[scrollaway]

> Secondly, even if you did force vendors to comply, you've just given any new startup a massive leg-up on R&D, which the existing vendors discounted for them.

Real talk here: Is that such a bad thing? Why should new companies have to deal with problems humanity has already solved?

[dsuth]

Because this completely dis-incentivises companies to spend money developing features in the first place, and makes it impossible for them to recoup the sunk cost of development over car sales, since they're competing against companies who did not pay those costs.

It's completely unsustainable.

[scrollaway]

It seems to me what's unsustainable is relying on a system built on trade secrets. Something we quickly moved away from in the software world, which has greatly accelerated development, been mutually beneficial to everybody, and certainly hasn't been "unsustainable".

I remember someone comparing, on HN, what "closed source" is to science to what ancient guild secrets were to alchemy. Are guild secrets any more sustainable than closed source?