Traditionally, China doesn't have a strong open source culture and Github was being blocked every now and then. Hopefully a Github clone backed by big players can change that.
The code hosting service under discussion is based on Gitlab, developed and operated by CSDN staff. Tencent became a sponsor this year.
And because there are not enough open source projects and contributors in China, we are instead building user community around open source projects at first. It will be a little different with Github way.
I have been involved with the community for many years... and therefore I do not completely agree with your statement: "there are not enough open source projects and contributors in China". We have them, and they generally contribute directly to the projects involved (as it should be as you do not want to create islands/insular projects). Local (and localized) initiatives are great and I hope this is what you meant.
The open sources community in China is still small and lack solid industry support. We should build a bigger community and let more people have the ability and will to contribute.
Imagine Github offers a way for organizaitons to publish news! So instead of me going to blog.mozilla.org or blog.github.com to find out what's going on, I can just subscribe to an organization, get a newsfeed of their latest releases and announcement, and highlight commits (ex: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/59) !
I don't have time to implement this as an idea, but I think Github has that resource to implement it.
The use of highly cluttered web designs is also a distinctly East Asian phenomenon, but I'm not sure what the cultural explanation for that would be. It's especially odd to see it in Japan, where a more sparse aesthetic dominated the traditional culture.
I'm not 100% sure either, but the explanation given in http://www.tofugu.com/2012/05/15/japanese-web-design-why-you... seems not too far off.
:+1: for follow an organization
Not "legally/officially open source" at least, but for some other definitions of "open", the culture is definitely there. :-)
"GitCafe is amazing!"
edit: here is a list from 2012: http://www.ithome.com/html/it/25225.htm
chart 1, 2, 3: Shenzhen, Shahai, Bejing
chart 4, 5, 6: worldwide, US, India
Since many Chinese projects are system-level and scientific. Plus there is a huge gaming industry in China.
Proof: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=erlang%2C%20golang%2C...
look at xiaomi phone; android phone with iOS feel
(1) explains why they would clone something as mundane (and not wildly profitable) as github (as linked elsewhere in these comments). (2) explains why I have heard Singaporean friends from school say, lets make a Singaporean Yelp! Westerners say, lets make a yelp for <different purpose>. (3) explains why they would want their own forums and "public spaces."
These reasons seem as plausible (and a lot less malicious) than merely, the Chinese copy everything for fun and profit (even though there are elements of that elsewhere), and I think it's worth thinking about these differences in culture, because it helps us look into our own faults.
Another reason specific to China is that it's downright impossible for a foreign company to operate an internet service there, the required licenses are incredibly complex to acquire. For instance, in order for Microsoft to launch Azure in China, they had to partner up with the biggest Chinese hosting company (21Vianet).
Copying and improving is the safest way to gain attractions from the public when you cannot afford the risk of being ignored.
There is a business strategy called market follower strategy.
1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/04/22/the-githu...
