For now, there is no clue as to what prompted the change, but it has been happening for a while. There are multiple user complaints about how projects werecensored for unclear reasons, possibly because technical language was mistaken for a sensitive word, on Gitee's official and public feedback page.
The public projects hosted on the platform suddenly became unavailable without notice after the May 18 change. Users complained that this disrupted services or ruined their business deals. To make the code public again, developers need to submit an application and make sure it doesn't contain anything that violates Chinese law.
The manual review for all of Li's projects on Gitee has been completed, and so far 22 out of 24 have been restored. With no better domestic alternative, Li expects users to stay.
In the long run, this puts an unreasonable burden on the developers. Which developer would like to be thinking if their code could cause a list of sensitive words?
The Chinese way of building its own alternative to the internet has worked well in recent years. China seems to have run into a wall with open-source software.
This push to insulate the domestic open-source community from risks arising from the global community is something that very much goes against the core proposition of open-source tech development.
She says that technologists in China don't want to be cut off from the global software development conversation and may feel uneasy with the direction China is heading.
China's open-source software industry may be disrupted before its benefits to the economy can be realized if it is cut off early. It's part of a larger concern that overshadows China's tech sector as the government has stepped up regulations in recent years: is China sacrificing the long-term benefits of tech for short-term impact?
“I struggle to see how China can make do without those global links with international open-source communities and foundations,” Arcesati says. “We are not there yet.”
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