Hello everyone. Good morning on the second day. For them, here today we have
lightning dogs in our different room and we will start with first presentation by
Richard Linn about to open source look different in China. Please welcome.
Okay, very happy to on time and happy to see you in the beginning.
And I can show you how to choose myself and I will share the three point of view
of the Chinese open source development. And who am I? I'm Richard Linn. And my
I'm actually Taiwanese, but right now I live and working in China for 12 years.
So when I was a student, I am the researcher in the Akatemiya Senika,
it's the famous research center in Taiwan and I let open source of a
factory research in licensing, government and community building. While I organize a
co-scop, do you have a co-scop booth in the K-Fro2? Maybe if you go to K-Fro2,
there's a co-scop conference for open source software, a coder using a promoter.
And I'm the organizer of co-scop then. And I know because I'm the researcher,
I read many papers and I translate many, for example, what is the four freedoms? What is always
always I always do? I introduce in traditional Chinese in Taiwan and introduce open source. And then
so I think because I can read in Chinese, both Chinese and English, even my
oral speaking is not good enough, but I can read English and the Chinese. So I introduce many things
to Chinese and at that time I'm just in Taiwan, but my writing is spread to the Chinese and there
are many open source developer in China and mail to me and ask me many things about open source.
And then I go to China when a 12 years ago, 2014. And when I go to China, I think
of there's no authentic open source atmosphere in China. Because there are very few Chinese
open source developer, but there are so few. And most of the developers and the student don't know
what is open source and don't care about open source. So I establish a Chinese means open source
alliance or open source society or a community. Because this word has many means meanings in China.
So in Chinese and I join a stop, it's a Chinese version, GitHub, okay. And the stop is failed
in 2016. And then I join Huawei. So I have a working experience in Huawei. So I know much about
what a big company will do open source and developer ecosystem. So I know a Chinese industry
and a Chinese company is my set more. Yeah. And because this is a lightning talk, maybe I should
go faster. And I see three things made that open source in China looks a little bit strange or
weird or just a difference in China. One thing is a vendor-led reality. To our understanding
in a traditional Western open source, we are grassroots, right. But enough. So we are the open
source developer. And we have a project and a share for example on GitHub and engage many people
join. And this is the tradition of the classic open source. But in China, because the tradition
or the culture is not set. And some company, okay. For example, Ali Baba, like Huawei, like
a very big company, they think open source is a thing. Maybe I should contribute. And why
commercial company want to contribute? Because it's the money afterwards, yeah. So many Chinese people,
sorry. Many Chinese companies are companies. Many Chinese companies, they think open source
is a new standard, new de facto standard in the software industry. So they think if we just follow
or use open source project, then we cannot have the control point of the technology and the industry.
Because for example, I worked for Huawei for a long time. The open source team and the OSP OSP
OSP is in Huawei's department called standard industry standard department. So Huawei's OSP
is in industry standard department. And they will have strategies thinking of how can we
how can Huawei join open source. So in the past 10 years, I remember Huawei joined many
foundations like Lin's Foundation or Exlives Foundation or something. And they want to know more
about how can they be very important influencer or control some open source project in the future.
And not control the project, they control the standard because they think standard means the
monopoly means the money. So they think it is a I learned from Huawei and in government, I say
the Chinese government has a five-year plan. Because it's a planning economy system, right?
So they have five-year plan. And the 14th is a start from 2018. Okay, the 14th, five-year plan.
They want to do open source as a nation knows strategy. And the Chinese government establish
a open-arton open source foundation. Open-arton open source foundation. And so Huawei, they donate
there many of projects like open harmony. Because you maybe heard of harmony OS in Huawei's
phone, right? And Huawei think Android is controlled by Google and the Google control by American
government. So if we if Huawei use Android and maybe someday we'll be sanctioned. And it happens in
2019, right? 2019, Huawei has been sanctioned by the US government. So the government establish
a foundation open atom foundation and Huawei donate the open harmony and the many the open source
project. And what I think is if they have been sanctioned, then the open source cannot be sanctioned,
right? Open source project. So maybe their ecosystem partner over the world in the world,
they can use open harmony to be the upstream. Then, yeah, yeah, do the many distribution
from open harmony. Yeah, so I think it is a de facto rules and monopoly into profit. So
this is some big company like Huawei, like Ali Baba, like for example now,
Ali Baba has a very famous quint, QQ, WE and quint, LLM. And they open the weights, they
so-called open source LLM, but I call it open weights. They open the LLM and the series,
series LLM and the VLM and many open weights model. So they want to be the monopoly.
And they think monopoly means we can earn money in the future. And I think, for example, in China,
it's cathedral, the design, not a bizarre, a top-down design first. So for example,
I'm employee and a developer in the big company. So there are so many employees just want to deliver
what manages us to do. So the employee, the developers inside a company, they don't care about
how they ignore open source culture and how to collaborate in a good way in the open source.
So they just care about internal OKRs. They say, I give the code to the manager and it passed
the QA and my job is done. So if there are any questions from the community, they ignore them.
If they're managing, ask them to watch the outside, for example, issues, they will do it,
because it just acts by the manager and by the company. And I think it's a private decisions
and a public report. So it's a little bit strange, but I don't want to blend or I don't want
to criticize this thing because it opens or something, even it's like a different weight, right?
So it opens or something. Maybe it's useful to us. And so I think it's capital is bad.
To my preference is bad. But it let it make a Chinese government know how to do open source
and gradually, oh, five minutes. Gradually, they, they will learn what is real open source,
how to do the player inside. And sometimes we have a metric. For example, I've ever seen a PR.
It's just a single PR, but it divided to the five PRs to the developer. They send the five
PRs actually, it just one PR. Why? Why do they do this? Because he's managing, actually,
actually has a team to do more PRs. So it's a very strange, strange thing. And I think the
management will be improved. And I see the improvement in the big commonly. So maybe it will,
good. And I think the policy, I have mentioned the central plan,
staff from the 2018. So I think Dipsick last year is encouraged many Chinese government
and the companies say, oh, open source is the very best way to spread our, spread our project.
I think Dipsick is a very unique example. But the open source, the wind is blowing the whole
country and the industry. So maybe last year and the till now, there are so many open source
projects start from the, so many open source start up. And especially in AI technology. And
government funding, they will give some money to the company. And the company will say, oh,
I get your subsidy. And I will give you some, show you some outcomes that is open source project.
So Chinese government do much of this. And this year Beijing Shanghai and Hangzhou,
there are so many policies to give the subsidy to the company. Then the company will contribute
to some open source project. But the open source project may be not the Western open source project.
It's on and that via the Chinese company. So maybe it's invisible here. But it's a very
popular in China because they want to show their outcome to a Chinese, uh, yeah, also two, two minutes.
Okay. So I think a risk five, many people know a China's chip industry, uh, use risk five.
Because risk five is a, as I say, the you harbor because it's not controlled by American
foundations. So and the many, uh, many projects like robotics and the humanoid is, uh,
combine the open source and the open data to, uh, to do that, that, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
that, that industry. But I don't see any of them come to Boston. Maybe they just focus on
their customer. And there's no customer here. We, we are just a community member, right? So yeah, yeah.
So, uh, just one minute. So maybe let me, uh, okay. Uh, I just pick the, uh, uh, let's say,
market. Uh, uh, after the COVID, the Chinese economy is not so good, uh, uh, then before. So many
little or the median little, uh, uh, uh, enterprise. They say, if we don't open source, then we will
die. Okay. Why they want to open source? Because, um, they cannot sell to the domestic market
because the Chinese, uh, the customer in China, they won't pay, uh, they won't pay. Even, uh, uh,
uh, uh, uh, perpetrator or open source, they won't pay. So they want to, uh, share this open source
product to the whole world. And maybe some from European, some from US, they will pay for the, uh,
uh, the, the commercial edition, or something like that. So it's not about expansion. It's about
die or survival. Yeah. So, uh, uh, economic detonation is a very, uh, very big issue. And so open source
as a support and the monetization and it's some, some American US capital will invest some Chinese,
uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, to, uh, raise the money and the US market, not only open source one, for example,
a mannus is a acquired by Meta, right? So, so, so mannus is a very, uh, good example. Mannus is a, uh,
is a Wuhan team. And the, uh, headquarters goes to Singapore and then a acquired by Meta, just one year.
And the evaluation is very high.
So I think there's a new normal for China's staff
to go abroad.
OK, so actually, I'm from Kyivinsa,
and we have our goal is to keep talking
and that we want to build a bridge between Western
and the Chinese open source community.
We are the first OSI affiliate organization
in China, and I'm the co-founder of Kyivinsa.
So I think if you're interested to talk to me,
you can add me on Lincoln, even Lincoln
is not open source, that's powerful.
But yeah, I know, I know.
But sometimes, oh, you can send me email,
reach out at the Kyivinsa.org.
So you can find me at the Kyivinsa's booth
in the K-24.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Richard.