I find this argument difficult as this is kind of how China operates. This free sharing of IP was claimed to enable untold amounts of innovation. However what I

I find this argument difficult as this is kind of how China operates. This free sharing of IP was claimed to enable untold amounts of innovation. However what I actually see for the most part is a market flooded by shitty clones of original IP. For example, take this dumb phone[1]. It is powered by a Mediatek processor whose IP is freely shared. The innovation that resulted is not something better like an iPhone. Instead 1000s of different shells or an additional button here or there. [0]: https://hackaday.com/tag/mt6260/ https://hackaday.com/tag/mt6260/ [1]:http://bunniefoo.com/fernvale/fernvale-phone-spread.jpg http://bunniefoo.com/fernvale/fernvale-phone-spread.jpg I guess this scenario might be a bit different since we are talking about software...but i'm not so sure.