The Text

Let’s begin with so-called lifesaving OpenArkCompiler (方舟编译器).¹

1. The site certificate expired on July 9, 2020, which means you can only access the code either from the link in home page or Gitee (Chinese alternative for GitHub and Gitlab),² which means NOBODY bothers to fix it, or sadly, no one is really using it.
2. You are not allowed to access the source code via Gitee without login or with a foreign IP outside China.
3. They recommend using Ubuntu 16.04, while Ubuntu 18.04 was released when they released the compiler. (It does make sense though, as the development of compilers may cost them YEARS.)
4. They said they welcome contribution while at the same time their site got an expired certificate preventing people from reporting issues.
5. They claimed to open source more components this year, which turns out to be nothing.
6. They “planned” to open English version of the website in 2019 Q4 and… as you see, mid-2020 becomes history without it.
7. By the time they release it, they still use MD5SUM which is horribly obsolete and vulnerable while the source code is just 5.6MB, which is rather stupid and ultimately shows their ignorance🙃.³
8. They have a news column and its activeness is as good as its neighbors, and as good as it was in January, 2020.
9. In the bottom of the website there is a legal notice, which turns out to be no better than those dictatorial EULAs.
10. They use Mulan License, which is actually beneficial for Chinese open source community (but sadly, not free software community). The confusing part for some is that it takes Chinese version as the benchmark.

Just don’t feel lucky for getting a chance to get rid of monopolies like Google and Apple.

EOF

Update on Feb 3, 2021: Go read it yourself and find out how 💩 as it was.

Huawei’s HarmonyOS: “Fake it till you make it” meets OS development - Ars Technica

Postscript

The write-up was originally posted in my (deprecated) Telegram channel, and is reposted here as Mr. Durov grabbed the good old @hoaxos username of mine without notice.