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Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

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Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#31

Post by the_pwner224 »

butteroverflow wrote: post #11
blihp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source effectively is out of America or any other single jurisdiction: think of all of the people who have up to date copies of virtually every package all around the world. If the U.S. were to say tomorrow, as we used to do with cryptography, that (certain types of) software can't be shared outside of the U.S., the development of said (Open Source) software would likely just be taken over by groups outside the…

I believe the majority of FOSS developers reside in the US. You can't really pipe them out through a fiber channel.

FOSS developers like those sponsored by Google/FB/MS to make React/etc.? Sure. But FOSS developers making useful applications and sharing them with the community (think Gnome/KDE, cmus, calcurse, WINE, VLC)? From my experience there is a lot of diversity there, and also a lot of representation from Europe.

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#32

Post by jacques_chester »

blihp wrote: post #15
butteroverflow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the majority of FOSS developers reside in the US. You can't really pipe them out through a fiber channel.

In general, the developers are wherever the corporate sponsorship is these days. i.e most development on key packages these days isn't done as a labor of love by most developers anymore. Also, at least a significant fraction, if not the majority, of those doing FOSS development here in the U.S. weren't born here. Linus being a perfect example. So it's not like we have any magic pixie dust that makes U.S.-born develop…

> In general, the developers are wherever the corporate sponsorship is these days. i.e most development on key packages these days isn't done as a labor of love by most developers anymore. Also, at least a significant fraction, if not the majority, of those doing FOSS development here in the U.S. weren't born here. Linus being a perfect example. So it's not like we have any magic pixie dust that makes U.S.-born developers special.

That's the thing, though. The physical location of the developers and the legal nexus of the companies are different things. Any sovereign government can exert power over the actions of companies that operate elsewhere, so long as they have anything in their own jurisdiction that can be gripped and squeezed -- a "nexus". Sometimes sovereign nations will even create laws that are "extra-territorial", laws they expect to be obeyed beyond their own borders, even if only enforceable once you are within those borders.

If all your developers live in Europe, but you sell to US companies too, guess what? The US can push you around. Do you want to do business with a bank with any US footprint whatsoever, guess what? The US can push you around. Do your executives travel to the US? Guess what? etc etc etc.

The US is not a special case here: the use of local and international legal and financial pressure to achieve policy goals outside one's own borders is common. However the US is a superpower, has far more levers to push on, far more heft to push them with and far lesser immediate consequences for doing so. The EU and China are probably its only rivals in this kind of economic realpolitik.

But if Bhutan tried to do this? We wouldn't even hear about it.

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#33

Post by faissaloo »

mc32 wrote: post #28
DennisP wrote: post #27

Considering that two U.S. appeals courts have ruled that source code which was classed as a munition was protected by the First Amendment, I'm not too worried just yet. Of course we have a lot of new judges so who knows.

True, but aren’t conservative judges (not Joe and Jill public) apt to be more liberal in the interpretation of the 1A?

Funny how that works

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#34

Post by i_am_nomad »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #30
StudentStuff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bunnie seems to fear this type of IP restriction but with regard to closed source chipset designs and proprietary hardware, which he views as key to continued innovation in China. I have met Bunnie, and he has a bit of a warped view of the world. I think it caused him to gloss over things like https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/28/hcsec_huawei_oversi... where Huawei did not give a single shit about security in the…

And so is so much other US-produced or maintained hardware. Do we now ban outdated corporate websites which can be hacked and used to launch attacks on other servers? The Huawei ban is very clearly a political anti-China move, not one based on technical reasons.

Do you not understand the part about Huawei’s rampant, Chinese-style IP theft directly contributing to the poor security of its products?

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#35

Post by brown9-2 »

baybal2 wrote: post #6

A contact at Foxconn just told me yesterday that Apple is genuinely serious about leaving China completely. Apparently, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Cook last week, and extended an offer of a tax break and other "relocation packages" on the size "not seen in human history" if Apple moves to USA. Hearing things like that keeps reminding me that Taiwanese engineering fraternity is one of worlds best intelligence agencies :)

Feels like this should be taken with a big grain of salt. Presidents can’t extend tax breaks

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#36

Post by acqq »

StudentStuff wrote: post #29
DennisP wrote: post #27

Considering that two U.S. appeals courts have ruled that source code which was classed as a munition was protected by the First Amendment, I'm not too worried just yet. Of course we have a lot of new judges so who knows.

Bunnie seems to fear this type of IP restriction but with regard to closed source chipset designs and proprietary hardware, which he views as key to continued innovation in China. I have met Bunnie, and he has a bit of a warped view of the world. I think it caused him to gloss over things like https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/28/hcsec_huawei_oversi... where Huawei did not give a single shit about security in the…

> really basic things like updating OpenSSL libraries seem near impossible for Huawei.

> Huawei (...) took their designs and code, without fully understanding them.

Do you want to say that there aren't people in China smart enough to "update OpenSSL" in their codebase? Whichever way the codebase started to be used by the company?

A lot of companies and developers inherit the products created in some other times in some other companies and generally are able to update them.

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#38

Post by pessimizer »

downrightmike wrote: post #21
bilbo0s wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck explaining your commits to that munitions grade crypto used by terror cells in the mideast region as "Free Speech". Hope that works out for you. :-( (I'd wager there'll be a few more Snowden types asking for asylum outside the US before this is all over.)

Already holds up: "The claimed principle was simple: export of munitions—guns, bombs, planes, and software—was (and remains) restricted; but the export of books is protected by the First Amendment. The question was never tested in court with respect to PGP. In cases addressing other encryption software, however, two federal appeals courts have established the rule that cryptographic software source code is speech pro…

How it worked out last time is no guarantee of how it will work out this time.

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#39

Post by gnopgnip »

acqq wrote: post #36
StudentStuff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bunnie seems to fear this type of IP restriction but with regard to closed source chipset designs and proprietary hardware, which he views as key to continued innovation in China. I have met Bunnie, and he has a bit of a warped view of the world. I think it caused him to gloss over things like https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/28/hcsec_huawei_oversi... where Huawei did not give a single shit about security in the…

> really basic things like updating OpenSSL libraries seem near impossible for Huawei. > Huawei (...) took their designs and code, without fully understanding them. Do you want to say that there aren't people in China smart enough to "update OpenSSL" in their codebase? Whichever way the codebase started to be used by the company? A lot of companies and developers inherit the products created in some other times in so…

Many companies have the same problems, not rewarding people who fix these type of security issues and look at security holistically, and instead the only path to success is to create new features

Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War

#40

Post by StudentStuff »

acqq wrote: post #36
StudentStuff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bunnie seems to fear this type of IP restriction but with regard to closed source chipset designs and proprietary hardware, which he views as key to continued innovation in China. I have met Bunnie, and he has a bit of a warped view of the world. I think it caused him to gloss over things like https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/28/hcsec_huawei_oversi... where Huawei did not give a single shit about security in the…

> really basic things like updating OpenSSL libraries seem near impossible for Huawei. > Huawei (...) took their designs and code, without fully understanding them. Do you want to say that there aren't people in China smart enough to "update OpenSSL" in their codebase? Whichever way the codebase started to be used by the company? A lot of companies and developers inherit the products created in some other times in so…

No, I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is those managing Huawei do not care about updating OpenSSL or other dependencies. Its a corporate culture problem at Huawei IMO
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