China state-backed firm apologises for ‘home developed’ software based on Microsoft source code
- Digital Guangdong published an apology after it was revealed that its CEC-IDE software application was based on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code
- Chinese authorities have demanded ‘safe and controllable’ technology for key infrastructure, prompting some firms to make false claims to win business
A Guangdong-based state-backed enterprise in charge of e-government projects in the Southern Chinese province has apologised 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.
The incident comes as many Chinese tech firms, including software developers, are trying to prove that their systems are self-developed so they qualify for use by government and state-owned clients.
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. In May, Shenzhen-based Powerleader announced a “home-developed” Powerstar P3-01105 CPU, but the chip was later found to be identical to Intel’s Core i3-10105 Comet Lake CPU.
DigitalGD was incorporated in October 2017 to “promote digital government reform and development in Guangdong”, according to its website. It is jointly funded by the state-owned China Electronics Corp (CEC), Guangdong government’s venture capital arm Technology Financial Group, as well as Tencent Holdings, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, with more than 2,000 employees.
The firm has developed several e-government service projects, including online apps that help Guangdong residents obtain government documents, according to its website. The company launched CEC-IDE, along with five other products, in June, promoting it as “China’s first IDE tool that adapts to the domestic operating systems and is self-controllable”.
The market for IDEs, or integrated development environment tools, is dominated by a few foreign companies, including Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. Microsoft, whose name was not directly mentioned in DigitalGD’s statement, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The CEC-IDE raised the hackles of many Chinese programmers. In a recent post on online programmer community GitHub, some users said they found the software too similar to Microsoft’s version, and were ashamed of DigitalGD.
“It is disgraceful that the company advertised the product as home-grown, even though the MIT protocol allows for such modifications,” commented a GitHub user with the handle “Meepoljdx”.
DigitalGD said in its latest statement that the product started testing in July and has yet to enter commercial use. The official web page of the CEC-IDE has been disabled as of Tuesday.
