<p>The ASIC "arms-race" is all about having cutting edge technology. In a <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/chinas-biggest-secret-bitcoin-mine" rel="nofollow">recent Motherboard article</a> about a mining farm, the hardware was not even allowed to be specified.</p>

<p>Consider also that both SHA256/Scrypt ASIC manufacturers were clamoring to bring smaller nanometer sized chips - and the associated R&amp;D costs - and it's probably more a question of why a company <em>would</em> make their hardware open source.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T00:58:33.900Z
Yes, it is an "arms race," but what about the possibility that there're [back door](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#back%20door)s in the software?
Geremia
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T02:07:15.720Z
@Geremia Very good point, however I don't know how this could be done, given the high-skill level involved with the mining community (Slush, Luke Dashjr, numerous others). If something was fishy they'd have flagged it, however that isn't an airtight situation, admittedly. Also, I'd tend to see cloud-mining scams are providing sufficient returns insofar as hardware backdoors are infeasible from a cost-benefit perspective (I won't further this hypothesis/opinion however)
Wizard Of Ozzie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-14T23:00:11.713Z
2015-04-14T23:00:11.713Z
Wizard Of Ozzie
<p>Why are AntMiners' firmware closed-source / non-GPL? What does Bitmain have to lose by making the source open?</p>

<open-source><antminer>
Why are AntMiners' firmware closed-source / non-GPL?
Geremia
# Why are AntMiners' firmware closed-source / non-GPL?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-04-14)

Why are AntMiners' firmware closed-source / non-GPL? What does Bitmain have to lose by making the source open?

**Tags:** open-source, antminer


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-04-14. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

The ASIC "arms-race" is all about having cutting edge technology. In a [recent Motherboard article](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/chinas-biggest-secret-bitcoin-mine) about a mining farm, the hardware was not even allowed to be specified.

Consider also that both SHA256/Scrypt ASIC manufacturers were clamoring to bring smaller nanometer sized chips - and the associated R&D costs - and it's probably more a question of why a company *would* make their hardware open source.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Yes, it is an "arms race," but what about the possibility that there're [back door](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#back%20door)s in the software?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 Very good point, however I don't know how this could be done, given the high-skill level involved with the mining community (Slush, Luke Dashjr, numerous others). If something was fishy they'd have flagged it, however that isn't an airtight situation, admittedly. Also, I'd tend to see cloud-mining scams are providing sufficient returns insofar as hardware backdoors are infeasible from a cost-benefit perspective (I won't further this hypothesis/opinion however)  

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