Social Coding Site Github Unblocked and Accessible Again in China
techinasia.com
techinasia.com
It's sad and it's frustrating and it really makes you wonder how China is ever going to really transition away from a heavy industry / copycat technology economy.
Annoying that their issues/other data go up in smoke and they lose the OSS aspect of github.
This is a fundamental problem with totalitarian regimes that oppress their people. A key part of denying people freedom is preventing free exchange of information. Happily, though, the leading edge of economic success seems to increasingly rely on unfettered flow of knowledge and information.
This is, overall, good for the free world, as advances in information technology yield increased productivity for both organizations and individuals. It is not that good for autocratic regimes like the USSR and China, because they have to actively fight the tide of improving technology -- which both consumes energy and keeps their population less knowledgeable/capable, thereby disadvantaging them in the increasingly information- and knowledge-dependent modern economy.
My point was more narrowly that the current system of government there, and the lack of information freedom the automatically comes with it, presents a serious obstacle for innovative businesses (particularly anything to do with computing, mobile, and internet, a huge swath of the modern economy).