China State-Backed Firm Apologizes For 'Home Developed' Software Based On Microsoft Source Code (scmp.com) 44
An anonymous reader writes: A Guangdong-based state-backed enterprise in charge of e-government projects in the Southern Chinese province has apologized after admitting that its "home-developed" software was based on open-source code from US tech giant Microsoft. Digital Guangdong, known as DigitalGD, published an apology last week after it was revealed that its CEC-IDE software application, which helps programmers write code, was based on Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code), with just minor modifications and certain functions added.
VS Code is available under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology licence, a permissive open source licence allowing for reuse even for commercial purposes. DigitalGD said this fact was not disclosed due to "negligence," and admitted that its description of its software as "self-developed" has met scrutiny and doubt from Chinese programmers. "We are deeply sorry and humiliated for this, and relevant teams have been ordered to make rectifications," the company said. "Chinese authorities have repeatedly demanded 'safe and controllable' hardware and software for key infrastructure, rewarding businesses for indigenous innovations, but this has motivated some companies to make false claims about their products," notes the South China Morning Post.
A similar incident happened in May when a Shenzhen-based Powerleader announced a "home developed" Powerstar P3-01105 CPU that was later revealed to be Intel's Core i3-10105 Comet Lake CPU.
VS Code is available under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology licence, a permissive open source licence allowing for reuse even for commercial purposes. DigitalGD said this fact was not disclosed due to "negligence," and admitted that its description of its software as "self-developed" has met scrutiny and doubt from Chinese programmers. "We are deeply sorry and humiliated for this, and relevant teams have been ordered to make rectifications," the company said. "Chinese authorities have repeatedly demanded 'safe and controllable' hardware and software for key infrastructure, rewarding businesses for indigenous innovations, but this has motivated some companies to make false claims about their products," notes the South China Morning Post.
A similar incident happened in May when a Shenzhen-based Powerleader announced a "home developed" Powerstar P3-01105 CPU that was later revealed to be Intel's Core i3-10105 Comet Lake CPU.
Most software is based on someone else's code (Score:1)
Who writes software from scratch these days?
Re:Most software is based on someone else's code (Score:4, Funny)
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In this case, there was nothing wrong done - although the government got embarrassed, so perhaps that counts as "something wrong" from their point of view.
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The article is about a company apologizing for lying about their software after getting called on it by people on the Internet. The mention of the government giving consideration for products made locally is suggesting that it was likely the motive but there is nothing about the government being embarrassed.
Re: Most software is based on someone else's code (Score:2)
Re:apologies are cheaper than actually paying (Score:4, Insightful)
They paid just as much for VS Code as Microsoft paid for BSD's TCP/IP stack.
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Its something I dont understand. Some of the finest coders and engineers I've worked with have been chinese dudes. But Chinese companies just dont want to spend money on R&D even though the talent to pull off amazing shit is *right there*. If they just spent a little less money mass producing low-margin knockoffs , spent it on solid R&D they could be making far more money on higher margin quality stuff.
This is how Japan turned its reputation from mass producer of shit knock-offs to a country thats a
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China spent around USD 450 billion on R&D in 2022. The US spent around USD 700 billion. So it's less, but more than the EU at around USD 320 billion.
It's paid off too. The 3D printer market is dominated by Chinese companies, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. They are producing all kinds of high quality CNC gear, laser cutters, and other fabrication equipment. Home lab to factory scale.
They have the best EV batteries and some of the best cars. They are ahead in telecoms and wireless, hence the atta
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If you're paying for Open Source software then you've been suckered.
Hardly the first Chinese IDE anyway (Score:2)
Re:China is a nation of people (Score:5, Informative)
posting anonymously due to moderation, just to inform you that you misunderstood a couple of things: first, massachusetts institute of technology has no relation to this except they once (1980) created the software license document that microsoft used to license their code. second, the changes they did are apparently perfectly covered by this license, which is particularly permissive, so no wrongdoing whatsoever in that regard.
so what they did was totally legal, they simply lied about it. tfa implies they did so to access government rewards or recognition.
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They lied and got a reward for it. Doesn't that sound an awful lot like fraud, which could be illegal. That's independent of whether they violated the software license or copyrights.
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I doubt an apology is going to be enough for the leadership.
Re:China is a nation of people (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some interesting things going on here.
Recently a court in China confirmed that the GPL v3 is valid there, so open source in general has legal protections under Chinese law. That seems to have been the concern here - anyone could build and distribute their product for free.
Open source has been making inroads in China in the last few years. For example, many 3D printers use open source firmware with zero or minimal modifications, which is great because it means long term support and no proprietary formats or APIs.
About the CPU, in fact Chinese partners have been releasing re-branded versions of Western CPUs for years. There are AMD Zen based parts that are produced on an older process node and with certain subsystems replaced (primarily the crypto and TRNG, so they can get government contracts) on the market, produced under licence. Once the fabs catch up we will probably see a lot more Chinese designed x86 parts (using the old VIA licence). There are a couple of companies producing original design GPUs as well, although they only have driver support for a handful of games popular in the Chinese market. Along with RISC V threatening ARM due to sanctions, we need to keep a close eye on this and stay competitive.
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There are at least two AMD and VIA/Centaur/IDT clones licensed to China joint-ventures and built in the same fabs (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, etc.).
Their CPUIDs are HygonGenuine (AMD) and Zhaoxin (VIA).
Re:China is a nation of people (Score:4, Informative)
The Chinese government is not perfect, and neither is any government.
That is trivially true, but what does not follow from it is that no government is better than any other government, in case you were implying that.
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I appreciate apologies far more than doubled down lies, no matter the source.
They aren't apologizing to you or I, or anyone else except for the CCP government. They were instructed, by that government, to use home grown code for fear of "evil American" infiltration. They said they did, but they really didn't, because it's hard.
We aren't the audience they're talking to.
Schroedinger's copycat. (Score:5, Insightful)
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So your definition of "the problem" is whatever the CCP says it is? LOL, bruh. Read news like an adult. Copycatting is THE problem in China.
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Morality is not universal.
In a low trust society, it is ok to lie, cheat, steal if you can get away with it. It is the other party's fault for not checking carefully. If you get away with it, then big win for you. If you get caught, you failed. It is a big disgrace to fail.
In a high trust society it is not ok to lie, cheat, and steal. People still do it, but even the suspicion is shameful.
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Based on Microsoft code? (Score:1)
They should apologize for _incompetence_! Nobody sane will base anything on the crap that MS puts out.
Microsoft has done worse in the past (Score:2, Informative)
DOS 6.0 used pirated code, and I think a few other versions had to be withdrawn for the same reason. Yet Microsoft faced insignificant consequences for their actions. So, from my POV, the Chinese were at least somewhat honest - albeit after some time - which is more than Microsoft were, and so those involved should face lesser penalties than the knuckle rap that Microsoft vaguely felt.
(Internet Exploder and SQL Server are legally bought programs, so even though they claim them as their own software, it's di
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So, from my POV
the problem with your POV is that you haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about. pro tip: actually read past the clickbait headlines and you will maybe avoid embarrassing yourself.
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In this case the software (VS Code) is open source, so they didn't even steal it. They just didn't want to tell the Chinese government where they got it from, because the government is paranoid about anything originating from the US.
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Nope. DOS 6.0 did not use pirated code. The problem with DOS 6.0 was DoubleSpace, which violated a couple of Stac's drive compression patents. So it wasn't pirated code, but rather simple patent infringement.
In the end, the jury found that the patent infringement did happen, but was not willful, so Microsoft had to pay roughly $5.50 for each copy of DOS 6 to Stac as a license fee. (I think MS-DOS retailed ar
English (Score:2)
Assuming the translation is good, that's a professional-grade apology by a psychology expert.
It sounds like somebody removed the MIT LICENSE file and replaced it with a claim of original authorship?
Automated translation:
They should apologize! (Score:1)
Microsoft code is terrible. Whoever based their project on it should be fired for gross incompetence.
Sorry we got caught stealing. (Score:2)
We so sorry (Score:2)
we got caught.
They wouldn't apologize if they'd killed someone. (Score:2)
ASIAir is another example of Chinese theft (Score:2)
Add Loongson CPUs to that list (Score:2)
Add Loongson CPUs to that list. They're heavily based on MIPS64 and are fabricated by STMicroelectronics. At least they licensed the intellectual property for MIPS this time.
China continues to insist that the Loonsoon architecture is "indigenous" technology, too.
Deeply humiliated (Score:2)
"We are deeply sorry and humiliated for this, and relevant teams have been ordered to make rectifications," the company said.
It's good to know China doesn't just get humiliated when another country says something true about them, but also when they call themselves out.
(I'm referring to the fact that Chinese media always complains "the West is humiliating us!" as though that meant the West shouldn't have said whatever it said. There was a popular song that satirized this: Fragile [wikipedia.org].)