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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

Let's just hope they contribute back as much as the west has contributed to spreading knowledge and knowledge-tools to the world instead of just free-riding on it and then pretending it wasn't foundational. Linux, Wikipedia, RISC-V, ...

It's not just the Chinese who are lacking the acknowledgment of these contributions.

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My man literally the best open source model (that happens to be excellently documented) is Chinese.

That is because they want to undercut the US and prevent them from making money. It remains to be seen if they'll be as benevolent in making tech open-source if they are the clear winners. Frankly, I don't see why they will.

I'm sorry but your comment comes off as racist. You've given no reason as to why they wouldn't do the same and your opinion seems entirely coming from assumption of ill-will. Why would you think the West have shared their knowledge while China won't? I suggest you reevaluate your biases.

The CCP strictly controls knowledge and information access within China through rigorous censorship. It would be surprising if Chinese companies were allowed to just make their advancements open source without review, if those advancements would have a meaningful impact on the state of technology.

It is strange and inappropriate to call that observation racist.

I don't think it's intentional racism, but a lot of what many western folks think of China come from propaganda. China has visa-free policy for many countries now. Go check it out in person.

To be clear, believing propaganda generally is also not racist, unless that propaganda is specifically racist. And even if you believe censorship and authoritarian oversight of companies by the CCP is western propaganda, it is still not racist.

Things are done for reasons.

We can discuss the reasons why they might or might not open source things, or we can agree not to because someone might call us racist for discussing corporate and wcenomic motivations.

The West mostly has not shared their knowledge. Most software is not open source.

FWIW I am not American or even from the west. At a nation-state level, the west (US) shared knowledge with the intention of offshoring production for cheaper goods, not out of the kindness of their hearts. They still protect key technologies like the jet engine and bleeding edge fab tech. It is the same when it comes to Chinese companies that are at the top of their game - DJI or Bambu labs don't open source their designs last I checked, and their track record when it comes to software is also not great. Simply put, companies only open source when it makes business sense.

I am simply assuming that China follows the same principle - try to wring maximum advantage out of their industrial might and commoditize their complement wherever possible. Because of China's unique single party system, their strategies are very top-down coming straight from the CCP in key areas like AI and robotics. It is not racism, simply realpolitik.

Classic. If doing good makes someone feel good, then they must be selfish! And their doing good is in fact not good! /s

But it's something new by a very small company. They are trying to convince CCP and big players to embrace opening up. It looks good but it's a huge cultural shift for the Chinese politicians and tech giants. We'll see if it's more than a fad in a few years.

There is already evidence that they do in fact contribute to open source. Maybe replace “hope” with “continue to”

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