Official response from @FTDIChip: https://twitter.com/mikelectricstuf/status/52491736815449292...
This is the worst response possible.
FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
141–150 of 315 posts
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#142It's interesting to consider from a legal perspective exactly why this isn't something a company is allowed to do. (Assuming the company did in fact intentionally damage people's chips, reversibly or not -- sounds like we don't know for sure yet?) - Intentionally sabotaging someone's stuff, legally, is more or less the same as intentionally taking it. Keying a car and driving it away might have different names but ar…
* we don't collect and burn all the infringing phones, we just make someone cut a check. *
Destruction of trademark-infringing goods and copied media is quite common, though.
In the UK, deliberately sabotaging hardware with drivers could be counted as a violation of the Computer Misuse Act, but there are hardly ever any prosecutions under that law.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#143It's interesting to consider from a legal perspective exactly why this isn't something a company is allowed to do. (Assuming the company did in fact intentionally damage people's chips, reversibly or not -- sounds like we don't know for sure yet?) - Intentionally sabotaging someone's stuff, legally, is more or less the same as intentionally taking it. Keying a car and driving it away might have different names but ar…
One could argue that using the official driver with counterfeit chips is outside intended purpose of the official driver, at which point the user is proceeding at his or her own risk.
I think the counterargument (elsewhere in this thread) is pretty persuasive -- that this defense won't help much if you intentionally set out to damage counterfeit chips.
Think about it this way. Suppose the driver works like this:
``` if(counterfeit()){ // do something harmful to the identified device } ```
If you have a counterfeit chip, and you run the driver, and the driver breaks your chip, then you are in fact using the "official driver" for its "intended purpose." Its intended purpose is to break your chip, and it works just fine. It just lied to you about its intended purpose in order to persuade you to install it.
Of course if the code does something that is safe and useful to do on the legit chip, and just happens to break the counterfeit chip, that's very different. I don't claim to know which thing is happening in this case.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#144They are getting pummeled on Twitter now, as well.
My guess is an 8am meeting in Glasgow (about 8.5 hours from now), followed by an apology and an updated driver announcement at 10am.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a great situation, but where does FTDI responsibility for supporting counterfeit devices start and end? If they let it continue more devices may hijack their USB VID, perhaps with bugs and glitches. Should they patch their driver to protect their reputation?
Your 'bugs and glitches' strawman is humorous because FTDI intentionally introduced bugs and glitches with the counterfeit devices, so they're certainly not trying to protect their reputation, just their profits. FTDI's responsibility for supporting counterfeit devices ends a long way before tampering with them. I think the moral high road to take in this situation would be to ignore the clones, but failing that, the…
Not to mention that FTDI's chips are not exactly known for their bug-free nature. If I had a dollar for every time I ran into a bug in their RS485 implementation, I would be a friggin' millionaire.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we be sure that FTDI has programmed their driver with malicious intent? It may be that this an accidental side-effect of using counterfeit hardware with a genuine driver. Without access to the source code or a well-reversed disassembly of the FTDI driver, and a good grasp of the logic used in the counterfeit chip, one cannot be certain about this. And surely not to the extent of urging Microsoft to revoke driver…
They basically admit it on their license page: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/FTDriverLicenceTerms.htm "Use of the Software as a driver for, or installation of the Software onto, a component that is not a Genuine FTDI Component, including without limitation counterfeit components, MAY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE THAT COMPONENT."
Even though their TOS might state that, it's extremely poor PR to go after the end user rather than the distributor. Most people won't even know that they have a counterfeit chip. Even though it may be well within their rights the customers will eventually find out what they have done and bear a grudge.
May cause more problems than it fixes.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#147The real problem here is that USB does not define a standard interface for an RS-232 adapter. Proprietary drivers should never have been required for these. Same deal for Centronics printer adapters.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your use of the word "blame" implies that you think there's some wrongdoing on the part of someone other than FTDI. I don't see it as particularly controversial to say that, when someone selling an item claims it's a certain brand, I expect that to be the truth. For example, if I buy an apple iphone I expect to get an apple iphone and if the supplier instead sends me a fake I regard that as wrongdoing on the part of…
Right. That would be the trademark infringement I mentioned. But aside from that, the fakes get the job done . Aside from who ends up getting the revenue, it's basically no different than if FTDI started producing a new revision of the product that had a different internal layout. Accidental second-sourcing doesn't really hurt anyone other than the first source. Everyone downstream of whoever bought the counterfeits…
Accidental second-sourcing doesn't
really hurt anyone other than the
first source.
If your suppliers can substitute a fake FTDI part, why not label 10% precision resistors as 1% precision, or label 1,000-operating-hour capacitors as 30,000-operating-hour, or label parts that failed temperature range binning as having passed temperature range binning?
And the people who really lose out from this aren't the Apples and Samsungs of this world, who do enough business that the promise of future work can keep the suppliers honest - it's the small manufacturers and kickstarter projects that aren't big enough to have the leverage to keep their suppliers in line.
Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your use of the word "blame" implies that you think there's some wrongdoing on the part of someone other than FTDI. I don't see it as particularly controversial to say that, when someone selling an item claims it's a certain brand, I expect that to be the truth. For example, if I buy an apple iphone I expect to get an apple iphone and if the supplier instead sends me a fake I regard that as wrongdoing on the part of…
Right. That would be the trademark infringement I mentioned. But aside from that, the fakes get the job done . Aside from who ends up getting the revenue, it's basically no different than if FTDI started producing a new revision of the product that had a different internal layout. Accidental second-sourcing doesn't really hurt anyone other than the first source. Everyone downstream of whoever bought the counterfeits…
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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s
#150Official response from @FTDIChip: https://twitter.com/mikelectricstuf/status/52491736815449292...
From that page: "FTDI is definitely not targeting end users - if you're unsure if ICs are genuine then please don't use the drivers."
This is where I think they are mistaken, because end users may be downloading and installing the drivers themselves. I have done this on more than one occasion: Some gadget has a USB port and I find that it uses the FTDI chip, so I go to the web page and download the FTDI drivers for it. This may happen quite frequently, for instance when an end user moves a gadget from one PC to another, and (mistakenly assumes that) they want the latest driver.
I'm disappointed because I was a big fan of FTDI and use them in a lot of my projects. I won't just go and burn all of my FTDI chips, but I am sufficiently motivated to look for an alternative. Looks like SparkFun has a couple of breakout boards for the Silicon Labs chips.