Still (@still@infosec.exchange)
infosec.exchange
Attached: 3 images tldr: GitCode or China is attempting to mirror/clone the entire GitHub over to their own servers and there's nothing you can do about it, even if your license somehow disagrees with it. Apparently China now has their own GitHub/public Git repository hosting service called GitCode; it is owned and operated by CSDN under the company name "重庆开源共创科技有限公司". It is being reported that many users' repository are being cloned and re-hosted on GitCode without authorization - meaning your project may very well be on this service without you explicitly allowing.

GitCode, a git-hosting website operated Chongqing Open-Source Co-Creation Technology Co Ltd and with technical support from CSDN and Huawei Cloud.

It is being reported that many users’ repository are being cloned and re-hosted on GitCode without explicit authorization.

There is also a thread on Ycombinator (archived link)

  • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
    1235·
    4 months ago

    The vast majority of projects on GitHub is open-source and forkable, why would that need authorization?

    It’s… suspicious that China’s doing it en masse, but there’s nothing wrong in cloning or forking a repo last i heard.

    • passepartout@feddit.orgEnglish
      1103·
      4 months ago

      It’s not about authorization. They want to build a knowledge base for when the Great Firewall gets some more filters. Just like russias mirror of wikipedia which is heavily edited to discredit the west.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        384·
        4 months ago

        And under copyleft licensing, they’re allowed to do that. Both to GitHub repositories and Wikipedia.

        • passepartout@feddit.orgEnglish
          402·
          4 months ago

          Of course they are, it’s not like there is some kind of international jurisdiction anyway. What is bothersome is why they do it.

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            Even if there was jurisdiction, anyone in the world is entitled to do it by the very licenses these works are released under.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          Hopefully they follow the rest of the stipulations of the licenses, such as the common one about keeping the license as such and contributing the changes back.

      • 31337@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        6·
        4 months ago

        This seems like the most plausible explanation. Only other thing I can think of is they want to develop their own CoPilot (which I’m guessing isn’t available in China due to the U.S. AI restrictions?), and they’re just using their existing infrastructure to gather training data.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1321·
        4 months ago

        Just like russias mirror of wikipedia which is heavily edited to discredit the west.

        How come I live in Russia and have never seen such?

        I know only of quite a few troll\counterculture projects, some, like Lurkmore, are already, well, dead, some, like Traditsiya, are not.

        That, of course, if you don’t mean that Russian Wikipedia in itself has problems. Which would be true.

        • passepartout@feddit.orgEnglish
          331·
          4 months ago

          It’s called Ruwiki.

          It was launched in June 24, 2023 as a fork of the Russian Wikipedia, and has been described by some media groups as “Putin-friendly” and “Kremlin-compliant”.