Make your drivers simply refuse to work with non-genuine ICs ... fair enough I suppose.
Willfully brick devices from another vendor, just because you are having legal issues with that other vendor .... not very nice, and possibly illegal.They haven't bricked anything. They changed the PID so their older drivers will also simply refuse to work with non-genuine ICs. It would be an issue if there were any other legitimate drivers that worked with these non-genuine chips but there are not and FTDI know it because the non-genuine chips use FTDI's VID and FTDI are the only ones able to create a legitimate driver for something with their VID.
Quote:
This software is provided by Future Technology Devices International Limited ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall future technology devices international limited be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
FTDI drivers may be used only in conjunction with products based on FTDI parts.
FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified.
If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.
I'm betting by plugging in an FTDI device you are accepting the license (you are getting the benefit). You did read the license right?
If Windoze updated your driver without telling you then take it up with MS, see how far that gets you
does anyone have a link to the last GOOD driver from ftdi? ...
That doesn't mean that if you violate the agreement they have the right to come in and kill your dog.
At worst, it should simply not work.
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'
Quote:
This software is provided by Future Technology Devices International Limited ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall future technology devices international limited be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
FTDI drivers may be used only in conjunction with products based on FTDI parts.
FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified.
If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.
I'm betting by plugging in an FTDI device you are accepting the license (you are getting the benefit). You did read the license right?
If Windoze updated your driver without telling you then take it up with MS, see how far that gets you
Erm, well, it doesn't work anymore, does it?
Guys we're all supposed to be techies in here. So far there has been debate as to whether FTDI did the right thing or not, talk of suing, very little talk of how to rectify the situation.
Unfortunately I don't have one of those problematic FTDI chips to play with but from past experience with FTDI, I doubt very much that the driver is able to actually kill the chip. Most of the feedback on this issue mentions that the VID/PID is reset to zero. This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.
This means, and I'm only just guessing here, that the driver may try to update some EEPROM parameters and due to some incompatibility or difference between the real/fake FTDI chips, the fake ones fail to write the EEPROM correctly and it remains erased. This is just me guessing and giving FTDI the benefit of the doubt.
So continuing with my theory, since you can't kill the FTDI chip itself via software, this is just an issue of the EEPROM getting erased. The fix may simply be to disconnect the EEPROM SPI clock trace so that the fake chip cannot detect it, therefore reverting to the hard coded VID/PID which is the normal behaviour of a FTDI chip, whether real or fake.
This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.
FTDI wants us hobbieists to contact their business dealers instead of buying the few ic's from " dubious" sources as Ebay because they are too lazy to check all Ebay listings with "FTDI" in their advertisement.
Great let all hobbieists unite and email their official FTDI dealer tomorrow to give them an official quote for those one, two or few FTDI chips and if they don,t hear an answer or denial for such quote within one day keep on repeating those emails. I wonder how much they will loose on all that paperwork.
If FTDI wants to do something that really will hurt those counterfeiters they should open up an official ebay store where everyone can buy few pieces of official ic's for decent prices with free shipping, only then will something happen.
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'Sorry but this has nothing to do with freeloading. It is as if you buy a PC with Windows but it turns out it has is no valid Windows license. Microsoft notifies you of this issue politely and allows a grace period instead of reformatting your hard drive immediately.
Oh, sounds like "If you insert this dvd in your drive, you accept the license and we can format your harddrive". On a text file on the DVD.
really ?
Guys we're all supposed to be techies in here. So far there has been debate as to whether FTDI did the right thing or not, talk of suing, very little talk of how to rectify the situation.
Unfortunately I don't have one of those problematic FTDI chips to play with but from past experience with FTDI, I doubt very much that the driver is able to actually kill the chip. Most of the feedback on this issue mentions that the VID/PID is reset to zero. This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.
This means, and I'm only just guessing here, that the driver may try to update some EEPROM parameters and due to some incompatibility or difference between the real/fake FTDI chips, the fake ones fail to write the EEPROM correctly and it remains erased. This is just me guessing and giving FTDI the benefit of the doubt.
So continuing with my theory, since you can't kill the FTDI chip itself via software, this is just an issue of the EEPROM getting erased. The fix may simply be to disconnect the EEPROM SPI clock trace so that the fake chip cannot detect it, therefore reverting to the hard coded VID/PID which is the normal behaviour of a FTDI chip, whether real or fake.
You mean something like real FTDI chips instead of Supereal Microelectronics chips with FTDI written on them?
I had a bunch of boards manufactured in China with fake Fairchild MOSFETS that didn't work - from that I should have concluded that Fairchild makes crap MOSFETs?
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win
Stop being a dick. The only thing FTDI accomplished here is that I'm not going to design any FTDI chips into anything in the future, fake or otherwise.
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI winAn individual can not pressure the suppliers at ebay. We can argue that it was a fake and claim our money back then they ask the product back and the end user can pay the shipping which is more then the price of the product so not going to happen. Result will be that no one is ever going to bet his money on buying any product that has an ftdi chip on it since you can not know if it is a fake or not?
So FTDI will go belly up. If that is winning in your scenario
Oooh, I bet the multi-million dollar FTDI are terrified, you might go use a poor substitute in your next 'maker' project :S
Stop being a dick.
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'Sorry but this has nothing to do with freeloading. It is as if you buy a PC with Windows but it turns out it has is no valid Windows license. Microsoft notifies you of this issue politely and allows a grace period instead of reformatting your hard drive immediately.You have had many years of grace period but still buy the fakes coz they are a buck cheaper - M$ give you 30 days iirc. You did nothing because you didn't have to - that's freeloading on FTDIs goodwill in my book
No, you can't pressure an ebay seller but if enough ppl stop buying/start returning/reporting his cloned shit then he's going to have to take notice