From Gongkai to Open Source

192 点作者 kentlyons超过 10 年前

10 条评论

Wogef超过 10 年前

>The West has a “broadcast” view of IP and ownership... China has a “network” view of IP and ownershipProbably the best way I’ve heard it described.>You do have to read or speak Chinese to get itThis statement kind of bothers me. Mandarin is great- loads of fun to learn and speak. My problem is that I meet a lot of highly skilled professionals who don’t do more in China because knowledge of Chinese is often held up as an “obvious” prerequisite. I have met countless people who move here and waste a year with flashcards instead of making things because they are convinced that being bilingual will make them successful in China (hint: it won’t). Investing your time in doing things the Chinese can’t do very well will make you successful in China- and there is no shortage of bilingual Chinese.You can get the Mediatek MT6260 (or just about anything else) without speaking Chinese, by using Google/Baidu/Bing Translate and relying on the spectacular patience of Chinese people for these things. Will it be a little embarrassing? Sure. Should you learn Chinese? Of course- but should you give up on doing things in the amazing development environment of China just because you don’t have a gift for languages? Certainly not.That being said- Bunnie is the Man

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userbinator超过 10 年前

Gongkai is more a reference to the fact that copyrighted documents, sometimes labeled “confidential” and “proprietary”, are made known to the public and shared overtly, but not necessarily according to the letter of the law. [...] this sharing of documents helps to promote the sales of their chipsThat what I've always thought too about why it's often much easier to find complete datasheets for Chinese components than Western ones - at some point, someone leaked them to the public, but the company either doesn't know because they're not the type to send lawyers after everyone, or knows and doesn't care because it's a sort of implicit advertisement.I have an unbranded Android device based on the MT6589, and the buying decision was influenced partly because I could relatively easily find the full datasheet for it ("MT6589_HSPA+_Smartphone_Application_Processor_Datasheet.pdf", in case you're curious) along with lots of other very detailed information including schematics.The availability of a large number of different phones based on the same SoC/reference platform has also lead to a big repair ecosystem - Bunnie has written about this before: <a href="http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=283" rel="nofollow">http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=283</a>

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ChuckMcM超过 10 年前

This is the thing that I ponder most about. Bunnie does an excellent job of describing how massive and rapid innovation can happen when data is available. I run into the roadblocks all the time when I try to approach western chip manufacturers for data about their chips. If you want to hack hardware these days you are better off knowing Chinese than you are knowing English because the most up to date and available information on the parts you want to build with, is in Chinese. It is frustrating for English speaking engineers.

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asb超过 10 年前

If you're at 31C3 and interested in an open-to-the-RTL platform, which (yes, I'm biased) seems the logical next step, bunnie is leading a discussion on lowRISC tomorrow (Monday) at 2pm.<a href="https://events.ccc.de/congress/2014/wiki/Session:LowRISC_Discussion" rel="nofollow">https://events.ccc.de/congress/2014/wiki/Session:LowRISC_Dis...</a>

Renaud超过 10 年前

I've done minor reverse-engineering in the past but this is really taking it to a level of dedication that I find awe-inspiring.The whole GongKai ecosystem is fascinating. In pure Chinese pragmatism, it's messy, relies on the power of guanxi (the force that lubricates relationships), ignores outside-imposed rules, and is terribly effective.

fest超过 10 年前

Keeping latest-generation ICs out of reach for hobbyists and small startups is quite usual practice from many of manufacturers geared towards chips going into consumer devices.Another example is gigabit ethernet- it has been around for 15 years, yet I still can't buy a gigabit-capable switch IC on Digikey. The part I need does exist but manufacturers either want $10k pre-payment before even giving at least partial documentation or the sales cycle is several weeks at best.

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CamperBob2超过 10 年前

<pre><code> Thus empowered by our fair use rights, we decided to embark on a journey to reverse engineer the Mediatek MT6260. It’s a 364 MHz, ARM7EJ-S, backed by 8MiB of RAM and dozens of peripherals, from the routine I2C, SPI, PWM and UART to tantalizing extras like an LCD + touchscreen controller, audio codec with speaker amplifier, battery charger, USB, Bluetooth, and of course, GSM. The gray market prices it around $3/unit in single quantities. You do have to read or speak Chinese to get it, and supply has been a bit spotty lately due to high Q4 demand, but we’re hoping the market will open up a bit as things slow down for Chinese New Year. </code></pre> No shortage of them on aliexpress.com, and I don't see any requirement for Chinese literacy...

rektide超过 10 年前

Reminds of me the recent, thread on "why open source hardware is hard", whose article was written from the point of a view of a (Western) company having a hard time finding value in making it's work open source. He's looking- as an individual entity- for return for his sharing.<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8770732" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8770732</a>Bunnie crystallizes terms where we can begin to see a response- while the "why hard" author contemplated the traditional Western unidirection flow, Bunnie characterizes a loose network not of product co-development and impacts to bottom-line, but comprised largely of support and availability. The Gongkai model makes available means and platform, rather than providing the conventional expected of open source: development.Thanks as ever Bunnie not just for the hard work and amazing worklogs, but also for helping pull together good framing to help answer "why oshw is hard" with.

helper超过 10 年前

Here's the raw 31C3 video that goes along with this (it starts about 16 minutes in): <a href="http://streaming.media.ccc.de/relive/6156/" rel="nofollow">http://streaming.media.ccc.de/relive/6156/</a>

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ash超过 10 年前

Video of 31c3 talk: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=msrTR3hNDQM" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=msrTR3hNDQM</a>