Also he references Arduino clones being the main problem. I didn't think any Arduino clones are using "FTDI" chips - are they?Pretty sure most of the Arduino UNO clones use FTDI clones.
Wrong. Not a single one. The clones use either an Atmel 16U2 or the CH340G. I have NEVER seen an UNO using a FTDI, real or fake.
Mr. Dart lives in an alternate reality if he thinks compatibles not using the FTDI name are counterfeits rather than just, well, compatibles... Hint, he probably typed this on a descendant of an "IBM PC compatible"Actually he started his business by making chips for IBM clones. Oh the irony!
Mr. Dart lives in an alternate reality if he thinks compatibles not using the FTDI name are counterfeits rather than just, well, compatibles... Hint, he probably typed this on a descendant of an "IBM PC compatible"Actually he started his business by making chips for IBM clones. Oh the irony!
Did he start his business as a counterfeiter?
Just like the FT232 clones he didn't copy the chips themselves but made functional equivalents and he must have put '100% IBM' compatible on his PC chipset products for them to sell.
In the early( pre-USB ) days we designed and sold 286/386/486 PC chipsets but we were reliant on a customer base of just 2 or 3 customers including IBM at one point.
I guess IBM counted their losses at some point because you better run when confronted with a tsunami. By the time the 80286 came out IBM wasn't a big player on the PC market anyway and who says FTDI made PC chips for IBM?
The counterfeit chip was totally different design to the real FT232R and basically an imperfect copy, therefore it can be caught by our drivers in several ways which you’ll understand me keeping to myself.
So, action number one was to detect counterfeit chips and stop them illegally using our drivers ( they steal our USB VID and PID in order to masquerade as an FTDI chip).
We’ve worked very closely with the US customs teaching them how to identify counterfeit FTDI components and this has resulted in several shipments of fake ships to gray market re-sellers in the US being impounded and destroyed.
When you have a success like the venerable FT232R, don’t sit on your laurels and let your competiton eat away at your market share.
Pretty sure most of the Arduino UNO clones use FTDI clones.QuoteWrong. Not a single one.
Except using your driver (and your VID/PID) is not illegal.
QuoteExcept using your driver (and your VID/PID) is not illegal.I'm pretty sure that this is in violation of assorted pieces of business, contract, and Intellectual property law. The license terms of the FTDI driver only allow it to be used with FTDI chips.
Well that depends in the country you are in, in the US i dont know but i'm prine to think you are right, in other countries (like Italy) which have a totally differenti legale system producer's can't put anything they want in EULA's but most of if holds no legal value whatsoever, since if it goes against a right garanted by law it's the eula to be moot, not the law
And i'm sure that once you give me the driver i can di whatever the hell pleases me with that, it's even legal to decompile and reverse engineer if it's for compatibility purposes
QuoteExcept using your driver (and your VID/PID) is not illegal.I'm pretty sure that this is in violation of assorted pieces of business, contract, and Intellectual property law. The license terms of the FTDI driver only allow it to be used with FTDI chips.
Just like the FT232 clones he didn't copy the chips themselves but made functional equivalents and he must have put '100% IBM' compatible on his PC chipset products for them to sell.
Either way, it's very ironic that they started out selling chips to PC Compatible manufacturers and now they're loosing their shit over FTDI compatible chips.
QuoteExcept using your driver (and your VID/PID) is not illegal.I'm pretty sure that this is in violation of assorted pieces of business, contract, and Intellectual property law. The license terms of the FTDI driver only allow it to be used with FTDI chips.
A google search for
ftdi "non genuine device found"
returns 10 pages of results, hardly a mass outrage.
Edit: 22 pages if you include all languages around the planet.
QuotePretty sure most of the Arduino UNO clones use FTDI clones.QuoteWrong. Not a single one.http://osepp.com/products/arduino-compatible-boards/uno-r3-plus/ Used (uses?) an FTDI. I think a fake one too. They weren't particularly cheap, and were sold via some retail chains (Fry's Electronics, in particular), indicating a substantial marketing effort, rather than a mom&pop eBay store.
http://osepp.com/products/arduino-compatible-boards/uno-r3-plus/
Italy is probably the #1 country in counterfeit enforcement, regardless on reverse engineering of software.
But granted, they probably focus more on other things than counterfeit electronic chips. But the law makes it pretty illegal to import any kind of counterfeit goods (electronic or not)
QuoteExcept using your driver (and your VID/PID) is not illegal.I'm pretty sure that this is in violation of assorted pieces of business, contract, and Intellectual property law. The license terms of the FTDI driver only allow it to be used with FTDI chips.
Business/contract law:
I don't think it's ever been tested, but I find it hard to believe that a sane legal system would grant a fiat monopoly on a 16-bit integer (VID) to an organization. USB-IF is self-proclaimed and has no legal authority over the use of VIDs other than contracts their members may have signed and their USB trademarks. I don't know if the cloners are infringing on the USB trademarks, but I think that is an entirely unrelated matter to the use of VIDs they did not register with a standards body. IP law has gone sort of insane in North America in the past couple of decades, but reverse engineering and interoperability are still somewhat protected. IANAL, but in the spirit of the IP law and other judgements about protocol reversing and the like, I would think that VID use for interop purposes is probably allowed, and my personal opinion is that it should be. Reverse engineering and compatible products are an important part of a healthy competitive market IMHO.
Copyright:
The license terms of the FTDI driver are irrelevant to the cloners, even if EULAs were worth the bits they were stored with. The chip makers don't need to ever agree to them, in principle. It is the end user that uses the driver (though they don't need to agree to them either, since it's silently installed by Windows). Nor do the clone companies need to "copy" the driver such that copyright would be invoked, since the user can get it directly from FTDI, who is obviously licensed to copy their own code.
Legally my take is that both sides are mostly in the clear. If there are counterfeit chips with FTDI markings there might be a trademark case, but that doesn't mean the existence of clones is not allowed. I do not believe there would be a strong copyright or trade secret case. There may be patents involved, but since the CEO himself admits they have implemented the design in a completely different way, I doubt they are in play.
QuotePretty sure most of the Arduino UNO clones use FTDI clones.QuoteWrong. Not a single one.http://osepp.com/products/arduino-compatible-boards/uno-r3-plus/ Used (uses?) an FTDI. I think a fake one too. They weren't particularly cheap, and were sold via some retail chains (Fry's Electronics, in particular), indicating a substantial marketing effort, rather than a mom&pop eBay store.
http://osepp.com/products/arduino-compatible-boards/uno-r3-plus/
That is not a genuine Arduino, but a clone/compatible board.
The old Arduinos did use FTDI chips, though:
That is a genuine Arduino NG I bought directly from Italy, years ago. It is the first board that had USB (the original Arduino had an RS232 serial port). The FTDI chip is well recognizable. The Dueminalove and Diecimila that followed had FTDI as well:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Boards
Uno an onwards had the ATMega8u2.
They have also sold USB-UART adapters for the boards without them (Pro Mini, for ex.) using the FTDI chips :
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/MiniUSB