Game's changed in 6 yrs: open source ecosystem thrives

Chen Bo, a 37-year-old software developer with Beijing-based Cheetah Mobile, remembers clearly how isolated and closed China's software environment was in 2010. That was a time when the mobile internet revolution was taking hold of the world's most populous country.

"Every app developer saw his or her software codes as the most precious assets and would never share them with others. You could say the scene was equivalent to people securing their family jewelry in plastic wraps and locking it in burglar-resistant safes," Chen said.

That was also a time when even employees were allowed access to only a part of the codes they were working on, to pre-empt information leaks to competitors.