China’s government-anointed Git operator says it will become a Linux Foundation mirror

Starting with just two projects - Baetyl and EdgeX - but eventually all code will be shared behind Great Firewall

A Chinese Git-as-a-service outfit named “Gitee” claims it has struck a deal with the Linux Foundation to mirror its projects behind the great firewall.

In August 2020 Gitee announced that a consortium of ten companies and Open Source China had chosen it to provide the collaborative and open facilities outlined in China’s 2016-2020 Software and Information Technology Service Industry Development Plan.

Gitee is now considered China’s de facto Git service. While it is not clear why Gitee got the gig over its rivals, it is known that China is not a fan of GitHub and has blocked it more than once on account of the free-wheeling commentary that can be found alongside code.

Which brings us to this week when Gitee announced that it has formed a “cooperative relationship” with The Linux Foundation that will see the Foundation’s projects mirrored to the Chinese service.

The collaboration is starting with just two projects - the edge computing project Baetyl and the industrial IoT edge computing framework EdgeX Foundry – but Gitee says over time it will mirror all Linux Foundation projects.

Gitee’s announcement, processed by online translation tools, says the new relationship “demonstrates the Linux Foundation’s recognition of Gitee in the domestic open source industry.”

The Linux Foundation has confirmed the new relationship. ®