Of course, we've all heard your answer already, which is screw people who bought something from incompetent engineers, they should have known better and deserve what they get. I can only hope that bites you someday when you have something designed by an incompetent engineer in a field you didn't have the experience to evaluate properly.
Malfunction? I'm sure there are many that would. Endanger life? No.Hilariously naive, or frighteningly, if you're actually an engineer.
It seems that there is another company here that has decided to screw their customers by bricking their devices:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I want to see how many here will try to defend their actions - they have all the right to refuse work with non-original and potentially counterfeit components, right?!
Sine everyone enjoys using what ifs.
What if FTDI decided to optimize the driver to bring new functionality to their ftd2xx.dll library and for whatever reason some clones would act erratically midstream after the device and the program have already established a handshake.
It's in their best interest (FTDI's) to detect and refuse to work with cloned chips at initialization, otherwise they might be liable if they attempt to communicate with devices not designed by them and that might not be up to spec for the driver's features.
So yeah, you can turn the whole thing around legally and FTDI can be firm to state that they don't want to be liable for talking with unknown chips with unknown characteristics.
It seems that there is another company here that has decided to screw their customers by bricking their devices:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I want to see how many here will try to defend their actions - they have all the right to refuse work with non-original and potentially counterfeit components, right?!
I'll bite. What Apple is doing here is bricking phones that have potentially been stolen and the button (which is also the fingerprint sensor) replaced to gain access to the stolen phone.
Stolen phones are a big problem and I fully support any efforts on the part of the manufacturers to render stolen phones useless to the thieves. That's the only way to solve the theft problem. If a few innocent people inadvertently get their phones bricked as a result, then that's probably the price we have to pay to solve the greater problem of phone theft.
Stolen phones are a big problem and I fully support any efforts on the part of the manufacturers to render stolen phones useless to the thieves. That's the only way to solve the theft problem. If a few innocent people inadvertently get their phones bricked as a result, then that's probably the price we have to pay to solve the greater problem of phone theft.
What if FTDI decided to optimize the driver to bring new functionality to their ftd2xx.dll library and for whatever reason some clones would act erratically midstream after the device and the program have already established a handshake.
It's in their best interest (FTDI's) to detect and refuse to work with cloned chips at initialization, otherwise they might be liable if they attempt to communicate with devices not designed by them and that might not be up to spec for the driver's features.
So yeah, you can turn the whole thing around legally and FTDI can be firm to state that they don't want to be liable for talking with unknown chips with unknown characteristics.
Stolen phones are a big problem and I fully support any efforts on the part of the manufacturers to render stolen phones useless to the thieves. That's the only way to solve the theft problem. If a few innocent people inadvertently get their phones bricked as a result, then that's probably the price we have to pay to solve the greater problem of phone theft.
People die of liver cancer. So let's remove everyone's liver, healthy or otherwise, in order to prevent liver cancer.
FTDI distribute their driver through the official mechanism on Windows, it's essentially part of the operating system. What the hell is wrong with using it? If they don't want people using their driver they shouldn't give it away.
So let's say that someone cloned Nvidia's graphics chipset and made their own board--should they just piggyback on Nvidia's drivers (which are part of Windows) rather than writing their own? Nvidia has invested millions in writing these drivers and it's a key part of their IP. Where do you draw the line?
Are you sure you didn't get the two mixed up? Or perhaps they're both actually clones, but one passes the test enough to identify as genuine?
AFAIK the clones use a microcontroller whereas the genuine ones are a full ASIC. If true, funny to see the former beating the latter in timing stability... it's usually the other way around.
It seems that there is another company here that has decided to screw their customers by bricking their devices:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I want to see how many here will try to defend their actions - they have all the right to refuse work with non-original and potentially counterfeit components, right?!
I'll bite. What Apple is doing here is bricking phones that have potentially been stolen and the button (which is also the fingerprint sensor) replaced to gain access to the stolen phone.
So let's say that someone cloned Nvidia's graphics chipset and made their own board--should they just piggyback on Nvidia's drivers (which are part of Windows) rather than writing their own? Nvidia has invested millions in writing these drivers and it's a key part of their IP. Where do you draw the line?
So let's say that someone cloned Nvidia's graphics chipset and made their own board--should they just piggyback on Nvidia's drivers (which are part of Windows) rather than writing their own? Nvidia has invested millions in writing these drivers and it's a key part of their IP. Where do you draw the line?Nvidia releases the driver to microsoft who distributes it gratiously to the user. The user does not sign an EULA for that driver, so he can use it for anything he wants, including reverse engineering it.
We are not talking about FTDIgate 1.0, bringing that up (the bricking) just muds the waters of the current situation and it's just used to distract the topic at hand, not helpful at all.
Stolen phones are a big problem and I fully support any efforts on the part of the manufacturers to render stolen phones useless to the thieves. That's the only way to solve the theft problem. If a few innocent people inadvertently get their phones bricked as a result, then that's probably the price we have to pay to solve the greater problem of phone theft.
People die of liver cancer. So let's remove everyone's liver, healthy or otherwise, in order to prevent liver cancer.
When you can't come up with an intelligent argument to get your point across, resort to the most extreme straw man possible.
So let's say that someone cloned Microsoft's SMB protocol and made their own compatible implementation -- should they just piggyback on Microsoft's SMB subsystem (which is part of Windows) rather than writing their own OS? Microsoft has invested millions in developing this protocol and integrating it into their OS and it's a key part of their IP. Where do you draw the line?
Oh wait, it's called Samba, and MS was actually ordered by the European Commission to supply the Samba developers with protocol information, as part of an antitrust case.
Western Digital developed this into the first widely available single-chip UART, the WD1402A, around 1971. This was an early example of a medium scale integrated circuit.
If you should have read your own links, you should have known that the reason was that microsoft has a near monopoly.
As far as I know, FTDI has no monopoly on the (emulated) serial port, neither a monopoly on USB-UART chips.
Please, don't try to behave like you are some kind of lawyer.
Clone FT232 without using their logo is legal since FTDI, AFAIK did not patent the protocol.
Cloning SMB is not. M$ patented their protocol. However, the reason Samba is legal is because M$ explicitly gave up rights on SMB protocol, as well as many other commonly used M$ protocols/formats, like docx.
FTDI isn't being forced to do anything, because they're not a monopoly, but they also don't have the slightest case against clone chips
using their driver (as long as they don't have an FTDI logo), ...
The counterfeit chips do have the FTDI logo. That's why it's counterfeit...... They just try to make the counterfeit chips stop working.
1) They don't detect counterfeits. They detect non FTDI chips. It could be a legitimate compatible chip, a clone, a grey market FTDI silicon, or a counterfeit.
Legitimate manufacturers do not impersonate their competition by spoofing their vendor ID and product ID...{Snip}