Why China is Giving Away Its Tech For Free 39
An anonymous reader shares a report: [...] the rise in China of open technology, which relies on transparency and decentralisation, is awkward for an authoritarian state. If the party's patience with open-source fades, and it decides to exert control, that could hinder both the course of innovation at home, and developers' ability to export their technology abroad.
China's open-source movement first gained traction in the mid-2010s. Richard Lin, co-founder of Kaiyuanshe, a local open-source advocacy group, recalls that most of the early adopters were developers who simply wanted free software. That changed when they realised that contributing to open-source projects could improve their job prospects. Big firms soon followed, with companies like Huawei backing open-source work to attract talent and cut costs by sharing technology.
Momentum gathered in 2019 when Huawei was, in effect, barred by America from using Android. That gave new urgency to efforts to cut reliance on Western technology. Open-source offered a faster way for Chinese tech firms to take existing code and build their own programs with help from the country's vast community of developers. In 2020 Huawei launched OpenHarmony, a family of open-source operating systems for smartphones and other devices. It also joined others, including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, to establish the OpenAtom Foundation, a body dedicated to open-source development. China quickly became not just a big contributor to open-source programs, but also an early adopter of software. JD.com, an e-commerce firm, was among the first to deploy Kubernetes.
AI has lately given China's open-source movement a further boost. Chinese companies, and the government, see open models as the quickest way to narrow the gap with America. DeepSeek's models have generated the most interest, but Qwen, developed by Alibaba, is also highly rated, and Baidu has said it will soon open up the model behind its Ernie chatbot.
China's open-source movement first gained traction in the mid-2010s. Richard Lin, co-founder of Kaiyuanshe, a local open-source advocacy group, recalls that most of the early adopters were developers who simply wanted free software. That changed when they realised that contributing to open-source projects could improve their job prospects. Big firms soon followed, with companies like Huawei backing open-source work to attract talent and cut costs by sharing technology.
Momentum gathered in 2019 when Huawei was, in effect, barred by America from using Android. That gave new urgency to efforts to cut reliance on Western technology. Open-source offered a faster way for Chinese tech firms to take existing code and build their own programs with help from the country's vast community of developers. In 2020 Huawei launched OpenHarmony, a family of open-source operating systems for smartphones and other devices. It also joined others, including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, to establish the OpenAtom Foundation, a body dedicated to open-source development. China quickly became not just a big contributor to open-source programs, but also an early adopter of software. JD.com, an e-commerce firm, was among the first to deploy Kubernetes.
AI has lately given China's open-source movement a further boost. Chinese companies, and the government, see open models as the quickest way to narrow the gap with America. DeepSeek's models have generated the most interest, but Qwen, developed by Alibaba, is also highly rated, and Baidu has said it will soon open up the model behind its Ernie chatbot.
Now (Score:2, Insightful)
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Karl Marx would disavow China (Score:2)
So why did you propagate the AC's vacuous Subject.
Lots of reasons to dislike what "China" is doing. More complicated to figure out which are government activities and which aren't... Also reasons to admire some of the things "China" is doing.
But the Chinese perspective is long.
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all that stuff is socialism
That word does not mean what you think it means.
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You're so wrong that it's difficult to say where to start. This fellow lives in China and writes extensively on its business environment, he's very knowledgeable and quite interesting (doesn't hurt that he has an exceptionally clear writing style). This is his article titled: 'DeepSeek exposes a fundamental advantage of China's system: their whole economy is open source'. He provides voluminous documentation at the end of each article.
https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]
Economists and governments have known
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My guess is that in China they have a problem because they restrict the sharing of knowledge.
So I'm to accept that your "guess" is somehow more authoritative than that of the businessman who actually lives and works there? And your guess is based on. . .what exactly? I'd guess your reading of the semi-official propaganda organs of the US/UK called the Mainstream Media, am I right?
Like all his writing it's backed up with voluminous links to other sources, you should check them out unless you're afraid of exiting your bubble.
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Why?
Logical outcome of a tech diaspora (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Logical outcome of a tech diaspora (Score:4, Funny)
They made open source work like how it was supposed to in the West. Corporations not only contributing, but actively promoting the open aspect as a major business advantage. Transparency, a rapidly growing ecosystem, trust from developers who are wary of closed source rug-pulls.
It will be interesting to see if they stick with it. Usually Western companies end up deciding they could make a bit more short term profit by not being open anymore, enshittify their product, crash and burn. Occasionally you get one that makes it work, like the much hated Adobe.
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Btw, what are you saying about Adobe and open source in the same sentence? I thought they were the most closed shop in the world?
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Sorry, I meant enshittification. Adobe moved to a subscription model, made their product much more expensive and annoying to use, and somehow did okay out of it. I think Linus Tech Tips did a video a few years ago about why they pay the subscription fees, rather than move to something else.
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Kicking around Adobe users used to be a hobby of mine, with reasons.
I had a lot of graphic designer friends... but they are all out of business now, so I just feel sorry for them mostly, with a tiny bit of "told you so". I know more than I care to about the psychology of an Adobe hostage.
It's just so obvious and sad now, maybe it's time to move on.
but if you want to kick Adobe around just for fun, I'm still listening...
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Triggers organic growth in any welcoming community. Sleeping with the enemy is profitable until it isn't, then forces converge to forge an alternative.
What forces are you referring to? Surely not the market forces that thrive in open societies. This is China we are talking about, not the US or EU. In communist China, MIIT, CAC and MOST will make certain that any initiatives at collaboration, cross-fertilization and tech transfer will stop as soon as it interferes with the goals of the communists running the country. You know this, yet you are deliberately leaving this out of your comment. I wonder why?
As long as the source is open???.. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything to complain about.
Really? You can't be that out of touch. Let me g
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I'm saying it's open source. Audit the code yourself. That's not hard to understand. If I was interested in some of that code, I would do that
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The wounded shill doubles down—faux detachment, false equivalence, and a wall of whataboutist non sequiturs. Now you’re a shill and a troll. Congrats, dude. Now go away.
I don't know anything about the politics surrounding open source with Chinese characteristics, full disclosure.
That explains most of your original comment—and your follow-up.
If you're going to comment on a thread about China's use of open source as a strategic tool, maybe don’t start by pretending it’s all just neutral code and developer goodwill. This isn’t a philosophical debate about whether source code can be d
Just came back to say goodbye (Score:2)
Suck my big beautiful cock.
They are not giving it away (Score:1)
Re: They are not giving it away (Score:1)
giving away their technology (Score:1)
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"Open source" means that everything is there and available to examine. If there are backdoors in DeepSeek or any of the other Chinese tech products they would be found and exposed and the MSM would be trumpeting the news to high heaven. Instead they're mysteriously quiet.
They're communists lol (Score:5, Insightful)
Not speaking of freedom (Score:1)
The real issue is that they are speaking of "open source" and not about freedom for people.
The communist party likes the utilitaristic approach of "open source" and do NOT like to speak about freedom for people.
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The Chinese society is more "free" today than any time in its history. Is it libertine Hollywood-style hookers-and-blow "freedom"? No, of course not, but it's more than any other time in the last 5,000 years.
Early 2000s was freer than now. (Score:3)
Yes, I talk to my relatives there.
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Yes, I talk to my relatives there.
You/they say this because of the blocked US apps or is there new censorship we outside China don't know about?
Re: Not speaking of freedom (Score:2)
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Yeah I was going to mention that. Cheap hardware out of China with Rockchip, Amlogic or Allwinner is probably using some labyrinthine obsolete fork of AOSP or Armbian that has to be meticulously reverse engineered by the likes of BayLibre or Sunxi.
Forgive me if I've never seen an 'OpenAtom' product for sale.
Contributing resources directly to kernel.org, uboot, edkII and the bsds as reference implementations of lots of near identical knockoffs of each other from online retailers would help.
The old adage applies... (Score:2)
You get what you pay for.
You Can Fork It—If Xi Lets You (Score:4, Insightful)
For those unfamiliar with how technology is managed in the PRC, it works like this: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) sets the technical and compliance standards; the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) monitors and censors anything that drifts outside ideological boundaries; and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) funds only what aligns with Communist Party goals. The PRC is the antithesis of true open source—these agencies ensure it stays “open” only so long as it serves the geopolitical agenda of Communist dictator-for-life Xi Jinping.
Yes, tech diasporas create opportunity. Yes, Huawei got kneecapped and responded by pivoting. But let’s not pretend this is some kind of righteous rise of the East against decadent Western hypocrisy. China’s embrace of open source is a contingency plan, not a philosophical awakening. Control in the PRC isn’t always overt, but it is always present. It’s about alignment. As long as open source supports Party objectives—self-reliance, global influence, AI parity—it’s permitted. When it doesn’t—labor organizing, cross-border collaboration, uncensored tools—the hammer (and sickle) comes down.
Re: You Can Fork It—If Xi Lets You (Score:2)
Your description sounds an awful lot like what the USA is trying to do to China.
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Your description sounds an awful lot like what the USA is trying to do to China.
No, it really doesn’t. You’re conflating two fundamentally different things: export control and political control over the production process.
- The U.S. restricts exports of specific technologies—primarily advanced semiconductors and AI chips—for national security reasons.
- China restricts ideas. And access. And forks. And source code. And people.
There’s no U.S. equivalent to MIIT drafting ideological compliance standards for GitHub repos. No FCC blacklist for GPLv3 projects. A
Societies profit from Open Source (Score:2)
Societies and Governments (not like in "the bad Chinese government" but as in all governments) profit from Open Source and from contributing to Open Source. It is the big companies who profit from keeping things closed and keeping the open competition small. The Chinese society with all its disadvantages is still less in favor for the large companies than others.