Controversy arises over recipient of Chinese science prize

Nature : China’s National Natural Science Award is so highly prized by Chinese government officials that they don’t award it in years when they don’t think a suitable recipient is available. Now, the computer scientist that received the award in January has been accused of copying open-source software and claiming it as original work. Zhang Yaoxue of Tsinghua University was awarded the prize for a computer program that allows access to multiple operating systems on a remote computer. But Chinese social media users soon pointed out that Zhang’s work appeared to be heavily based on an open-source program available on the software sharing site GitHub. The author of that program, Iordan Iordanov, a Bulgarian-born Canadian, had posted his software under a license allowing anyone to use the program as long as they did not claim copyright. The Chinese government has acknowledged the allegations, but has not said whether they will have any effect on Zhang’s award.