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I think for a lot of software businesses there is a truism that "your competition doesn't want your code, they think you're morons and you think they're morons.

I think for a lot of software businesses there is a truism that "your competition doesn't want your code, they think you're morons and you think they're morons." But in the hardware game there is a lot of counterfeiting. There is rarely any shame or consequence when it comes to outright IP theft. Making it easier to access the firmware makes it easier for someone to counterfeit your widget.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
from my experience it's: You think the public facing representatives (management etc.) are morons, because you think their strategy for working in the same space sucks unless you think your company is totally blowing it and you are on your way out but you don't think their programmers are morons so much (except when you examine site and it performs worse than yours for obvious reasons that you fixed on yours) but if they roll out a really cool feature you can implement in your product you will write code to implement that feature and not wish you had their code because anyway your stuff is incompatible codebases unless you get bought by them or they get bought by you or you both merge because you are in fact compatible and this way something beautiful will emerge yeah right.
- nullc 7y ago
  Your stuff stinks because of annoying tradeoffs and business constraints, their stuff stinks because they're idiots.
baroffoos 7y ago
Firmware and drivers are different though. If the firmware was totally locked down then the drivers would be no use for a clone and if the firmware was taken but the drivers were proprietary the clone could just use the exact same driver binary.
- jrockway 7y ago
  > the clone could just use the exact same driver binary This certainly caused FTDI a lot of trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI#Driver_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI#Driver_controversy

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

from my experience it's: You think the public facing representatives (management etc.) are morons, because you think their strategy for working in the same space sucks unless you think your company is totally blowing it and you are on your way out but you don't think their programmers are morons so much (except when you examine site and it performs worse than yours for obvious reasons that you fixed on yours) but if they roll out a really cool feature you can implement in your product you will write code to implement that feature and not wish you had their code because anyway your stuff is incompatible codebases unless you get bought by them or they get bought by you or you both merge because you are in fact compatible and this way something beautiful will emerge yeah right.

nullc 7y ago
Your stuff stinks because of annoying tradeoffs and business constraints, their stuff stinks because they're idiots.

baroffoos 7y ago

Firmware and drivers are different though. If the firmware was totally locked down then the drivers would be no use for a clone and if the firmware was taken but the drivers were proprietary the clone could just use the exact same driver binary.

jrockway 7y ago
> the clone could just use the exact same driver binary This certainly caused FTDI a lot of trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI#Driver_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI#Driver_controversy