Open Source Participation Gains Support In China 35
eldavojohn writes "ZDNet blogger Fred Muller notes that a Chinese company called Taobao has become one of the first in the country to participate in open source. After years of Chinese companies using Linux, Taobao has announced they are open sourcing TAIR, and they revealed what is believed by Muller to be the first open source repository hosted by a Chinese corporation. Muller tracked down the originator of this information and was also informed that the Linux kernel can expect contributions soon from Taobao. Several people involved with bringing open source to China have expressed concerns over a cultural divide (PDF) in regards to opening your corporation's source code to potential competition. Some people speculated that the culture created by an open source movement was irreversibly foreign to Chinese culture. Taobao is exhibiting cracks in that assumption — exciting times for open source advocates as code contributions to open source become even more multicultural."
Verify, then trust (Score:4, Interesting)
While I've seen China do a lot of innovative things, one thing I've learned from Western scientists working in China is that you should Verify first, before trusting.
Remember, the normal response to any question there is "Yes", even when they intend to do absolutely nothing.
Re:Verify, then trust (Score:2, Interesting)
The stories I could tell you about buildings that look - in front, as if they were high tech research labs - but inside they're just hollow shells.
Remember, if you're a project manager for an Open Source app, don't just accept the Yes response when you assign tasks - and don't accept the code until you've had someone else validate it functions per spec.
There are some fine and brilliant coders and scientists in China - just be aware that it may be a problem sometimes.
OpenCog (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Verify, then trust (Score:2, Interesting)
This is really just about your inter-cultural skills. While the Chinese will not use the "no" word literally, an experienced Chinese has no trouble distinguishing a yes that means yes and a yes that means no.
Naturally you're free to choose to not to be bothered and just ignore their contributions.