贝小戎 读品走私

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/06/01/ak_47/index.html

1  有人问，College should give them the intellectual equivalent of their childhood sleepover experience. 这句应该如何解释

大学应该让学生拥有跟童年时在别人家过夜对等的理智上的经历。

2 AK-47 和QWERTY 电脑键盘布局有何相似之处？

How is an AK-47 like a QWERTY  keyboard?

牛津大学教授菲利普·基利科特写了一篇论文，《武器经济学：突击步枪的全球市场》

他研究的问题是，AK-47在非洲要比在其他地方便宜两百多美元，这是为什么？ 

通常的解释是AK-47功能上的特点，容易操作，坚实耐用，故障率低。其不够精准、对使用者来说不够安全、瞄准范围相对较小的缺点都被忽略掉了。但类似操作简便的突击步枪就没有卡拉什尼科夫设计的这种枪这样得到广泛的采用。

它的这种特点可以用路径依赖理论来解释。80年代，经济史学家、美国斯坦福大学教授Paul A. David发现，一个有缺陷的产品，由于它早期一个小的优势而被广泛采用之后，到后来更换它的成本会很高。具体到AK-47，它早期的优点或许是它是苏联人的发明，不受知识产权的限制，可以随意仿造。（1936年，美国发明家Dvorak博士历经十余年的研究，发明了ASK键盘（美式简化键盘，American Simplified Keyboard，后被称为DSK键盘），声称比打字机发明者、美国人Sholes 1870年设计的、现在通用的QWERTY键盘效率更高。据说，当初 Sholes 在研制打字机时，为了解决打字员打字速度过快造成挤塞的问题，故意打乱了字母排列顺序，而按照直到今天仍通行的QWERTY顺序排列。不过，ASK键盘并没有站住脚，慢慢地销声匿迹了，QWERTY独霸键盘市场。David(1985)认为，QWERTY键盘之所以能在市场上占统治地位，不是因为它最好，而是因为它出现得早，普及之后更换新一代产品的成本很高。这种情况被称为路径依赖。）

The AK-47's popularity is generally attributed to its functional characteristics; ease of operation, robustness to mistreatment and negligible failure rate. The weapon's weaknesses -- it is considerably less accurate, less safe for users, and has a smaller range than equivalently calibrated weapons -- are usually overlooked, or considered to be less important than the benefits of its simplicity. But other assault rifles are approximately as simple to manage, yet they have not experienced the soaring popularity of the Kalashnikov.

 

The AK-47's ubiquity could alternatively be explained as a result of a path dependent process. Economic historians recognize that an inferior product may persist when a small but early advantage becomes large over time and builds up a legacy that makes switching costly. In the case of the AK-47 that early advantage may be that as a Soviet invention it was not subject to patent and so could be freely copied.

 

 

The QWERTY keyboard may be the most famous example of path dependent lock in, although the triumph of the VHS cassette format over Sony's Betamax gives it a run for the money. But the intellectual property aspect of the AK-47's ubiquity adds a fresh angle. Despite all the whining that proprietary software companies do about "piracy," the industry has long been aware that it's not always such a bad thing to have everyone illicitly copying your products. Get everybody hooked, and then start selling the upgrades, or support services, or other nifty add-ons. For open-source software companies, the strategy is a fundamental plank of the basic business model.

Who knew? The Soviet Union's AK-47 -- the world's most popular open-source assault rifle. No wonder a picture of the gun is part of Mozambique's flag.