Huayu for engineering students

Chapter 379 GIT and Entrepreneurs

Ugly country, San Francisco, Silicon Valley.

On the west coast of the United States, there is a very famous city among Chinese people called San Francisco.This is actually a real Chinese title. His actual name is "San Francisco", which directly translates to a personal name, "San Francisco".

The Chinese generally call it San Francisco or San Francisco. This name comes from the gold rush in the early years. There is really a gold mountain here.

Now, there is a particularly famous cross-sea bridge here called the "Golden Gate Bridge". When it comes to Ugly Country, apart from the Statue of Liberty and Capitol Hill, this may be the most famous landmark building.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a cross-sea bridge, but its length is not that long because it is actually the entrance to a long and narrow bay. The coast of this bay is the famous Bay Area.

Since the 60s, various high-tech companies have been gathering here. They first gathered near the Santa Clara Valley. Because most of them are engaged in semiconductors, and the main material of semiconductors is silicon, it is called Silicon Valley.

Later, high-tech companies gradually spread nearby and occupied the entire Bay Area, forming a high-tech urban agglomeration composed of three large cities: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, and many small cities in between.

For more than half a century, countless technology-based companies were founded, grew, and died here. The history here can almost become a condensed history of China's electronic information industry.

John had just driven his newly purchased Cadillac to Los Altos in Silicon Valley. This was a private house he rented with his friends, where they started their careers.

Like countless entrepreneurs, two young men had an idea and then made a product. The two of them pooled some money together. The product was software, which was based on an open source project on GIT that they came into contact with at Stanford University.

GIT is a magical treasure house. Almost any software product you can think of has open source code that can be used.

It's just that the operating system used by these open source codes is not compatible with the IBM series and Apple's Macintosh series used daily, so the entry barrier is high.

And they are all written by amateurs. The smell of GEEK is too strong. All software products are straightforward and go straight to the core. There is almost no friendly human-computer interaction. There are many functions that even require long commands to access. accomplish.

For people in the computer industry, this thing is of course extremely convenient. You can use all the library resources here very conveniently, and you can complete an amazing task with just a few lines of commands.

But if you are not a computer major, but a professional in other fields who want to use these functions, the user experience will be a torment.

The most interesting thing is that the open source agreements here are different from traditional ones. Just like some open source agreements that Stanford already has, although they are free of charge, they require that things developed based on this code must still be open source.

This suddenly interrupts the possibility of commercializing this code, and the open source agreement on GIT is simply too free. That is, you can use it casually, whether for home, community or commercial use. Whether the things you continue to develop are open source , also casual.

The only stipulation is that if you use it commercially and make money from it, you can just pay a proportion of the profit, and the total amount should not exceed 20% of sales.

This is very interesting. The two of them consulted lawyers. Such an agreement is almost equivalent to no agreement. If you don't want to pay, there are ways to get around it. Just say that your company is not profitable. Isn't this easy?

Of course, they also have the only countermeasure, that is, if you really don't submit it at all, then they can vote you into the blacklist and no longer allow you to use this open source code.

But there is actually a way around it. As long as you don't go too far, no one will pay attention to you.Generally speaking, a company only needs a little contact, and the foundation can be supported to further develop. Even capitalists will consider long-term matters.

The general manager of GIT is an open source community organization with a non-profit nature. The organization is registered in Switzerland. Its members include dozens of universities in China, more than a dozen research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and more than a dozen universities in China. Members, that's quite complicated.

The board of directors is established by people from these universities and changes every year, and the organization will also leave some directorships to large companies for donations or companies that contribute to major open source projects.

All financial and legal affairs have been entrusted to a well-known accounting firm in the United States. They are responsible for complex calculations and allocations. Of course, most of the funds are actually used to maintain the GIT open source community itself. What can be used Dividends are few and far between.

When it comes to each project, it is even more diverse. There are not only project contributors, but also project initiators, entrusters, undertakers, investors, and donors. It’s a mess.

It makes people feel that there are no rules here. What is freedom? Translate translation, what is freedom? This is it.

Of course, Wang Xu did it on purpose. These codes were used for fishing. They didn't even use bait, they were straight hooks.

Except for the core projects, most of the projects and products were initially developed by universities in China, but once contributors from all over the world started to contribute, it became a truly global operation. of.

And what Wang Xu controls all of this is the core projects, including operating systems, development languages, development tools, and basic components of network communications. Don't forget that these things don't make any money at all, and you have to keep filling them in. money.

But how could Wang Xu, who came from a later generation, be bothered by such immediate benefits? The main thing here is free. This thing is free and recognized by the world.

Then this thing is the industry standard. Whatever standard he supports, that standard can make hundreds of millions of dollars back.

For example, the operating system has been arranged for his new wireless communication standard.Various wireless peripherals that followed immediately had a basis for it. Readers may not understand it, but if you tell them it is called "Bluetooth", everyone will understand it.

Third-rate companies make products, second-rate companies make brands, and first-rate companies make standards. Wang Xu directly became a top-notch company, and he wanted to be the one who chooses standards.

Therefore, he pays special attention to open source products and the open source community. Even if he keeps losing money, he continues to invest.

In fact, given the current scale, Wang Xu no longer needs to invest money in it. This is a gold mine that everyone can mine. Don’t treat others as fools. There are many ways for everyone to find gold from this pile of code. .

Now even IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have joined GIT's board of directors. They all donated tens of millions of dollars to get in. Are they stupid?How can it be.In today's open source community, due to the participation of a large number of Western universities, mirror sites are expanding rapidly at a rate of almost one per month, such as Little Days in Asia, Li Jiapo, Hans Country, Tulip Country, Fu Country, and the Capital of Gaul in Europe. Already have its own mirror site.

The University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina in Ugo have also established mirror sites respectively, bringing the total number of mirror sites in Ugo to four, surpassing China to become the country with the most mirror sites.

China still only has the main website of Shuimu University in the Imperial Capital and the mirror site of Jiaotong University in the Magic City. This is a financial issue. Building a mirror site still requires a lot of computer resources and the price is not low. Moreover, network construction is only available in the eastern part of the country. It is relatively complete, while the western region is still eating dirt.

What?You ask how the original data is synchronized?Of course, airplanes carry optical discs and hard drives, and trucks carry optical discs and hard drives. This is the communication method with the largest bandwidth in the foreseeable future.

Open source is like Pandora's box. Once it is opened, no one can control it. Wang Xu relies on this to disrupt the entire world's software ecosystem. If you want to make money, that's fine, but do you want a monopoly?

Hehe, there are free ones here, and companies will rise up and use these codes to kill you in minutes.

You said Wang Xu has been working on this for almost two years. Has he gained anything?Of course there is, and the gains are huge. Among other things, the mathematics library has almost been completely established, and the underlying libraries for physics, chemistry, and biology are also rapidly taking shape thanks to the efforts of universities around the world.

Even in more subdivided fields, for example, the music processing software Wang Xu developed in the early days, the acoustic calculation in it was an independent project, and it has now become the favorite basic library of many scientists studying this area.

These things are not something that can be achieved by working behind closed doors. China simply does not have that many scientists working on these things now.But there are many overseas scholars, especially when open source has become the benchmark for scientific freedom on the Internet.

Once you get started, people will naturally continue to add bricks and tiles, and even go out for independent projects, forming a form of almost unlimited expansion.

There are already many kinds of mathematical software packages based on this. This is the early days of the Internet, when the enthusiasm of various participants has not been wiped out. Many packages have even opened open source projects, and everyone has worked together to improve certain packages.

For example, a package specifically used for computational fluid dynamics is an open source project initiated by MIT. At least in Wang Xu's view, if you take it and modify it, you can use it to design aircraft and ships.

And when these things come out, who gains the most?Ugly country?Of course, they have countless scientists who can understand, use and even improve these things, but they will also lose control of these professional software.

As for the person who can learn the most in the world, I am afraid it must be Hua Xia. Wang Xu once explained the principles of this in detail to Director Jiang, and finally made it clear to the superiors that such a chaotic situation is the only way for those who are good at fighting. Guerrilla, fighting interspersed with China's best situation.

Since we understand our national conditions, we ourselves cannot make money from this. If this is the case, then everyone should stop making money from this. Shirtless rolls, who do we in China have to be afraid of?

Your Chou country has defeated almost all software companies in China by relying on piracy. Well, I will directly provide free software and in turn take advantage of your market. You can’t sue because your own universities are even more powerful than China. That's a lot.

Therefore, even though it has only been a year since GIT entered the West, its explosive power and potential have already made countless people ready to take action, and countless pioneers have simply copied it.

Open source in the previous life actually went through a very long gestation period, and gradually entered daily life from the professional field. One of the core reasons is the obstacles caused by various license systems.

Many types of licenses do not allow commercialization, and some that allow commercialization require licensing fees to be paid in advance, which are expensive.

But these were all broken by Wang Xu's almost completely free license, which also created a model of using it first, making money and then paying. This is the model adopted by many underlying engine products in later generations. If it is something developed by oneself, obviously The upfront cost will be very high.

But Wang Xu is different here. He makes full use of China's own cheap labor force. Don't feel ashamed. This is the reality. In China, whether it is a low-level migrant worker or a senior professor, Wang Xu's eyes are cheap labor force, including himself.

But it is this low cost, coupled with his own understanding of the complete product and familiarity with the structure of software products, that allows him to accomplish feats that are simply unthinkable to outsiders with relatively little investment.

That is, he almost single-handedly turned the entire software industry's product line upside down. It's not just the same, but he has produced similar open source products for almost every commercial product you can think of.

Then they were thrown out almost at once. Companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, AutoDesk, and Borland almost unified the domestic commodity market by allowing crazy domestic piracy.

What is taught in universities and what is used in the market are all their products, which leads to irreversible dependence. After that, whether it is promoting standards, selling hardware, or even directly suing, you can make a lot of money.

At the critical moment, I will cut off the confession and ask you whether you accept it. But in this life, Wang Xu will act like Sun Wukong and cause havoc in the heaven for you to see if the ugly people who pursue freedom can withstand this. Truly free software.

Wang Xu doesn't know what the future prospects are, but judging from the current feedback, the situation is very good.

It’s no coincidence that Wang Xu has seen many packaged versions, distribution versions, various languages, and various styles. Most of them have chosen to continue to be open source. These are generally local versions produced by universities around the world.

But there are also quite a few who only make something like an introduction page in GIT, which is not really open source, but provides product downloads.

GIT originally provided this service and also allowed users to rate it with stars. However, such a project cannot apply for too much storage space. If the downloaded version is too large, additional fees will be required.

But this is also equivalent to reserving an advertising place for these products. Therefore, most open source derivative products will retain this advertising on GIT, so this is where Wang Xu and the GIT organization collect intelligence.

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(Also, I wrote 8K today, and I’m a little lost)

(End of this chapter)