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ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

bbc.com

141–150 of 256 posts

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#141
post #16

How long would it take Huawei (or a bunch of Chinese companies) to develop MIPS or RISC-V based phones? Too long to run out of cash (given that their sales for the foreseeable future just cratered) - or doable?

I'd guess on the order of 5 years. Taking silicon from idea to mass production is something that takes a long time and this isn't something that Huawei has done before. EDIT: Apparently Huawei has been developing their own ARM cores via architectural liscence so they might be able to hack together a poor solution in less time than that by sticking with ARM in the short term and they might be able to get a decent MIPS…

Not just developing. They did a tapeout.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an IP lawyer who has been involved in several cases involving Chinese appropriation of trade secrets and/or patents ... it’s real. Smart companies don’t even try any more, just accept that if they do any business with any Chinese nationals, their secrets will be exfiltrated. And if you patent something, it will be used in China and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just an accepted cost of doing business t…

Can you give a good example similar to what you experienced? The issue is that we read daily about ridiculous patents.

I have noticed that the “reader mode” feature in UC Browser, the most popular browser in China, directly lifted the JavaScript from a similar feature in an American company’s product. Internal bug references, and all.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#143
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're advanced enough, there is no need for you do to IP. Maybe the risk is not worth it or there is nothing to gain from it. It's the same argument with the open markets. When you're already a developed economy, open markets benefit you since you have the best products, your production facilities are in place and you can offer both quantity, quality and reasonable prices. But when you are a developing nation,…

Yes, and Britain had full sovereignty to defend itself. If the British chose not to, it’s because they valued trade with the US over the cost of IP. The US may choose the opposite with China.

Well, that was immediately after the UK had lost the war of independence, so their options may have been rather limited.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're advanced enough, there is no need for you do to IP. Maybe the risk is not worth it or there is nothing to gain from it. It's the same argument with the open markets. When you're already a developed economy, open markets benefit you since you have the best products, your production facilities are in place and you can offer both quantity, quality and reasonable prices. But when you are a developing nation,…

Also let's not forget about Operation Paperclip. You can toss the moral high ground out of the door. "Operation Paperclip was a secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) largely carried out by Special Agents of Army CIC, in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, such as Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, were taken from Germany to America for U.S. governme…

The only unethical part of that was exempting them from war crimes trials; although I think that was only really relevant to those directly ordering the use of forced labour in the V2 programme. The rest were treated as some combination of prisoner of war, asylum seeker, and defector. They didn't exactly want to remain in Germany to be captured by the Soviets.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#145
post #96
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's a Chinese SoC company. I'm wondering if the fight between US and China will widen to any SoC companies in the long term.

Probably not, you can only escalate this trade war so many times before it becomes unsustainable by one or both parties. China will probably retaliate by banning a major US tech company, maybe Apple? Keep doing this a couple of times and pressure/lobbying/economic damage will force a resolution.

If China bans iPhones I'm 100% positive they'll just be smuggled in.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah like US rules the world and US laws should apply to everyone! Then don't be surprised if the rest of the world prefer Chinese because as of today the last imperialistic power is the USA. By the way nobody outside of the US voted for your smart president.

US laws should not apply to everyone, but in practice they do, sort of. The most prominent example is internet services censoring nipples due to US stupidity.

US laws apply to everyone because US laws are extraterritorial in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#147
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a naive thinking. Advances in software industry are purely intellectual so it doesn't involve heavy cost, which is why open source idea can work and be argued that it promotes innovation. Say you are a pharmaceutical company developing a new drug, investing billions of dollars. If there is no IP, why do it? You need to wake up to reality.

You could pay researchers with money from taxes, then you will get more research into important problems and less into rich people concerns like baldness and beauty creams. Mathematicians,physicists also do a lot of research and they do not ask you to pay them to use their findings.

Central economic planning doesn't have an especially good track record. While one could certainly argue that market economies put a lot of resources into things that aren't important or good for the world, they've done better over the past 100 years at not having people starving to death.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#148
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information Feudalism (Drahos & Braithwaite) has lots more on this subject. After both world wars there was a lot of .. forced technology transfer from Germany.

Not only technology per se, but without critical Nazi Germany people like Von Braun, US wouldn't send anybody to the moon in 60s. Or all the knowledge happily taken and used from Mendelesque cruel inhuman 'research' done in concentration camps. AFAIK no researcher was morally above and simply refused to work with those data.

> Or all the knowledge happily taken and used from Mendelesque cruel inhuman 'research' done in concentration camps. AFAIK no researcher was morally above and simply refused to work with those data.

So I've had cause to research this one in the past.

"All the knowledge"--most of the Nazi concentration camp research was absolute garbage. Turns out junk-science sadists create junk-science results and it is generally accepted that the overwhelming bulk Nazi concentration camp research was useless or near-useless as actual scientific research. I am unaware of any value being derived from the Josef Mengele work that you seem to be referring to--Gregor MenDel died sixty years before World War II, but please correct me if you're referring to someone else.

Some research from the Nazi concentration camp experiments is occasionally referred to, low-pressure/high-altitude research out of Dachau being arguably, as I understand it, the most valuable. (The other common cite, Rascher's freezing tests, were on nonrepresentative subjects and indicate that the moderate freezing that is safely and ethically studied is amplified, but does not step change, when freezing becomes extreme.) Where this data is used, it does not generally form the main body of research and mostly confirms what is known from other sources.

"Happily"--in the (rare) cases where Nazi findings are used, it's used with reluctance. There are evolving and hardening ethical codes around the use of this data as well, particularly from the 1980s onward; today, the use of any of this data must be explicitly detailed and the method of its collection is universally condemned.

Most troublingly for the pursuit of truth and some kind of decency, this argument typically is used as an ahistorical tu quoque, as is being done in this case. It's not a particularly good argument, though--even were it more than if-you-squint-and-pick-and-choose true.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#149
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huawei is most likely to start relying on open source tech, since they're under so much scrutiny that's the best way to show they're being above board. Most of the Shenzhen ecosystem is based on open-source ideas and tech, and China has seen an enormous level of innovation by doing so. Why should they partner / share with EU economies who are trying to regulate them out of existence?

Partnering up with EU helps legitimize them outside China, and opens up a huge market. If they're already partnering up to do 5G deployment in EU, it makes sense to continue creating closer ties.

As a consumer, I want to be able to access Huawei and OnePlus tech - I don't care frankly if they are 'legitimised' in the eyes of politicians who may only want to protect national industries.

If OnePlus make a smartphone that is £300 cheaper than an iPhone XR and offers roughly the same functionality, shouldn't I be able to buy it independent of what politicians think?

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#150

It's a pretty bold move by ARM to stop working with Huawei even if it does believe that it's affected by the American ban. It seems like it's very likely to damage their image in the eyes of other non-western technology firms who could end up on America's radar. Won't a lot of execs be scratching their heads thinking, "what if we're next to be cut off in this trade war?"

If it does or does not believe it is affected by the ban, it's bankers will tell it that it is yes involved.
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