
From Gongkai to Open Source (2014) - sssilver
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297
======
userbinator
Original post here, along with some other good related articles:

[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=gongkai](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=gongkai)

[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4018](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4018)

[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284)

[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=147](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=147)
(I've been there. It's overwhelming.)

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dang
Ah, thank you. We missed that earlier.

This submission turns out to be a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8807651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8807651).

Url changed from [http://gizmodo.com/why-its-easier-to-innovate-in-china-
than-...](http://gizmodo.com/why-its-easier-to-innovate-in-china-than-in-the-
united-1709911838), which points to this, and 2014 added.

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sharetea
Serious question: lots of people claiming innovations in China. What are these
innovations in the past 20 years? Where are these innovations sold? Because
walking around the busy streets of Europe or America or Japan, I sure don't
see any Chinese brands or products that would be remotely popular. sure there
are made in China stuff ( although nowadays it's made in Vietnam or India or
Philippines).

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sremani
China joined WTO in 2000. So in a way they have a delayed start. By 2025-2030
time frame they are going to be #1 economy in absolute terms, so I would take
the article very seriously esp. in conjunction with stifling IP laws of West.
You are being dismissive and I understand where you are coming from, but in
2035 when you are walking the streets of Europe you my friend will see lot of
Chinese brands. I am not that bullish on China, but the world center of
finance is already shifting to East at a rapid pace. Taunt at your own peril.

~~~
ende
It should be notes that this was often said about Japan back in the 80's.

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throwawaykf05
While I would agree that the current IP licensing environment could be vastly
improved, I am not sure I consider putting out phones with whacky features
"innovation" in the technical sense.

This is, however, a natural outcome of the Shanzhai culture. For the life of
me I cannot find it now, but there is a fascinating article (by a well-known
sci-fi author, I think... William Gibson? Neal Stephenson?) about Shanzhai,
aspects of which TFA alludes to. It gives very good insights into the pros and
cons of the culture of sharing that underlies today's Chinese tech industry.
While one of the pros was the dizzying array of remixes it produces, one of
the cons was that it essentially removes the incentive to invest in expensive
R&D. While China is very good at the former, the West is still where the
latter happens, and I tend to attribute this to the different cultural
attitudes regarding IP.

Regarding the references to fair use and reverse engineering, there may be a
lot of FUD out there and TFA helps in dispelling some of that, but there is no
shortage of reversing in industry today. Companies regularly reverse their
competitors' products, either to ferret out technical secrets or to detect
infringement of their own IP. IANAL, but with few exceptions (like those
clauses in the DMCA regarding DRM-related mechanisms), IP laws do not forbid
prevent reverse engineering _per se_. Generally it's only when you leverage
the knowledge gained from reversing in a commercial product that you can get
into trouble.

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LiweiZ
It really depends on what innovation is about. And in the wild, you can do
whatever you want in a shorter time frame. In a more structured environment,
there is higher possibility to enjoy having innovations that requires longer
time frame. As someone said, all systems will be gamed. By looking at what we
can achieve in the wild, it's a good refresh to push for a better system for
innovation.

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Cookingboy
One thing that's amazing about China is the size of the market makes it a
perfect test bed for new product and business strategies.

Look at what Tencent did with QQ and WeChat, the kind of feature experiment
they run on a monthly basis alone is mind boggling.

Look at what Kuaidi and Didi did to work WITH the taxi industry and be
profitable, instead of fighting against the taxi industry head on like Uber is
trying to do.

These kind of "soft" innovations are just as important as "hard" innovations
such as a new processor design. In fact these kind of innovations are more
interesting to me because they are very often not predictable and nobody has a
solid "roadmap for business model", unless hard, tech roadmaps.

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halfelf
Ha, you western guys just talk like us. I never think highly of Chinese
innovation, there's just pirate. It's much more easier to protect your
innovation in west, therefore easier to publish your innovation.

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nickpsecurity
There's pirating, innovation, and both. For instance, the ShinWei processors
seem like Alpha rip-offs that got improved way beyond what Alpha did in last
models. That's their usual way of doing things: pirate for headstart, then
innovate based on labor at least.

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Animats
_" I want to be able to fork existing cell phone designs."_

Right. That's the problem. He wants to steal someone else's technology and
resell it. What he means by "innovate" is "add some tiny feature to someone
else's thing."

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azakai
That's not the article's point at all.

What the article talks about is that these technologies _are_ forkable in
China. The author wanted to do no more than what is already possible. And it
leads to an interesting discussion about IP law and practice between the West
and China. As well as a very interesting technical discussion about a specific
technology that was investigated.

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Steko
The China diagram should have a large one way blue arrow coming from the West.

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msie
Lots of engineers from China working in those Western companies. Lots of
people doing original research in Western universities come from China.

~~~
Steko
I didn't mean to suggest Chinese people can't do engineering or research, and
in fact 'the west' here is a shorthand for 'traditional IP ecosystem' that
properly includes Taiwan/Korea/Japan.

What I meant is if you're going to compare IP ecosystems you need to be
honest. The "Chinese network IP ecosystem" is not a closed loop as the diagram
suggests but is heavily subsidized by innovations from outside of that system.

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snambi
The IP flow diagram was quite confusing. How does that make a system?

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seibelj
I simply can't trust or rely upon a country where laws don't matter. Sure, in
the United States, money buys you better representation, as it does
everywhere. But in China, Russia, etc. being disliked by the government can be
a death sentence.

Start your company in China, fine. You'll move to a western country
eventually, if you get big enough, and China doesn't reform. You simply can't
trust a society where the laws don't apply equally. There isn't an Apple,
Google, or Microsoft coming out of China. Instead, you get Ali Baba and Weibo
that clone American startups.

I won't consider China a threat to American innovation until they get a true
rule of law, democracy, and intellectual property rights. This is a tall order
that won't be fulfilled anytime soon.

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gozo
I think you're illustrating quite well how people don't get China. Just
because you don't like certain things doesn't mean it won't be overshadowed by
other realities. The US is dysfunctional in many ways too, but are still a
leader in some areas.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Things happen, even in the most craziest places. And China isn't really that
crazy of a place. It is only a matter of efficiency and stability.

