Every troll dies, children. Not every troll truly lives.

This article is a troll. Trolling will remain alive and well unless we ban it. But if we eliminate anonymous speech (as wags like David Brin suggest) then we will harm free speech. The only way to solve this problem utterly is to change the way we feel about women, and if that could happen overnight, it probably would have done so already.

There's evidence presented in this thread, by people familiar with reimplementing their interface. I see you didn't bother to read the thread.

But in this case you're celebrating denial of service to a user who may have acted in good faith. That's a shitty thing to be happy about. Why do you like taking advantage of people?

Only due to ignorance. The decent job was done by the people who make clone chips who implemented their interface. If they had written the driver to support disparate chips, that would have been a significant accomplishment. Writing a driver for their chip was not. In addition, software is expecting to see that driver.

Ironically, writing drivers, and packaging them for versions of Windows with driver signing. It was literally years after the release of Windows 7 before they had a decent package of Windows 7 drivers that would reliably work with their hardware. But because applications expect to see their driver, the only option would be to write a driver which supported their driver interface. Microsoft proved in the past that chasing a software interface is a fool's game, because it can be updated periodically solely for the purpose of decreasing interoperability.

Nobody is expecting anyone to contact FTDI for support, but now that they've done this to their driver, they will be contacted. So in fact, if their goal was to avoid support contacts, this was a staggeringly stupid move.

Necessary for meaningful interoperability.

FTDI became a de facto standard, and they are reaping the results now. They are using copyright (AFAICT, no patents are involved, this is deeply old technology) as a bludgeon in a way that will harm users and achieve none of your stated goals. As the only thing they will accomplish is harm to users and the generation of ill will, the fact that you are pleased by these actions is unsurprising, at least to me. You seem to revel in such abuse.

The problem is not solved, and merely claiming that is is doesn't make it so. All the customer knows is that they bought a device and something FTDI did broke it. If they actually manage to contact FTDI, FTDI will probably lie to them and tell them that the device doesn't work because it is a fake, but in truth the device doesn't work because FTDI broke it. (It's broken from the user's point of view.) And the main reason the problem is not solved is that a user can be trying to do the right thing, and actually specifying an FTDI chip when buying, but they can still wind up with a fake and FDTI can still disable their product. It's not their fault, they tried to do the right thing, it's not their job to track down copyright or trademark violations. They only need to act in good faith. Since the final price of a product is only loosely coupled to its production cost (it must be greater, but depending on how close you are to the supplier, it need not be much greater to show a profit) the user has no reliable way to know that they're getting what they're paying for.

FTDI is abusing customers who attempted to purchase their product in good faith, and that's why this is both a criminal act and also a very stupid idea.

No, the intent of a stalker infatuated with someone is to insinuate themselves into their life, and being super-nice is a tactic they use to do that. But there are other reasons why you might be very nice, and what you are suggesting is that nice equals creepy. Congratulations, you're part of the problem.

It impacts the value of your comment. You don't care enough to educate yourself, so people waste time reading your ignorance.

no, and you could have found that out by reading this thread.

Of course you can. There's lots of ways to do that, including hacking into the audio hardware. I'd probably just use an old phone though, and not a whole tablet. You don't need that much screen for that job. Most devices have some GPIO on board, which can be used with some effort, but using the audio hardware is much easier. Use one of the many phones with USB OTG, and connect up a cheap MCU to do the USB-to-GPIO work.

Nonsense. They claimed to be generally open, hardware and software. Then it was pointed out that important parts of the software were so closed you couldn't even use them. Eventually it was opened up enough so that you could use them, but all the important parts except the interface (which was originally closed) remain secret sauce. They also claimed to use all documented interfaces, but provided inadequate documentation for the display and camera connectors for a seriously long time as well.

They absolutely claimed to be promoting an open platform originally. They also made lots of other claims they never came through on, like that they would release Android for the device.

Yes, you can, unless it's patent-protected.

but this is Ford installing a Motorcraft oil filter which was designed not to open if it was connected to a Frod, not one which just happens to not open in that condition. There's a massive difference there, and the difference is one of intent.

Or your OS, which will refuse to deal with the device, assuming that it has failed or is otherwise exhibiting bad behavior.

Most of those manufacturers will just close their doors, change their name, and open them again, and the users will end up contacting FTDI, or just giving up.

Reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability is critical to scientific development. Here in the USA, it is an activity which is explicitly protected.

It's not theft, because they're not depriving them of it.

The user uses the FTDI driver.

Yes, but a war on users, some of whom deliberately set out to buy FTDI hardware. They won't make that mistake again.

That's probably true. However, they're going to have a whole lot of lawsuits coming their way in response, and those lawsuits will be from users of their chips.

No, they won't. If they were prepared to do that, they would be doing it already. They're not even distributing drivers in most cases, and it's left as an exercise to the user to download it, or the manufacturer of the device which uses the chip to include it. They're counting on not getting busted for the copyright violation of marking FTDI on top of the chip, and not risking getting busted for distributing the driver.

Reliable? Meh. Best drivers? Definitely a lie. They screw those up all the time. Additional features? That part is very true, and it's the reason why you need a real FTDI chip anyway. A lot of stuff won't work right if you don't have one.

The DMCA doesn't cover this issue. The closest it comes is explicitly protecting reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability. Creating a chip that works just like the FTDI chip is not illegal. Putting FTDI's marks on the top of your chip is a violation of trademark law. Distributing FTDI's driver would be a violation of copyright law. Downloading FTDI's driver without permission is also a violation of copyright law, so who distributes/downloads the driver affects who violates copyright there. Finally, using the driver without permission is also a violation of copyright law. AFAIK there is no legal precedent (and certainly no applicable laws) which cover the use of someone else's USB ID, unless you are doing it with the intent to cause some kind of harm, or cause harm through negligence.

Any possible claims over these clone chips center around driver copyright or misuse of trademarks. Or, of course, patent abuse, but that seems relatively unlikely here. FTDI is in extremely well-traveled territory.

If you take your fake Ford in for service, they detect that it's a fake, and instead of telling you that it's fake (and possibly removing your emblems) they reflash your PCM, deliberately causing your car not to start, how will you feel about that? Will you solely blame the manufacturer of your fake car, or will you be angry at the dealership for disabling your car?