πΊπ² US defence companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin fear that, if granted a licence, #Ukraine could improve Patriot interceptor missiles and produce them faster and at a significantly lower cost than the United States.
Commenti (3)
This reminds of some discourse I was privileged to listen to at toorcon long ago when @bunnie@treehouse.systems was giving his hardware hacking workshop (think pre-production Chumby era, circa 2006).
Paraphrasing:
Student in the class: "what if someone takes your schematics and starts manufacturing clones and sells them at a lower cost than you?"
bunnie: "If someone, takes my designs, and finds a way to get them to market for less than I can? I'll use them as a supplier!"
It was heartening, like observing an intellectual equivalent of the martial arts' adage "bend like a reed in the wind, don't break like a brittle branch" response. It seemed as if bunnie had already thought about such things and was unperturbed, dare I suggest, maybe even excited that others might want to build upon his work and find optimizations he had not implemented!
Alas, what we really learn from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin's fears? Are: they are not actually interested in innovations nor the state of the art (which presumably, goes without saying for any companies fixated on weapons manufacturing) and are instead preoccupied with profit margins for their shareholders.
The mercenary industrial complex is, fundamentally, more about greed than anything else, with those at the top, punching down and ruining (or terminating) the lives of others with abandon in their relentless pursuits for money and power regardless of the so-called "collateral damage" encountered in their machinations.
Given that the USA and the Ukraine are also actively engaged in war, there are doubtlessly other messages and misinformation being conveyed, particularly around the repeated narratives related to USA's munitions supplies. So I would recommend an idiomatic "grain of salt" when it comes to such news stories to varying degrees.
Nonetheless, I think many more might benefit from bunnie's wisdom when it comes to concerns about manufacturing cost optimizations; which can be generalized and applied well outside of the sphere of weaponry.
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@rvps2001@mastodon.social
Well, Ukraine already out-competed one super-power's corrupt military-industrial-complex, so I can absolutely see why they would be worried...
@bsdphk@fosstodon.org @rvps2001@mastodon.social But I thought, this was exactly the point of having a free market! Where more efficient manufacturers would out-compete the less efficient manufacturers, thus drive progress and prosperity! And, as we know, the US is all about free market, aren't they?
(yes, there is a fair bit of sarcasm in there)