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Issue #44: Copycats Stomp on Ham Radio Innovation

Discussion in 'Trials and Errors - Ham Life with an Amateur' started by W7DGJ, Sep 16, 2024.

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  1. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    The idea that established manufacturers are making some sort of error by failing to "pick up" a design like this completely misunderstands innovation, and particularly the distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovations. Skipping a lot of detail, there are two known categories of viable commercial models:

    • Incremental sustaining innovations ("tiny changes" in the article) that are part of continuing to serve an existing customer base. Any profitable business must continue to do this merely to stay in business.
    • Significant innovations that will disrupt markets. The key identifying characteristic of the disruptive product is that customers of the incumbent leaders will not be interested in buying the disruptive product because some of its characteristics are unacceptable. Where incumbents do this (directly or by acquisition) they'll typically use a different brand to help keep the existing and new markets separate.

    So far as I can tell, the WOLF radios are neither of these, consequently there is no known commercial model for an incumbent to "pick it up".
     
  2. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    The situation with the race-to-the-bottom guys is different.

    My grandfather ran a car dealership, where he displayed sign along the lines of John Ruskin's (disputed) quote:
    When customers pressed him on price, he would simply point to the sign and ask what they wanted him to do. It's worth bearing in mind that the predators and their lawful prey will always exist. It is pointless, indeed delusional, to be upset about their respective failures to do the "right" thing. The people who will knowingly buy garbage were never your customers to begin with, they were only ever the customers of the most efficient garbage purveyors, who are at present mostly in China because of its manufacturing base.

    The big tool that's being missed here is trademarks. An open source design requires that copyrights (and sometimes patents) not be encumbered, but there is absolutely no requirement that trademarks be unencumbered. For a particularly strong example in software look at Firefox[1]. Anyone can use the source for any purpose, but the Firefox trademark is controlled. If you distribute a derived work under the name Firefox then you can expect robust enforcement action from the foundation's lawyers (unless you have a trademark agreement with them of course). The WOLF guys appear to have missed this completely. The NanoVNA guys have a particularly broken situation (the originator is no longer involved, so multiple parties are trying to position themselves as the "official" successor...). There are many others.
    A small investment in attorney's fees would have saved each of these projects an enormous amount of angst, and would allow exclusion of low quality clones from marketplaces with trademark rules (eBay, Amazon, AliExpress (theoretically), etc.). Other channels will of course be full of predators and their lawful prey, but that's fine, that's the expected situation.

    1: I have some historical involvement here. It was I who convinced Netscape to dual-license in the '90s (the restrictive NPL and the fully-open Gnu GPL), but I'm not otherwise involved.
     
  3. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    The open source communities who out-competed IBM and Microsoft on their own turf disagree. Both companies have made multi-billion dollar acquisitions in response (notably Red Hat and GitHub respectively).

    Discretionary patent licensing is a perfectly reasonable business practice, but is not open source in any way at all. It's just proprietary intellectual property business.
     
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  4. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

     
  5. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    This is perhaps the essence of the misunderstanding. When you put something out under an open source license, it ceases to be "your" baby, it becomes that of anyone who chooses to derive from it, and you can reasonably bet that you're not going to like some (most?) of the things that others will do with it...
     
  6. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    This is a brilliant example, thanks, I'd completely missed it. It's a really strong example of the "unacceptable to the existing mainstream" requirement for a disruptive innovator's niche to be a sustainable base to grow from, as Baofeng has demonstrated.
     
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  7. WY6K

    WY6K XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    Patents are not the answer. First, a patent that is good, meaning it can be defended, is very costly. The last half dozen patents I got cost $100k each for the U.S. and EU and another $100k each for Asia.

    Second: patents mean nothing to the Chinese. As long as the U.S. remains cowardly about it, nothing will be done about it.
     
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  8. K6CLS

    K6CLS Ham Member QRZ Page

    Your response does exactly this!

    Depends entirely on the license! MIT license says, no obligations any which way. GPLv3 says, serious obligations, and transitive for everything it touches.

    Dozens of licenses between those, as if they were poles. And they are not.

    Don't like the terms? Make up your own license!
     
    NQ1B likes this.
  9. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Strictly speaking GPL v3 is conditional permission, rather than the creation of obligations. (This distinction is vitally important during enforcement if the licensor is seeking compliance rather than damages.) But you seem to be responding to an argument I didn't make. An open source license can't create "for others to do what you want or expect" as this would breach OSD#6.

    With the possible exception of the "User Autonomy" conditions of the CAL (which remain contentious), the license conditions can never limit a licensee in the sense that's relevant to the article.

    This is a popular, if unwise approach. Most open source license candidates don't get through the review process. The majority are some variant of the licensor seeking to limit licensee freedom outright, a significant minority even seek explicit post-transfer discretionary control over licensee activities.

    The other significant issue is license compatibility. Most open source licensors who are serious about open source collaboration (i.e. are not just virtue signalling, or deceptively recruiting) expect and intend integration with other code, which is critically dependent upon license compatibility. This is not a DIY activity, and the problem is not a new one. (Indeed, the dual-licensing of Mozilla that I mentioned turned ultimately on just this question.)
     
    NQ1B likes this.
  10. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    I can see you just hate 'business'.

    The US basis of patenting is not 'business' It (patent) is a temporary right of ownership extended to the inventor as a means of CONTROL of the make ,offer, use, etec of the INVENTION. In that context, the CONTROL extended to the inventor or his/her assignees allows EXACTLY the so-called privilege that open sources claims is unique to its foundation.

    Open source, in that context, (READ THAT PHRASECAREFULLY PLEASE) creates an opportunity for the inventor to allow 'open' patent licensing. There absolutely no reason nor benefit that open source can 'claim' as its advantage over the patent system, at least in the US.

    So, what exactly, in a patent sense, in the US, does 'open source' provide as an advantage that is NOT already within the purview of the patent system?
     
  11. 9V1RT

    9V1RT Ham Member QRZ Page

    On the contrary! I've been advisor to ~40 early stage startups, and an investor in a number of them. I'm not clear how you drew that inference from my comments. My point was simply that discretionary patent licensing and open source licensing are two different things.

    I don't understand your argument. Except in the sense that an inventor/assignee can choose to include patent grants in an open source license, discretionary patent licensing and open source licensing are diametrically opposed approaches.

    Can you expand what you mean by "the so-called privilege that open sources claims is unique to its foundation"? I don't understand what you're getting at.

    I'm not sure what important context you're referring to, but agree with the rest of the sentence, sure.

    I feel as though I'm missing something fundamental about what you're getting at. Discretionary patent licensing and open source licensing are two different tools, appropriate in two different sets of circumstances.

    Are you suggesting for example that the Gnu Project and Linus Torvalds would have been better off patenting their designs (Gnu userspace and Linux kernel respectively) and not publishing under open source licenses?

    I simply don't understand the question. Open source licensing doesn't have "a patent sense", except to the extent that a licensor may choose to include licenses on relevant patents that they hold.

    Perhaps we are speaking at crossed purposes?
     
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  12. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    I read your assertion. You are simply wrong. As per your statement, you are indeed missing something fundamental.

    Sorry, that's the nature of the patent system in the United States. Your qualifications are irrelevant and given my 94 US patents, my experience trumps yours, if you want to play THAT game.

    In the US, patents are a limited time monopoly extended to the inventor(s) ceding the inventor(s) control of the invention. It has nothing to do with business. It has everything to do with RIGHTS.

    From a US PATENT standpoint, open source has no reason to exist beyond the capabilities that the patent holder ALREADY is ceded.

    'In the patent sense' means that in the case of novelty of invention, that is IP rights that RELATE TO INVENTION, the control extended by patent already allow the privileges of extension to others that OPEN SOURCE pretends to call unique to its domain.

    Go read carefully before responding, and don't play 'experience' games. Stay with facts.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2024
    WY6K likes this.
  13. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    Tell us what you know about disruptive innovation. I would be happy to correct any misconceptions you may have on that.

    Disruptive innovation means an innovation that finds a niche , with lesser innovation benefits than extant options, which takes hold, improves its abilities, and later supplants the extant option in general, not only in niches.

    WHat is the disruptive innovation posed by a Baoefend HT? The only reason Baoefeng has market is a price differential. There is no -- innovation-- it has that does not already exist elsewhere.
     
    W7DGJ likes this.
  14. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    Review process?? Gimme a break.

    Why shouldn't the licensee or sor request limitations?

    An agreement is whatever terms the parties agree on. There isnt some 'standard'. Stating there is a standard is a presumtuous step that limits versatility in how the inventor/innovators wishes to control the IP.

    The word is CONTROL. CONTROL for one, or CONTROL for some, or CONTROL for all. One way or another you cannot escape that in a license.

    A GUIDELINE helps a lot. But there is no 'standard', no matter what anyone says.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2024
  15. W9TR

    W9TR XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    Innovation is not limited to product. Take Netflix and Blockbuster - same product, different supply chain. It’s not just market price differential either. There are fundamental cost differences as well. The Baofeng products are disruptive because they offer lower performance - poorly performing receivers, ineffective squelch circuits, transmitters that don’t meet FCC requirements, etc. All at a lower cost point. This, along with a completely different supply chain allowed a lower price market entry reaching a previously unserved segment. Its a classic example of disruptive innovation. Now we will see them move upmarket with regulation compliant offerings.
     
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