You cannot legally ban them from using Android. Google play store and other proprietary apps, sure, but the actual android OS is free software.

> The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely

And how would the US enforce such a law abroad? Even admitting that European countries (UK included), Japan, South Korea, and most of latin America decided to pass similar laws to pleasure the US, how are the US supposed to enforce that in China (and their growing area of influence, in Africa and Central Asia)?

> I wonder how authors of RISC-V must feel when their architecture is being appropriated by a country that violates human rights. Is that in the spirit of the free license?

Unfortunately, countries not violating the human rights are too few to be a viable market (and the US is definitely not one of them).

Also, what zamadatix said.

They could copy and paste laws that are used for illegal drugs enforcement - just replace drugs with Android from China and then force other countries to support that.

> They could copy and paste laws that are used for illegal drugs enforcement

Given how well it worked, I'm not sure it's a great path to follow…

> then force other countries to support that.

Well, that's where it becomes interesting. Where are those countries supposed to get their Android phones from? Samsung cannot double their Android phone production.

And what if China responded by not allowing the China-made iPhones to be shipped abroad?

Geopolitics is a tough topic, and even as powerful as they are, the US can't just control everything directly. And on most actions, they can only pull the trigger once.

Just to be clear - I am not advocating that, just I am thinking out loud what not-right-in-the-head politicians (as they usually are) could do to get that way. The easiest way is to apply the same framework to a different thing and then hope it will come to an equilibrium by itself eventually. For that you would also need a good chunk of propaganda in the tune of drugs are bad, just say no, saying phones from China are bad and then subsidise companies who are manufacturing in the west and heavily tax stuff with Chinese origin and so on. I am talking about about decade worth of slow transformation. Fortunately for China they are so corrupt just like our politicians, that any attempt to do this could be thwarted with money under the table. They managed to do this with drugs because you had no cartels and any organisation selling or manufacturing drugs wouldn't have enough money to influence the government (and ironically they got so rich because of essentially tax free high margin product that they pay for "war on drugs" to continue). Try that with Apple that essentially can do whatever they like.

The only reason China follows the patent and copyright system even somewhat is because of international agreements. There is no international agreement that allows for this.

As a result China will simply ignore the US and do whatever they want.

China actually supports these laws for their own reasons as well. If China made all drugs legal there would be nothing anybody could do to stop them selling or buying drugs.

So you want the US to nationalize Android.

Its copyrighted software, how is this supposed to work? What are the implications for other copyrighted works?

I don't want that, I am only saying how this could be done. For example certain technologies could be permitted only in NATO countries and if you want to market your product that uses it you will have to prove it that it does not originate from China.

If a country isn't willing to honor human rights why do you think they'll honor some foreign group's license.txt when it comes down to it?

The products containing code or chips that are not allowed could be incorporated in the same regime as illegal drugs - so trading or possessing a device with such operating system or technology could be deemed illegal.

I'm more talking the 1.4 billion people in China that need CPUs when you try to tell them they can't use ARM or RISC or etc. not the 330 million in the US that want something manufactured. We've already import restricted Android devices from e.g. Huawei, it has had no impact to their need for CPU designs for them though.

So if it is their internal market, because of how big they are, there is nothing that you can do unfortunately. Only impose further sanctions that will eventually escalate to a war. In that sense China won, because no country can afford to stand up against them in a meaningful way.

>The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely.

Luckily, the people behind RISC-V were smart enough to protect it as well as they could against politicians using this open technology as a political tool. Not only it uses an open license, but also IP is owned by entity registered in Switzerland, so people and organizations all around the globe can collaborate and use results without being afraid to fall under yet another sanctions, which more often than not are simply a salvo in an ongoing economic warfare.

Pedophiles use computers, the internet, encryption, cars, roads, and the products and services of various business to sexually abuse children.

How should all the people who built those things feel?

> I wonder how authors of RISC-V must feel when their architecture is being appropriated by a country that violates human rights.

Like the US? Yeah that probably does bother them.

I mean the US has killed 1000x more people and was engaged in far, far more wars in the last 50 years. Destabalisng whole regions, overthrowing governments all over the place, supported some of the most vile people ever (and still do).

But I guess morality only matters if you are bad to your own population.