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"Exporting?" Why is China not using an "unofficial" version? (Honest question)

alephnerd 1y ago
EDA vendors know this is a risk, so EDA tools constantly need to "phone back home" to load updates and validate licenses. Plenty of functionality falls apart as well without that connectivity or support. Furthermore, the resources that you would need to spend constantly cracking newer versions just isn't worth it when similar capital could be spent building home grown alternatives. Finally, cracking and building a clone does cause liability risks for Chinese companies attempting to expand abroad. Companies are companies first - even in China - and the appetite for Huawei getting completely blocked from all of the EU, Singapore, SK, JP, India, etc where both the large EDA vendors and Chinese vendors coexist makes it a proposition that isn't worth it.
- 15155 1y ago
  > Furthermore, the resources that you would need to spend constantly cracking newer versions just isn't worth it when similar capital could be spent building home grown alternatives. Zero of these programs have any level of copy protection remotely resembling Denuvo: no virtualization, debug symbols are commonly left intact.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    You don't need gaming style DRM like Denuvo to make it a pain. Logic Programming is hard, and bug fixes are constant - especially for anything 14nm and lower. A cracked EDA or PDK becomes useless fairly quickly if not constantly updated. And the name of the game that's happening now is offering EDAs only via SaaS - the removing a major vector for piracy.
  - shash 1y ago
    Yeah, but try using them without _constant_ support and see… even for mature nodes, even with experienced teams you keep running into tool limits that make it impossible to get anything done without going back to support.
    - vachina 1y ago
      Core functionality is typically bug free, but they do work with customers on new features, and will use those as case studies to showcase to even more customers.
- kayson 1y ago
  > EDA tools constantly need to "phone back home" to load updates and validate licenses This isn't true in my experience. Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens tools all use local license files or license servers (mainly FlexLM). Updates are just downloaded from their website.
- trebligdivad 1y ago
  You mean they stopped using FlexLM license manager that everyone knew how to hack to bits?
  - shash 1y ago
    They upgraded FlexLM.

EDA vendors know this is a risk, so EDA tools constantly need to "phone back home" to load updates and validate licenses. Plenty of functionality falls apart as well without that connectivity or support. Furthermore, the resources that you would need to spend constantly cracking newer versions just isn't worth it when similar capital could be spent building home grown alternatives. Finally, cracking and building a clone does cause liability risks for Chinese companies attempting to expand abroad. Companies are companies first - even in China - and the appetite for Huawei getting completely blocked from all of the EU, Singapore, SK, JP, India, etc where both the large EDA vendors and Chinese vendors coexist makes it a proposition that isn't worth it.

15155 1y ago
> Furthermore, the resources that you would need to spend constantly cracking newer versions just isn't worth it when similar capital could be spent building home grown alternatives. Zero of these programs have any level of copy protection remotely resembling Denuvo: no virtualization, debug symbols are commonly left intact.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  You don't need gaming style DRM like Denuvo to make it a pain. Logic Programming is hard, and bug fixes are constant - especially for anything 14nm and lower. A cracked EDA or PDK becomes useless fairly quickly if not constantly updated. And the name of the game that's happening now is offering EDAs only via SaaS - the removing a major vector for piracy.
- shash 1y ago
  Yeah, but try using them without _constant_ support and see… even for mature nodes, even with experienced teams you keep running into tool limits that make it impossible to get anything done without going back to support.
  - vachina 1y ago
    Core functionality is typically bug free, but they do work with customers on new features, and will use those as case studies to showcase to even more customers.
kayson 1y ago
> EDA tools constantly need to "phone back home" to load updates and validate licenses This isn't true in my experience. Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens tools all use local license files or license servers (mainly FlexLM). Updates are just downloaded from their website.
trebligdivad 1y ago
You mean they stopped using FlexLM license manager that everyone knew how to hack to bits?
- shash 1y ago
  They upgraded FlexLM.