Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

hackaday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 100 posts

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#71

Post by PhasmaFelis »

ryanthejuggler wrote: post #38
eksith wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea did not sit well with VTM Group, the people serving as the management, PR, legal, and membership and licensing department of the USB Implementers Forum The hands, the mouth and collector of thoughts cannot be separated from a thing and still be called a whole. Besides even the title says, "USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source"

The article is a second-hand source; the author could be trying to stir something up, or maybe just got a bit too excited. Who knows? The article also says the proposal, among others, "haven’t hit the desk of anyone at the USB Implementers Forum, the people who are actually in charge of designating USB VIDs and PIDs". Doesn't sound like the forum said no to me.

What is with this bizarre argument that paid legal representation doesn't legally represent their client? By definition, unless the USB Forum directs the VTM Group to retract the C&D, it represents the Forum's position.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#72

Post by dkersten »

nraynaud wrote: post #29
jrockway wrote: post #2

Why not just pick a VID and start using it? USB is so well understood at this point that there is no need for anyone to play ball with an "official" organization. (Whoever gets "officially" issued that VID is going to whine when they notice it's already being used for hobbyist purposes anyway, which means that the technique of just picking one will guarantee uniqueness.)

I think there's still a problem because that leaves still only 255 PID. Maybe we should just squat the VID, and then do a PID+(another field in the descriptor) as the discriminator for people who need special protocols (I do). For now I've stolen my MCU maker VID and used 255 as PID, because I couldn't even find an "experimental" PID/VID in the spec to use during development. It's a bug and urgent problem, I'm perfec…

When I was doing some development for some USB devices, I remember there was a VID/PID designated for development-only use. I can't remember what it was, however, and the company I was doing work for registered their own before the devices shipped.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#73

Post by comex »

nraynaud wrote: post #65
marcosdumay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. If you tought a memory stick pretending that it's a keyboard was a serious enough problem, just wait untill somebody thinks loading random drivers from the device (or the web!) is a good idea. It will happen, that's a near certainty. Some day, somebody will think that's a good idea, and since it's easy, the scheme will get widely used.

If you don't trust the web or the device, where will you get the driver? Why did you plug the device in the first place?

Perhaps the Linux kernel you already have installed, which presently has drivers for just about everything included and developed in a centralized, controlled fashion...

Whether this is actually better probably depends on your point of view. But loading (somehow OS-neutral?) drivers from a fixed store on the device seems like a great way to be stuck with out-of-date binary blobs forever.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#74

Post by mncolinlee »

Why not use this cease and desist letter to file a RICO Act claim against them?

If they can't responsibly offer their product without revoking it for simply using it as intended, they are racketeers. The Open Source community has not broken any legal agreements in simply publicizing the idea of a shared VID. The USB Forum are completely in the wrong for their behavior.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#75

Post by tedunangst »

quesera wrote: post #51
VLM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the humorous part of the whole discussion that the VTM group is trying to preserve revenue by ignoring the hobbyists and sticking with the people who think nothing of falsifying UL registry, falsifying FCC certifications, and violating patents, but I'm sure those guys would never turn against the VTM group and illegally use the USB trademark without permission, LOL. Whereas the hobbyists, if you don't intentio…

> Legendarily it was HP (or was it sun?) who shipped a whole batch of ethernet cards accidentally in the 90s with the same MAC address, boy was that a nightmare to figure out the hard way. Sun used to use the same MAC address on each port of their QFE (quad fast Ethernet) cards. It was easy to fix with ifconfig, but always made me wonder two things: a) if I number these ports sequentially (:a, :b, ...) am I going to…

That's because the MAC address is stored in system ROM on the motherboard, not in the NIC, iirc. The theory was 1) the ports would be used on different network segments, hence no problem and 2) storing the MAC in the motherboard meant you could swap NICs without updating all your DHCP/whatever config files.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#76

Post by JoeAltmaier »

samworm wrote: post #5
jrockway wrote: post #2

Why not just pick a VID and start using it? USB is so well understood at this point that there is no need for anyone to play ball with an "official" organization. (Whoever gets "officially" issued that VID is going to whine when they notice it's already being used for hobbyist purposes anyway, which means that the technique of just picking one will guarantee uniqueness.)

The way these things normally work is that you're only allowed to use the name and marks if you're an official licensee. So if you put the USB logo on your marketing and claim to have a "USB Mini" connector in your specifications then you could be in trouble on two fronts: (1) the usb folks can sue you for using their IP and (2) purchasers can claim the product is not "as described" which may given them certain right…

Then market it. SUSB - SuperUSB. Who wouldn't buy something that's the-same-but-Super?

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#77

Post by Amadou »

qwerty_asdf wrote: post #47
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have: "There are a number of ideas to get around VTM Group that include squatting on USB VID 0xF055"

Does anybody own these? 0xDEAD 0xBEEF 0x1337 0xFACE 0xF00D 0xABCD ...and so on? Maybe, if they're reserved as unassignable (due to being an inappropriate value for professional, business puposes), then perhaps it's open season on those.

An alternative would be to find one that has been assigned to a now defunct company. Then you'd only have to worry about historical devices and if you are lucky you could come up with a list of those PIDs and exclude them.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#78

Post by Amadou »

wheremiah wrote: post #49
Fuxy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just call it ThatThing2 and ThatThing3 in the hobby community :P

How about BSU? It could stand for a lot of things... but I like Bull Sh!t USB. Which I think is an appropriate eye-poke response to an annoying organization.

BHC - Butt-Head Connector

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/butt-head-astronomer.ht...

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#79

Post by voltagex_ »

nraynaud wrote: post #57
JonFish85 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is stopping anyone from using any given VID for their own purposes of testing. If its in your own garage as the article mentions, you can use whatever you want. However, once it's out in the wild (even if it's just the few hundred devices), the USB-IF (and their lawyers) apparently can squash it. The fee is $5k if I recall. As others have mentioned, if you are planning on making a real product, it's something…

Technically, you could, but you don't want to stomp on other vendor's feet. It's a bit like mac addresses or IP addresses, you can do what you want but you probably want to behave in society (in the case of IP addresses, you'll need friends for routing). And also, to find the device from the OS API, you sometimes have to submit the VID/PID of the device you are looking for. Example: http://developer.chrome.com/apps/u…

Devices like USB modems switch based on what mode they're running in, anyway.

Re: USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source

#80

Post by Sanddancer »

comex wrote: post #73
nraynaud wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't trust the web or the device, where will you get the driver? Why did you plug the device in the first place?

Perhaps the Linux kernel you already have installed, which presently has drivers for just about everything included and developed in a centralized, controlled fashion... Whether this is actually better probably depends on your point of view. But loading (somehow OS-neutral?) drivers from a fixed store on the device seems like a great way to be stuck with out-of-date binary blobs forever.

Then again, there are cases where developers have and will release driver source out of tree so that new devices are supported on day one, or to avoid the politics of the linux kernel. Having a flash with a driver, even if it is an older one, could be a godsend for things like nics, where you can very easily end up in a catch-22 type situation.
Post reply on HN