Open Source China

Open Source China, operating under the domain oschina.net, is a significant entity in China's open-source landscape, established to foster a domestic ecosystem for developers. The company was founded by a programmer known as "Hong Shu" (Red薯). Joining him are CEO Ma Yue and COO Xu Yong. The initial website, oschina.net, went live on August 31, 2008, with the formal company, Shenzhen OSC Network Technology Co., Ltd., being established in 2011.

The firm's core operation is a comprehensive community platform providing IT developers with resources to discover, use, and discuss open-source technology. A pivotal moment in its history was the 2013 launch of a cloud-based collaborative development platform, which evolved into the widely recognized Gitee (gitee.com). Gitee, often compared to GitHub, is a Git-based code repository and DevOps platform that serves as the company's flagship product. While acknowledging early inspiration from GitHub, the founders emphasize that Gitee has since developed features tailored to the needs of Chinese developers. The platform has grown to host over 28 million repositories and serve 12 million developers.

Open Source China's business model revolves around its Gitee platform, which offers tiered services including a free community edition, along with paid Enterprise, Professional, and University editions that provide advanced features for corporate clients and educational institutions. The company generates revenue through these premium offerings and has also launched an enterprise crowdfunding platform. Strategic investments from major technology players like Baidu and Huawei in 2019 and 2020, respectively, have provided significant capital backing. Furthermore, in 2020, Gitee was selected by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to be the foundation of the country's national open-source code hosting platform, solidifying its strategic importance.

Beyond code hosting, oschina.net provides a suite of tools for developers, including online API documentation, code formatting utilities, and platforms for running and sharing code snippets. The company actively engages its community through events like "Yuan Chuang Hui" and an annual awards ceremony for open-source software, both initiated in its early years. They also offer merchandise and have expanded into creating industry reports and publications to analyze trends within the Chinese open-source ecosystem.

Keywords: open source, code hosting, developer community, Gitee, DevOps, version control, software development, China, collaboration platform, enterprise software