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Tariffs Spark Shift to Open Source (news.opensuse.org)

submitted 1 week ago by banazir@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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The European Commission sees open-source software as more than an IT tool. Policy makers are encouraging open-source ecosystems to drive innovation, autonomy and collaboration in a world where global trade is being redrawn.

This trade dispute highlights something most open-source advocates have known for years: open source is freedom. It’s freedom from monopolies, freedom from arbitrary pricing, and freedom from foreign influence.

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[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 24 points 1 week ago

Not just software, but hardware too.

When each country can manufacturer everything they need because the hardware is all licensed openly, tarrifs aren't so devastating

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Note: design and licensing is a far cry for semiconductor fabbing, and not every country can do the latter.

Most countries depend ridiculously much on TSMC (from Taiwan), while TSMC depends ridiculously much on instruments from ASML (from the Netherlands). Grossly simplified, getting where those two currently are takes a decade, and by that time they'll be a decade ahead (unless they get lazy).

As far as I recall, Samsung (South Korea) can fabricate large quantities of semiconductors on their own (but several times less than TSMC). Then come several Chinese companies, one in the US and one in Israel. Beyond that, there's very small fish. The only European foundry worth mentioning (X-Fab) has dropped out of the top 10.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 3 points 1 week ago

Fortunately most applications of semiconductors dont need to be super small and fast. Getting some old tech that's 10 times the size and 10 times slower than Intel's bleeding edge is fine for most applications.