This article is from WeChat public account: 新 智 元 (AI_era) , author: Zhang Jia, Xiao Qin, Ming dynasty, Photo by Danial RiCaRoS on Unsplash
GitHub ～ Yes ～ Deng ～ Lu ～ Zhong ～ Guo ～ 啦 ～
According to the Financial Times, GitHub, the world’s largest software development platform, plans to open a subsidiary in China.
GitHub’s Chief Operating Officer Erica Brescia said in an interview with the Financial Times that the Chinese side is “very encouraged” about the company’s plans to expand in China.
In what form will GitHub enter China?
Strictly speaking, outside of programmer circles, GitHub is still well-known, but it is not a household name among ordinary people. This American company is currently the world’s largest open source software repository. It provides a vital digital infrastructure. Many of the billion-dollar software businesses worldwide rely on GitHub infrastructure.
In 2018, Microsoft acquired the company for $ 7.5 billion. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Satya Nadella) said at that time that digital technology has spread throughout the social and economic fields, and software developers are the architects of digital technology.” GitHub “is the” developers’ home “.
Now, more developers from China may soon find a more comfortable home on GitHub. According to The Economist, although GitHub’s plan to enter China has not been officially announced, it is still in its early stages. But Erica Brescia, chief operating officer of GitHub, has come to China several times in recent months to attend events and visit Chinese developers.
In mid-September this year, she hosted GitHub ’s first event in China in Shanghai. On December 2, she co-hosted another meeting with developers in Shenzhen. On December 4, a similar event was co-hosted in Beijing.
Sheng Wu, a developer from Beijing, attended the meeting. He said that GitHub discussed the possibility of publicly expanding its China business. A GitHub employee who asked not to be named said that GitHub Enterprise, a profitable product for large companies, recently passed the “GB18030” Chinese national standard certification, which is a prerequisite for providing services in China. Microsoft has not released financial information about GitHub at present, but if you look at the number of developers, China has become the second most important market after the United States, and it is developing rapidly.
Previously, there were two speculations about GitHub’s entry into China. One possibility is to place the server closer to Chinese developers, perhaps in Hong Kong or Singapore. Chinese developers welcome this, as fragmented access to GitHub is often the subject of complaints about server response speeds. The latest location of the GitHub server is not yet public, but in 2017, all servers were located in the United States, and the connection to China was slow and unreliable.
A more radical option is to start a new company under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government. This will allow GitHub to set up servers in mainland China, but it may raise questions about how GitHub manages computer code databases in Chinese and US jurisdictions.
According to the Financial Times, Brescia said that GitHub is planning to adopt a “phased approach”, first considering setting up a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary in China and starting to recruit employees from the general manager. Later, the company may explore the possibility of establishing a joint venture and hosting GitHub content in China.
GitHub is under export control, and “US sanctions” country accounts are banned
Bao Yungang, Director of the Advanced Computer System Research Center of the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China Open Command Ecology (RISC-V) The project risk analysis and countermeasures recommendations explained in the interpretation of the report: GitHub.com clearly states that the information on GitHub.com, GitHub Enterprise Server, and both are subject to export control.
In July this year, GitHub began restricting accounts by nationality on the grounds that these countries violated US trade control laws. The nationalities of the restricted account owners include Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other “Sanctioned” countries.
An Iranian developer also posted on reddit for help, saying that GitHub now bans Iranian users, all Iranian accounts have been blocked, and asked for support from netizens.
Chinese developers are concerned that if the United States extends export sanctions against China, they may not be able to access GitHub. GitHub has said it will lobby US regulators to prevent the expansion of export controls.
Brescia said that the Chinese government hopes that domestic developers will use more open source software to prevent the risk of being cut off by software developed by the United States while trade tensions continue. Because open source software is public and free, it is not subject to US sanctions.
Without GitHub, Chinese companies will not have access to open source software code