FTDI could easily kill the clones by selling at a lower or equal cost.
Why in the world do people let Windows update device drivers in the first place?
I ran a quick 24hr vote on Twitter. This was the result:
My question will be, why would a company develop a product that uses the manufacturer's default VID and PID, knowing that any program that can talk to a COM port could cause damage or be dangerous?
Nah, those products are done by cheap and hobby level products and won't invest in making sure their device is bullet proof.
Regardless of FTDI or whatever other chip is used.If the product uses the FTDI chip, it is the simplest way to use the manufacturers VID and PID, because otherwise you would have to provide an INF file (which needs to be signed for newer Windows versions), which would simply reference the ftdibus.sys driver anyway. As I've tested, the standard Microsoft usbser.sys doesn't work with the FTDI chips.
I think there is nothing wrong with protecting the IP. I really like the functionality of the FTDI chips, especially the modern versions, like the FT2232H, which you can use as a JTAG programmer as well (supported out of the box by the Lattice FPGA programmer).
- Sell cheaper (that's really overdue...)
- upgrade your products, and make your customer like the non compatible new features
- get to new markets when your product line is dying off
in case of FTDI, stop being a malware company
Also it should be mentioned that FTDI is not a big corporate company, they are quite small and work (as in overwork their employees) hard to gain a measly $10M or so annually. Edit: for the whole company not for each individual.
So buying fakes is just adding more working hours for those overworked employees. So go ahead and boycott them so their under 200 employees have to find some other way to earn a living.
Also it should be mentioned that FTDI is not a big corporate company, they are quite small and work (as in overwork their employees) hard to gain a measly $10M or so annually. Edit: for the whole company not for each individual.
So buying fakes is just adding more working hours for those overworked employees. So go ahead and boycott them so their under 200 employees have to find some other way to earn a living.Being poor doesn't make it right to damage property belonging to others or corrupt data on purpose with potentially severe consequences! As others noted: it is easy to make the driver not load with a device which the driver thinks is fake. If FTDI goes out of business it is good riddance;
that is the way the free market deals with companies which don't innovate to reduce the cost of their products. If you look at the comparison between real and fake you'll notice the fakes are produced on a much more modern process than the real chips!
If FTDI cared to do a die shrink they could make their devices much cheaper and lower power so cloning them is much less lucrative.
BTW: if the employees at FTDI work for more hours than they get paid for they are utterly stupid.
Also it should be mentioned that FTDI is not a big corporate company, they are quite small and work (as in overwork their employees) hard to gain a measly $10M or so annually. Edit: for the whole company not for each individual.
So buying fakes is just adding more working hours for those overworked employees. So go ahead and boycott them so their under 200 employees have to find some other way to earn a living.
As a developer, I love this. I always buy important ICs from reputable vendors, and on top of that now I can even properly test them for fakes.
(I also could with the previous ftdi driver that erased PID, but this is easier now.)
Also, whenever I can I've been using ft230x/ft231x in new designs instead of the common ft232r because of the price.
BTW: if the employees at FTDI work for more hours than they get paid for they are utterly stupid.Calling employees stupid because they work long hours is totally disingenuous, they likely work long hours either because 1) They care about what they do or 2) because they have little choice or 3) a combination of both 1 and 2. The idea they do it because they are stupid is highly unlikely!
Their ICs are nothing special anymore. It's like TI going after everyone who clones the 7400...
Their ICs are nothing special anymore. It's like TI going after everyone who clones the 7400...
So buying fakes is just adding more working hours for those overworked employees. So go ahead and boycott them so their under 200 employees have to find some other way to earn a living.
BTW: if the employees at FTDI work for more hours than they get paid for they are utterly stupid.Calling employees stupid because they work long hours is totally disingenuous, they likely work long hours either because 1) They care about what they do or 2) because they have little choice or 3) a combination of both 1 and 2. The idea they do it because they are stupid is highly unlikely!I strongly prefer people who care about what they do but they should do it so they ultimately get something in return! When working over hours for your employer you should get paid or gain useful experience. Otherwise you are just working so your manager (or his/her bosses) get a bigger bonus. If you are a good engineer you can always get another job.
(...) taking the end customer hostage might be not the best idea. It backfires and could hurt FTDI more than the clones.
My past FDTI deployments have become ticking time bombs to me. Can they survive the next FDTI update? and what new compatibles are FDTI going to find? and what new intrusive measures are they going to introduce? I paid good money for FDTI cables but I can never be sure what did I get. If I got unlucky and got hit, and my client knew they were "not genuine", then my brand and reputation shall go down the drain with the FDTI.
My past FDTI deployments have become ticking time bombs to me. Can they survive the next FDTI update? and what new compatibles are FDTI going to find? and what new intrusive measures are they going to introduce? I paid good money for FDTI cables but I can never be sure what did I get. If I got unlucky and got hit, and my client knew they were "not genuine", then my brand and reputation shall go down the drain with the FDTI.
Don't you see? If those devices used counterfeit chips, then they were ALREADY ticking time bombs. You were screwed from the moment the distributor threw a reel of counterfeit chips in a box and slapped a label with your address on it (or your build house's address, or the build house who assembled the product you bought). It doesn't matter what FTDI does or doesn't do, those devices are already ticking time bombs because they use POS counterfeit chips with unknown specs, zero R&D, and zero QC.
Why are you not as concerned with other counterfeit chips making their way into your product? What about a counterfeit linear regulator with specs so far out of wack that the output ripple ends up destroying half the devices down the line? Or shorts Vin to Vout as soon as the ambient temp passes 30 C, blowing up everything on the board?
Personally, I'd much rather the driver tell me what's wrong, than spend weeks/months hunting down an interface that randomly corrupts bytes or drops packets whenever the humidity is above 80% on a Thursday.
FTDI has to put something in their driver to stop communication and tell you what's wrong. Not doing so would just be sweeping the problem under the rug, ruining their reputation, manufacturers' reputations, and allowing the problem to get even worse.
Now WHAT they do is certainly up for debate. For ME and MY APPLICATIONS, it makes absolutely no difference if they simply won't talk to the chip, brick the chip, or change the output of the chip to read "NOT GENUINE". No matter what they choose, the device is going back to the manufacturer (or if this is my device, it's going back to the build house, or if I built it myself, I'm getting on the phone immediately with Digikey/Mouser). It really doesn't make a difference.
I haven't seen anyone suggest a viable alternative to fight clones.
BTW, regarding the quality of their IP: I just tested the SPI mode of the FT2232H with their sample application for the D2XX driver and the SPI_ReadWrite function (with SPI_TRANSFER_OPTIONS_CHIPSELECT_ENABLE and SPI_TRANSFER_OPTIONS_CHIPSELECT_DISABLE, the only modification I made is to transfer 2 bytes). This is how it looks like:
Why in the world do people use Windows in the first place?