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China Developing own Standards
J ROC writes "Encouraged by their government Chinese electronics firms are shunning technological protocols invented abroad and developing their own, according to this article. The Chinese have developed several standards including EVD to replace DVD standards, and TD-SCDMA to replace the CDMA cell phone standard found elsewhere. The reasons seem to be partly based on "techno-nationalism", and Chinese firms growing tired of paying foreign patent fees. While this may force foreign firms to lower their patent fees, some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."
Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world.
I'm more concerned that someday the rest of the world may need to bend over [backward] to support China's standards. They are, after all, manufacturing a great many of the electronic items that we buy.
" some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."
And that's particularly different from the U.S. how? PCS vs. GSM...
While that is true, China could also benefit from setting their own standards, letting other corporations or other countries use it for free or much lower cost than the more costly, patent protected counterparts. That will likely turn the table around and isolate the more expensive alternatives of what we have now, and will be using their cheaper and possibly superior standards for our future needs.
Please direct all bug reports to
After RTFA, I thought of a decent question. Are there Chinese developed formats better then the current US/Japanese formats out there right now? They mentioned the Chinese WIFI encryption; WAPI. Is it better then WAP? Worse?
To be honest, I could see why they would want thier own formats. They have a country of over a billion people, and even if only a fraction of them buy eqiupment based on foreign patents; that's a lot of money.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Bullhockey, the rest of the world will cater easily to a market of possibly 1.3 billion consumers, let us not forget the system of capitalism which does not really care who is buying it as long as someone is buying it. If the cost of licensing and fees are so high in a market where the foothold was not that strong to begin with then it would only follow reason that people/corporations/governments will adapt to the fabrication of their own systems...which is the same argument we use in the OSS community.
Additionally, China does not like to follow foreign arrangements, they tangle with democracy and touches of capitalism too much as it is (their opinion), having them rely on those same foreign arrangements undermines the authority of the governing powers.
It's about time that China started doing these things, hopefully the push in the technology direction wont spark another arms race, but rather easier and open stream technology and systems for the lower end users.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
It has been promoting as more secure the homegrown Red Flag Linux, based on an open-code operating system.
First Linux was invented by the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, and now Linus is Chinese. Methinks the article author doesn't get it with respect to linux.
As far as the other technolgies, I think the EVD standard is doomed to failure. People are going to want DVDs from abroad, and a player that only does EVD isn't going to sell. The mobile phone standard doesn't matter. The US has gone its own way with cell phone standards and the sky hasn't fallen yet. There's not a lot of compelling reasons why mobile phone standards have to be compatible with the rest of the world, and China is definately big enough to set their own standard.
As far as this cry of "nationalism", that just sounds like posturing to justify this to a certain communist segment of the Chinese populace. Setting your own standards and avoiding patent fees sounds like capitalism to me.
AccountKiller
I dun understand how communism comes into the picture. To me its just about business and money. If with their own technology they can save big bucks from paying patent fees, why not ?
... they can alreay earn big bucks ... who bother to sell it else where ...
and with huge market in China, they won't worry about the standard. Movie makers will adopt their technology/standard to publish their films so they can sell it in China.
"...it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world...."
Who CARES ? if they can sell to everyone in China
No, they'll just get the foreign corporations, like Sun, to bootstrap them with subsidized projects. While Sun's marketers and bizdev suits salivate over the Chinese market, their mafia government will just announce new API standards and cut out every company that's not Chinese. Sun will cut its losses, sell its useless stakes in their Chinese operations to Chinese "partners", and the Chinese companies will proceed to revise the open source OS and apps.
It's called judo: leverage your larger opponent against himself, as he clumsily grasps at you. Chinese people invented it, and it still works, at all scales, in all arenas.
--
make install -not war
I think it is worth noting that most of the standards we call "global" are of American origin (take ASCII as a simple example -- it means American standard codes etc., not Worldwide SCII). It just happens that the rest of the world adopted them as well.
The same could be true in the future for any new standards developed in China; creating them in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, removing support for the existent ones is.
Score: i, Imaginary
Have to question your assertion that, we should be very concerned that their form of government can reap the benefits of a free society without adhering to its rules.
That smacks of 'our-system-is-better-than-yours' elitism which I don't believe is justified. I'm not deliberately going off on an anti-US tirade here but how is the US government adhering to the rules of a free society when it allows the RIAA to haul up hundreds of people in the name of the draconian DMCA? The refusal to be kept in check by the Geneva convention is another example. Of course the Chinese government are draconian, but it's another variation of the draconian governance practiced elsewhere, even in the sanctity of the 'free world'.