On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Bernard Owuor <b_owuor@yahoo.com> wrote:

Aki,

On of the reasons I'm an open-source lover (while using windows XP to type this ;) is that it's good for development.

By knowing what happens under the hood, we can easily(?) conjure up a copy - which I think is innovation. In fact, innovation grows by imitating (copying).

The east asian countries - beginning with Japan, started by making poor & cheap imitations of western products. Of course, for them to sell even at par, lacking brand recognition, they had to improve quality and differentiate even more... leading to even more innovation, which spilled off to the manufacturing processes (look up Toyota System)

But, heck, if Mercedes only makes stuff that can easily be copied AND sold by Kenya Numerical Machine complex, then they have no right selling it at their premium prices. They should always be forced to innovate. (I'm treading on dangerous ground here)

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Hello @Bernard, the east asian countries are partly the problem and their economic successes should not be used a a measure. The indians tried reverse engineering cheaper drugs which never worked properly, take the example of Tata and the Suzuki arrangement. Infact, they were better off innovating on the old fiat based systems than create rubbish like e.g the Mahendra 4X4 which was a poor clone of the WW2 jeep( corrections welcome ). The original landcrusier was also based on the jeep but went a different direction totally with innovative features that the janapese culture did with its commitments.

The biggest issue I see is a negative trend that will continue for many years. One trying to clone the other. The best systems in the world are propreitary, nothing else will ever come close to this. There's no substitue for the original thing. :-)