FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??

[KPR8]

@kpr8:
Do you have the new driver installed ?

Sure, and I use legitimate FTDI parts & so I have 0 issues (actually I use Linux so it's a non-issue)

To be clear, I am trolling you. BUT the fact remains this is a problem that the 'build it cheap in China' movement has brought on it's own head. A couple of dozen butt-hurt makers isn't going to make a fig of difference to FTDI and if you think otherwise then you're a fool

Yeah, this is a good old fashioned internet flame war - bring it! 

[KPR8]

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

Not many years. I just got the boards a couple of weeks ago and the chips look like the genuine ones even under a magnifier. As I wrote before I have the genuine parts in stock so I put them side by side. Either way there is no freeloading by me. I bought a product in good faith and spend two hours figuring out why the boards (suddenly) didn't work after being used on a Windows machine. If the FTDI driver had prompted me that the chips on the board where fake and therefore could not be used I would not have needed to spend to hours trying to figure out what is wrong.

You're a victiim of other peoples willingness to accept clones. Sorry dude, you have my sympathy

[linux-works]

its not just 'makers'.  I am seeing a lot of design (product) engineers steer away from ftdi just to avoid any RISK of having this hit them.  unless you are a huge company, you cannot micromanage your offshore board builders.  sure, you spec in a real ftdi part; but the pcb makers who stuff your board will do what they want and unless you have a man on the ground, there, 7x24, you cannot be sure some fakes won't slip into the supply.

so, what do you do?  not take any risks.  dont' design for ftdi and use another serial/usb chip.

hell, I would do that if I was in a large company.  this will stay in my mind for years and if I am asked to do a design review (it happens..) and I see ftdi in there, I will certainly speak up.  whether my voice is heard or respected, I can't say, but I will certainly raise the issue.  why even take a chance that it will backfire and your own company will get blamed?  who wants angry customers?  best to just avoid ftdi in all designs, from now on.  sure, they are great chips, but I would not want even one angry customer who blames ME for this.

would be interesting to see how this affects ftdi in the long run.  wish we could get numbers on their sales and watch it over time   I'm very sure that their bottom line will suffer from this; they are just too pig-headed to get that fact; but they WILL see it, later on.

this forum has hobbiests and actual product engineers.  from my read on the comments here, not one single product engineers WANTS to take risks on this subject.  can you 100% be sure that your board stuffers won't go rogue and sub a fake chip?  do you want to bet your company's rep on it?

[Kjelt]

You know what I would like to know? Up to what level in management of FTDI this "feature" in the driver software was sanctioned. For all we know this shitstorm ends up in the press and next monday the responsible FTDI engineer and supervisor who thought this was a clever idea are fired with a new software driver on the way. Reputation damage is already done.

[XFDDesign]

Putting on a TFH, I would not be surprised if KRP8 is not a Social Media Damage Control expert/consultant. FTDI Chip makes an account and makes a single post; the board blasts them, so then comes in a new guy with no prior posts to call everyone who whines something along the lines of "negligible slime."

[KPR8]

Not one profi 'product' engineer would accept the risk - instead they will get onto their sourcing team make damn sure the chips are legit.

That's the point

Go FTDI! It's about time someone made a stand. FTDI have been delivering innovative & quality products for years and deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. If they don't get paid then YOU don't get new parts to play with (have you checked out the FT800/1 parts? freaking awesome)

I say there should be a fair return on investment & IP companies should get paid for their work (even if it offends the freetards and 'makers' who are used to getting stuff for free)

The alternative is we end up stuck with shitty devices at high prices. Go figure

Love, your local neighbourhood troll

[krater]

@kpr8:
Do you have the new driver installed ?

Sure, and I use legitimate FTDI parts & so I have 0 issues (actually I use Linux so it's a non-issue)

To be clear, I am trolling you. BUT the fact remains this is a problem that the 'build it cheap in China' movement has brought on it's own head. A couple of dozen butt-hurt makers isn't going to make a fig of difference to FTDI and if you think otherwise then you're a fool

Yeah, this is a good old fashioned internet flame war - bring it! 

Hehe, here is yout fish <°))))><

Maybee you're right, but who do you think is developing all this professional hardware shit ? Many of them are hobbyists that makes a job out of their hobby. And what will they use ? The parts that they know, the parts that they used at home too.
Who would use windows if there wasn't years where M$ never done anything against piracy on private pc's ?

[XFDDesign]

You know what I would like to know? Up to what level in management of FTDI this "feature" in the driver software was sanctioned. For all we know this shitstorm ends up in the press and next monday the responsible FTDI engineer and supervisor who thought this was a clever idea are fired with a new software driver on the way. Reputation damage is already done.

It doesn't matter, the only time people up the top "Didn't know about this until I saw it on TV" get away with this is if they're government. If it's a corporation of any kind, the guys at the top will be taken to the ringer just the same (as they should).

[KPR8]

Putting on a TFH, I would not be surprised if KRP8 is not a Social Media Damage Control expert/consultant. FTDI Chip makes an account and makes a single post; the board blasts them, so then comes in a new guy with no prior posts to call everyone who whines something along the lines of "negligible slime."

Nope, I'm an embedded engineer with 20+ years experience and a jaundiced view. You may even have heard of me in the hacking sceen

[XFDDesign]

.. You may even have heard of me in the hacking sceen

First sign that someone is not, is when they make claims of what they are of this kind.

In your 20 years of embedded, was the end user Consumer or Sci/Ind?

[krater]

Go FTDI! It's about time someone made a stand. FTDI have been delivering innovative & quality products for years and deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. If they don't get paid then YOU don't get new parts to play with (have you checked out the FT800/1 parts? freaking awesome)

Oh I must say, the chinese copies works very well too

[KPR8]

Hehe, here is yout fish <°))))><

Maybee you're right, but who do you think is developing all this professional hardware shit ? Many of them are hobbyists that makes a job out of their hobby. And what will they use ? The parts that they know, the parts that they used at home too.
Who would use windows if there wasn't years where M$ never done anything against piracy on private pc's ?

And many thanks ofr the fish. The thing is, FTDI (and others) deliver quality parts for use by industry. They help out the hobbyist scene by delivering hobby friendly parts - When the FT232 was first released there was a a DIP adapter board for 10 - 20 GBP (cant remember the exact price) available to everyone direct from FTDI. I used a bunch of these for various projects

We, the community, have repaid FTDI by gleefully buying shitty clones from China (even if we 'didnt know') for a buck less, then we start a shitstorm because FTDi protect themselves? Piss poor IMHO

Want new, innovative, exciting devices? Pay the fricking price & be grateful.

Troll

[KPR8]

.. You may even have heard of me in the hacking sceen

First sign that someone is not, is when they make claims of what they are of this kind.

In your 20 years of embedded, was the end user Consumer or Sci/Ind?

well, I sure havent heard of you

Your troll is eating - brb

[krater]

And many thanks ofr the fish. The thing is, FTDI (and others) deliver quality parts for use by industry. They help out the hobbyist scene by delivering hobby friendly parts - When the FT232 was first released there was a a DIP adapter board for 10 - 20 GBP (cant remember the exact price) available to everyone direct from FTDI. I used a bunch of these for various projects

We, the community, have repaid FTDI by gleefully buying shitty clones from China (even if we 'didnt know') for a buck less, then we start a shitstorm because FTDi protect themselves? Piss poor IMHO

We don't start a shitstorm because FTDI protect themselves. They can't protect them in this way (Chinese are like the Borg, they will adapt). We start a shitstorm because we don't like the way how they try to protect themsselves. Maybee with a warning message and the move not to VID 0000 (i read that there are some issues to run a driver on some OS at 0000) but to FFFF, this could be another thing....

[KPR8]

Again

-FTDI have no chance of combating Chinese cloners

-If the driver displayed a message box, 99.9% of users would click cancel and ignore it

FTDI have delivered innovative products that have enabled the maker community. You have your knickers in a bunch because they ar eprotecting their IP. If they didn't protect themsellves there would be NO MORE new FTDI products and that would SUCK FOR EVERYONE 

Too bad if you got burned in the short term, in the long term you will win

Want to complain? Go after the cloners and resellers, tell them how pissed you are 

[Kjelt]

If the driver recognizes that it is not a real ftdi chip it should not work plain and simple. Maybe a message ox why it does not work and contact your seller or something similar but i agree that the ftdi driver should not work with the fake chip.

[KPR8]

If the driver recognizes that it is not a real ftdi chip it should not work plain and simple. Maybe a message ox why it does not work and contact your seller or something similar but i agree that the ftdi driver should not work with the fake chip.

And in the Chinglish instruction manual - step 3: click 'ignore' when whiny driver complains your product is a fake :S

If you guys really want to make a difference then why not start a white/blacklist of resellers?

10 pages of complaining and only 1 or 2 ppl posting who has fake/legit parts. sheesh

[nctnico]

FTDI have delivered innovative products that have enabled the maker community.

Just admit you are hired by FTDI for social media damage control. You have repeated this marketing buzz-words collection several times now. It doesn't work on engineers.

[diyaudio]

I really think Dave should make a short video on this.

[Kjelt]

FTDI have delivered innovative products that have enabled the maker community.

Just admit you are hired by FTDI for social media damage control. You have repeated this marketing buzz-words collection several times now. It doesn't work on engineers.

Haha no this guy is just a troll as he already stated. If he was hired for damage control he would not have added so much oil on the fire.
Lets all just email our local official FTDI for an quote for two chips and keep continuing till they ship it or go belly up.

[krater]

Again

-FTDI have no chance of combating Chinese cloners

-If the driver displayed a message box, 99.9% of users would click cancel and ignore it

FTDI have delivered innovative products that have enabled the maker community. You have your knickers in a bunch because they ar eprotecting their IP. If they didn't protect themsellves there would be NO MORE new FTDI products and that would SUCK FOR EVERYONE 

Too bad if you got burned in the short term, in the long term you will win

Want to complain? Go after the cloners and resellers, tell them how pissed you are

Okay, its a good idea to destroy the reputation of a own product to destroy the market of clones. It's just like chemo therapie....
 

[andersm]

its not just 'makers'.  I am seeing a lot of design (product) engineers steer away from ftdi just to avoid any RISK of having this hit them.  unless you are a huge company, you cannot micromanage your offshore board builders.  sure, you spec in a real ftdi part; but the pcb makers who stuff your board will do what they want and unless you have a man on the ground, there, 7x24, you cannot be sure some fakes won't slip into the supply.

But any part in your design could be substituted with a fake. What makes the FTDI part so special, besides getting immediate and visiable feedback that it's broken?

[ploppity]

It's not the first time. For example segger can damage counterfeit products of their own.  You can get them to work again by reflashing.

[madires]

When the FTDI driver is installed you are agreeing the terms of use of FTDI`s device. Please note that FTDI`s driver licence agreement will be broken if used with counterfeit devices.
 

FTDI is violating German law by modifying clones to be unusable. It's an offence. It doesn't matter if that is stated in a licence agreement or whatever paper (it's simply invalid). You should have asked you lawyers first. 

[sacherjj]

its not just 'makers'.  I am seeing a lot of design (product) engineers steer away from ftdi just to avoid any RISK of having this hit them.  unless you are a huge company, you cannot micromanage your offshore board builders.  sure, you spec in a real ftdi part; but the pcb makers who stuff your board will do what they want and unless you have a man on the ground, there, 7x24, you cannot be sure some fakes won't slip into the supply.

But any part in your design could be substituted with a fake. What makes the FTDI part so special, besides getting immediate and visiable feedback that it's broken?

To me it is the possibility that even with a legit FTDI chip, an error in the driver can brick their own chips.  I'm putting something in my product that won't get disabled if the checks pass.  It is a risk, for zero gain for me.  I'm not taking a risk just for FTDI's gain.