation platform, enhancing and stimulating the spirit of open source has unprecedented strategic significance.

Overall, the rise and expansion of the national open source community does not have any secrets of success. It is the only way to win the future by making up the lessons and seizing the opportunities.