I'm fascinated by it too. Though it does seem to conveniently ignore that this is probably made possible by stealing IP to get started.
Nevertheless, it's interesting to consider other mechanisms for technological evolution.
Nevertheless, it's interesting to consider other mechanisms for technological evolution.
In these areas of, shall we say, ‘loose’ IP enforcement, I don’t think you’ve seen any instances of really transformational increases in technology, but rather incremental improvements. Evolution rather than revolution, if you will. I don’t think you’d see major changes without strong IP law enforcement. While there can be some rapid improvements in existing tech, with lax IP enforcement, how much new tech could you really expect? We’d end up stuck in a local minima.
So steal I don't think is the right word.
As far as technology, software is relatively IP lax and innovative, which lets us mix and remix from a common knowledge pool. Imagine how much slower software development would be if we all had to pay royalties to knuth for using an if statement, royalties for using any encryption, or any algorithm which was, after all, non-obvious before it was invented.
Use BGP?