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If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics. Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologi

If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics. Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologies like x86 die and all the experience built around then becomes irrelevant.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Opensource always wins Zero evidence of this claim at any level.
- Iolaum 8y ago
  Linux Kernel vs Windows NT kernel
  - yborg 8y ago
    In what sense did the Linux kernel "win"? Microsoft continues to make a lot of money from Windows Server. Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel.
    - zeth___ 8y ago
      That you mistake a monopoly for a victory and not a market failure says a lot more about your values than about the relative merits of open source vs closed source.
      - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > That you mistake a monopoly for a victory and not a market failure says a lot more about your values One, insulting others on this forum isn't productive. Two, our broader discussion is about Chinese technological policy. I doubt anyone in Beijing is concerned about victory by way of market failure.
    - cynwoody 8y ago
      >Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel. You forgot about Canonical. But the real point is, in the wild, the Linux kernel predominates. Every Android user is a Linux kernel user. Every Chromebook user is a Linux kernel user. Every iOS user is a Unix user. Every Google server is a Linux kernel installation. The fact is, Linux/Unix rules. Except for the corporate desktop, where Windows predominates, at least for most (uninteresting) instances of "corporate".
    - liotier 8y ago
      > Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel Only if you define making money as directly selling... A big point of free software is that it is the user who makes the money !
    - mseebach 8y ago
      Nobody makes money on Linux by selling it as a stand-alone product, obviously. Even RedHat sells support, not software. But Linux makes some of the world's most successful companies possible in the first place: Imagine either of the FANGs if they had to pay Microsoft a license on every server. I'd say that's a win. (But agree that Linux hasn't necessarily won over Windows in any general sense).
- intrasight 8y ago
  Not "evidence" (a legal term anyway) but techonomic theory: In technology, businesses strive to commoditize aspects of their competitors tech stack. As this occurs across all tech stacks, all are eventually commoditized - often in the form of opens source. Hence "open source always wins".
analognoise 8y ago
If it was smart, wouldn't the people who possess the knowledge and talent to turn sand (silicon) into borderline magic (modern nanometer fab) currently be doing that? They aren't. So they are themselves either 'not very smart' or the contributions from 'open sourcing' is not actually very valuable. I think it's the latter.
- maskedSlacker 8y ago
  Valuable for who? Open source (at the margin) is more valuable for everyone--except the inventor, for whom it is not as valuable. So the inventor keeps the design proprietary, and keeps more money for themselves. But, as is often the case, decisions that are optimal at the margin can often lead to suboptimal outcomes in aggregate. I'm not convinced that's the case in IC fabrication, but its not impossible.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  They were the first movers so they cornered the market with an inferior product. Now that China has no hope of capturing the market to extract rents the next best alternative is to make extracting rents impossible, destroying the business model of the US companies who rely on said rents. In terms of a trade war this has all the downsides of dumping products on the US firms with none of the downsides to the rest of the economy outside of the very top end of the supply side.
  - analognoise 8y ago
    'Inferior product...rent seekers' - Yeah, that's why the Soviet Union started the silicon revolution, and why the Chinese currently lead the field, right? They open sourced their fabs, and random farmers on collectives would come home (while starving) and make improvements in fab technology by candlelight. If only they had you to guide them, with your advanced knowledge of economics, trade and process technology.
    - zeth___ 8y ago
      Every communist nation had a much larger high technology sector than similarly developed capitalist nations. Unless you want to talk to me about the fabs in Portugal and Mexico in 1990 when compared to the ones in Bulgaria and the USSR you're making my point for me.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Opensource always wins Zero evidence of this claim at any level.

Iolaum 8y ago
Linux Kernel vs Windows NT kernel
- yborg 8y ago
  In what sense did the Linux kernel "win"? Microsoft continues to make a lot of money from Windows Server. Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel.
  - zeth___ 8y ago
    That you mistake a monopoly for a victory and not a market failure says a lot more about your values than about the relative merits of open source vs closed source.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > That you mistake a monopoly for a victory and not a market failure says a lot more about your values One, insulting others on this forum isn't productive. Two, our broader discussion is about Chinese technological policy. I doubt anyone in Beijing is concerned about victory by way of market failure.
  - cynwoody 8y ago
    >Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel. You forgot about Canonical. But the real point is, in the wild, the Linux kernel predominates. Every Android user is a Linux kernel user. Every Chromebook user is a Linux kernel user. Every iOS user is a Unix user. Every Google server is a Linux kernel installation. The fact is, Linux/Unix rules. Except for the corporate desktop, where Windows predominates, at least for most (uninteresting) instances of "corporate".
  - liotier 8y ago
    > Nobody but Red Hat makes any money off the Linux kernel Only if you define making money as directly selling... A big point of free software is that it is the user who makes the money !
  - mseebach 8y ago
    Nobody makes money on Linux by selling it as a stand-alone product, obviously. Even RedHat sells support, not software. But Linux makes some of the world's most successful companies possible in the first place: Imagine either of the FANGs if they had to pay Microsoft a license on every server. I'd say that's a win. (But agree that Linux hasn't necessarily won over Windows in any general sense).
intrasight 8y ago
Not "evidence" (a legal term anyway) but techonomic theory: In technology, businesses strive to commoditize aspects of their competitors tech stack. As this occurs across all tech stacks, all are eventually commoditized - often in the form of opens source. Hence "open source always wins".

analognoise 8y ago

If it was smart, wouldn't the people who possess the knowledge and talent to turn sand (silicon) into borderline magic (modern nanometer fab) currently be doing that? They aren't. So they are themselves either 'not very smart' or the contributions from 'open sourcing' is not actually very valuable. I think it's the latter.

maskedSlacker 8y ago
Valuable for who? Open source (at the margin) is more valuable for everyone--except the inventor, for whom it is not as valuable. So the inventor keeps the design proprietary, and keeps more money for themselves. But, as is often the case, decisions that are optimal at the margin can often lead to suboptimal outcomes in aggregate. I'm not convinced that's the case in IC fabrication, but its not impossible.
zeth___ 8y ago
They were the first movers so they cornered the market with an inferior product. Now that China has no hope of capturing the market to extract rents the next best alternative is to make extracting rents impossible, destroying the business model of the US companies who rely on said rents. In terms of a trade war this has all the downsides of dumping products on the US firms with none of the downsides to the rest of the economy outside of the very top end of the supply side.
- analognoise 8y ago
  'Inferior product...rent seekers' - Yeah, that's why the Soviet Union started the silicon revolution, and why the Chinese currently lead the field, right? They open sourced their fabs, and random farmers on collectives would come home (while starving) and make improvements in fab technology by candlelight. If only they had you to guide them, with your advanced knowledge of economics, trade and process technology.
  - zeth___ 8y ago
    Every communist nation had a much larger high technology sector than similarly developed capitalist nations. Unless you want to talk to me about the fabs in Portugal and Mexico in 1990 when compared to the ones in Bulgaria and the USSR you're making my point for me.