Actually these kinds of practices have been used by the Chinese "shanzhai" for a while to quickly churn out products. They appear to have their own internal "G

Actually these kinds of practices have been used by the Chinese "shanzhai" for a while to quickly churn out products. They appear to have their own internal "GPL" / code of sharing that they self-enforce. From http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 : Interestingly, the shanzhai employ a concept called the “open BOM” — they share their bill of materials and other design materials with each other, and they share any improvements made; these rules are policed by community word-of-mouth, to the extent that if someone is found cheating they are ostracized by the shanzhai ecosystem.