Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
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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
#2The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#3The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
This means get the open source off github as well...
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#4The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
Sure it does, if a large chunk of the volunteers are in the US.
The division of the open source world into the “US part” and the “Chinese part” would be a roughly 50% cut in the efficiency of the FOSS ecosystem, and is on the table given the developments he describes.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#5The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
Fortunately, there is a bulwark:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The bulwark defending the bulwark is the population.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#6A 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 :)
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#7“through powers granted via the “EAR” (Export Administration Regulation 15 CFR, subchapter C, parts 730-774), along with a sometimes surprisingly broad definition of what qualifies as export-controlled US technology.”
Boom! I told people they might do that back in the crypto discussions. Custom crypto and high-assurance security are still munitions with only a few things re-classified such as mass-market, one-size-fits-all software and use of ciphers in browser (https). This is what they might do to the rest with the leverage if it was ever truly threatening. They’re already doing it to companies over Huawei.
I also speculated they might have done this to get backdoors in products. A combo of offering payment and threats together. We know they do the payments. I don’t know if they do export threats, though.
“some independent security research would have already found and published a paper on this. Given the level of fame and notoriety such a researcher would gain for finding the “smoking gun””
Bunny is being really naive here or maybe doesn’t understand computer espionage. Most subversion must be done in a way that doesn’t look like subversion. The system just has to be remotely exploitable. The best route to that is to intentionally leave in memory safety bugs or a configuration that enables privilege escalation. Hackers find those all the time in all kinds of devices. They say, “Hey, they just made a common mistake.” Maybe it was there on purpose. We won’t know.
“It’s no secret that the US has outsourced most of its electronics supply chain overseas. From the fabrication of silicon chips, to the injection molding of plastic cases, to the assembly of smartphones, it happens overseas, with several essential links going through or influenced by China.”
And this is why what the U.S. government is doing is incredibly stupid. You could substitute other industries in here. It’s a smarter move to minimize one’s dependency on a country before pissing that country off in a way that can prevent them getting what they depend on.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#8The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
Sure it does, if a large chunk of the volunteers are in the US. The division of the open source world into the “US part” and the “Chinese part” would be a roughly 50% cut in the efficiency of the FOSS ecosystem, and is on the table given the developments he describes.
Metcalfe's Law probably applies, though perhaps not at full effect. That would suggest the diminution in effectiveness of the FOSS ecosystem would be more severe than linear.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#9The article takes a while to get to the point made in the title but the way to counteract this seems to be, get the infrastructure for open source out of America before it's too late. In contrast to the ARM example, the US doesn't really have any leverage against a volunteer open source project not within its borders.
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 U.S.[1]
I recall that happening in the 90's with a few different types of software due to U.S. software patents and corporate legal departments. VLC hasn't always been the go-to Linux multimedia application, for example.
[1] The infrastructure part is easy, the giving away access/bandwidth for free part is hard.
Re: Open Source Could Be a Casualty of the Trade War
#10A 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 :)
And Apple will milk that agreement long after Trump leaves office, doing whatever makes more sense for the bottom line, even if that means moving to production to Mexico eventually. And, just like all these large companies, will avoid paying corporate taxes to an even greater extent. Trump will claim he restored American manufacturing, and he will have, long enough for him to Tweet about it, and not much longer.