USB Implementers Forum Won't Play Nice With Open Hardware 273
DeathToBill writes "Hack A Day reports on the attempts of open hardware hackers to obtain a vendor and product ID for their devices to be able to sell them as USB compliant: 'A not for profit foundation [in this case Arachnid Labs] could buy a VID, give PIDs away to foundation members making open source hardware, and we would all live in a magical world of homebrew devices that are certified as USB compliant.' The USB Implementers Forum, which controls the sale of PIDs, has lawyered up, responding to the effort with a cease and desist notice, requiring Arachnid Labs to stop 'raising funds to purchase a unique USB VID' and 'delete all references to the USB-IF, VIDs and PIDs for transfer, resale or sublicense from your website and other marketing materials.' A slight over-reaction? Or dark conspiracy against open hardware? You decide!"
Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Interesting)
What does it imply not being certified as USB compliant?
If you have USB and people use it and it works and reviewers use it and just say "it has USB"...
What I mean is: Is it forbidden by law to say "It's got USB" if it's not certified as USB compliant?
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
afaik no but you can't use the logos.
I guess the usb guys are doing this to raise moar money for them. you see if you just need a few why would you buy a whole batch at a crazy cost.....
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I don't know much about USB 3, but USB 2 is technically horrible. And I would say that it only beat Firewire because it was the el cheapo standard that every Far Eastern PCB glue factory could afford to implement.
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if it can be done cheaply it's not horrible...
but doing it right doesn't seem to be that cheap for a small run.
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I don't see what's so horrible about it beyond the fact that it doesn't conform to your particular brand fetish of being associated with Apple.
It's cheap, ubiquitous, convenient, and good enough for all but the corner cases.
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I don't see what's so horrible about it
Try reading the spec. If you survive (and that's a big if) without gouging your brain out, then try implementing bits of it. If you survive that without exploding then try getting the implemeted ones to actually work.
Then you will trylu know what is so horrible about it.
Disclaimer: I've done neither, but I know people who have worked with it.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
I have read the entire spec, except a few parts about the physical molding/construction of cables and some parts of the last chapter about hubs. I've read many of the change notices that come in the zip file with the main PDF. I've also read the entire HID, Mass Storage class specs, most of the CDC class spec, substantial parts of many of the others, and a good portion of the OHCI spec. I've also read the datasheets for numerous chips, API documentation for Mac, Windows and Linux (at least libusb on Linux), and numerous other related documents.
Yes, there's a lot of documentation. No, I haven't gouged my brain out.
I have implemented 2 USB device-side stacks on microcontrollers (a.k.a. "bare metal") from scratch. Both are commercially successful and in widespread use on Teensy 2.0 and 3.0 and numerous projects and products people have designed and incorporated my code.
While you've done neither, I most certainly have done both: read the specs and implement portions of USB. I would disagree with your opinion that summarizes USB as "horrible".
It's actually a pretty well though out system.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well that's often how standards work.
Consider how VHS beat Beta (aside from the "having Porn" aspect). Consider how many of Sony's other proprietary formats failed to take off because a cheaper, "technically inferior" alternative exists. DAT, MiniDisc, "Sony Dynamic Digital Sound", ATRAC, HiFD... the world is uncompromising.
Consider how Iomega beat the pants off of SyQuest (Zip drives vs EZ135), despite being slower, lower capacity, and prone to the media itself dying in a way that would actually destroy the drive (click of death [wikipedia.org]). How did they do this? By getting Gateway and Dell to pack in Zip drives on a ton of computers for about 5 years and then selling the media everywhere.
And then Iomega tried for the Jaz drives, and competed with Castlewood's Orb drives, and both of them got smacked around by people going "hey you idiots, we can burn DVDs now."
Consider how Blu-Ray has settled into the niche, high-end "I have a 800-inch TV and 13-point surround sound" video/audiophile nerd zone, while DVD still kicks its butt by being available to anyone who can scrape together $20 for a player, $20 for a tv of any sort (even an old CRT still works w/ it), and $5-10 a month for a Netflix subscription or some cheap movies from the local grocery store or walmart's bargain bin.
Consider how the Atari 5200 couldn't manage to get buyers and was whomped by the Atari 2600. How the NES, woefully inferior to the Sega Genesis, nevertheless completely beat it in sales for two whole years before Nintendo finally got around to releasing the SNES (Genesis released 1989, SNES released 1991). How the supposedly "technically superior" PSP line have been a constant source of jokes and derision while Nintendo laughs their ass to the bank re-releasing old games on Gameboy/DS/3DS hardware that is, in terms of technical limitations, less powerful than an old Playstation and makes the games look more than a decade old.
Look how hard Apple tried to push Firewire only to have nobody else want it. Look how hard they're now trying to push Thunderbolt, which they can only sell to people who by an Apple laptop or desktop machine. Thunderbolt is headed the way of Firewire, fast.
It does you no good to be "technically superior" if you can't get your product into people's hands. History is littered with "technically superior" crap that nobody adopted.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Funny)
History is littered with "technically superior" crap that nobody adopted.
Mfh... n-- You take that back! My Dreamcast is Not CRAP! I'll show you crap!
...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to change my HDDVDBVDs.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Interesting)
CAN THE VHS/BETA MYTH FUCKING DIE NOW (Score:5, Informative)
I worked on both VHS and Betamax video tape recorders as both an operator and a repair technician from the time the bloody things were invented until Beta finally died.
Consumer Betamax video tape recorders were not technically better than VHS. They just weren't, no matter how many times people parrot this nonsense. I personally set them up, ran them, fixed them for at least a decade. The tape path and mechanics of beta were fucking retarded compared to VHS, and that's why even cheap shoddy VHS mechanisms worked just as well as expensive Sony betamax machines!
No human being could tell the difference in picture quality after the machines were more than two weeks old, because there wasn't any once they'd been used for a while. We used to challenge customers on brand new machines and nobody could ever successfully do it, not ever. For all practical purposes they were identical, Beta's tiny horizontal sync advantage evaporated in real use and the resolution was the same.
In the Real World[tm] VHS machines were more economical, more reliable, just as high fidelity, and recorded longer. Betamax was an also-ran second best and that's why VHS won.
Wikipedia has plenty of proof if you won't believe hands-on experience. Stop repeating this total bullshit fanboy crap.
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Re:CAN THE VHS/BETA MYTH FUCKING DIE NOW (Score:5, Funny)
Stop repeating this total bullshit fanboy crap.
Yeah I agree with you, it's time VHS/Betamax fanboys stop this nonsense.
It's 21th century now, there are more important wars to be discussed, ex. : Emacs vs. Vim :-)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Firewire died mostly because of Apple's high licensing costs and the fact they wouldn't let anyone use the "Firewire" name and that "Y" symbol. This resulted in weird things like Sony calling it "iLink" and everyone else resorting to using its IEEE standard number, which was just awkward. Dell labelled all their laptop firewire ports as simply "1394" as a result.
Thunderbolt isn't going anywhere simply because of its high cost. Its an Intel backed standard, but nobody seems interested. Many non-Apple laptop models that had the port have already been discontinued.
On the subject of dead Sony standards, you forgot Elcaset. Reel-to-reel quality in a cartridge format!
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high licensing costs and the fact they wouldn't let anyone use the "Firewire" name and that "Y" symbol.
25 cents per port (down from $1 originally). And I'm fairly certain that fee included use of the symbol if not the name. Sony called it "i.Link" to make it sound like their own thing. How many names have you seen for HDMI CEC? Anynet+, CE-Link, EZ-Sync, Bravia Theater Sync, SimpleLink. The idea is to make it look like buying only their brand gives you an advantage you can't get by mixing brands.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Interesting)
slightly OT, but one great use of the firewire cable is inter-box i2c cabling.
when I build hardware projects that run i2c between boxes, I use firewire pc connect tabs (like you'd see on the back of a pc, where the pci cards would be) but just without the tab and keeping the bulk-head style mount of the firewire jack and cabling. 2 of them, one on each box (for me, they are DIY audio boxes) and then a bog-standard I-dont-have-to-make-it-myself firewire cable to connect them. building cables and having a strong strain relief is hard for DIYers but using factory made cables is a huge benefit and cost-savings.
FW has 2 shielded signals (I use them for i2c clock and i2c data) and then has 2 beefy power wires, which I use to ship 5v across boxes so that the 'remote' box doesn't even need a local 5v psu. at the highest i2c speed, this cable is robust enough and exceeds the i2c specs in terms of crosstalk between clock/data (they are both shielded coax) and you can get short or long FW cables.
I've never seen anyone do this before but its a handy DIY trick. and even if you do plug this cable into a pc, by mistake, you still are using the 5v wire for 5v and gnd for gnd, so no harm should be done. it won't 'init', but no damage happens.
(end diy-CSB)
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Consider how Blu-Ray has settled into the niche, high-end "I have a 800-inch TV and 13-point surround sound" video/audiophile nerd zone, while DVD still kicks its butt by being available to anyone who can scrape together $20 for a player, $20 for a tv of any sort (even an old CRT still works w/ it), and $5-10 a month for a Netflix subscription or some cheap movies from the local grocery store or walmart's bargain bin.
BR isn't that much more expensive than DVD (which was also horribly overpriced at the time it came out, even though it was far superior to VHS). Players can be found in PS3 and soon to be XBOne, standalone players can be had for $20-$50, usually with lots of other bells and whistles like Netflix integration and wifi. I've been picking up BR discs for $15-$20, sometimes more than the equivalent DVD, but much better quality.
Wide implementation was delayed while the consumers waited for the HD-DVD/BR wars to
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Consider how VHS beat Beta (aside from the "having Porn" aspect). Consider how many of Sony's other proprietary formats failed to take off because a cheaper, "technically inferior" alternative exists. DAT, MiniDisc, "Sony Dynamic Digital Sound", ATRAC, HiFD... the world is uncompromising.
IMHO, DAT would have been technically very nice for its time, but it was hampered by the copyright mafia's insistence on copy management [wikipedia.org].
Minidisc, likewise, would have been nice in many technical senses as a replacement for floppies for general data storage, though I guess its limitations were put in by Sony itself.
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PS2 came out about 5 years after DVDs were introduced.
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> Apple aren't the only ones pushing Thunderbolt as it's an Intel product. Look at any motherboard manufacturer and you'll probably find an expensive motherboard that comes equipped with Thunderbolt.
"find an expensive motherboard" versus "find any cheap motherboard".
Yes. Apple are the only ones "pushing" Thunderbolt.
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Look at any motherboard manufacturer and you'll probably find an expensive motherboard that comes equipped with Thunderbolt.
I did. There's usually one model which is the top end of their offerings, for which you pay a premium, but isn't the best you can get. It's positioned in a strange place. It's not enthusiast gear for anyone other than a Thunderbolt enthusiast, since the other models have better features. It's too expensive for mainstream use. So it's basically a niche product and they know it, but they offer it to basically say they offer it. System builders other than Apple aren't going "hey, buy Thunderbolt!" because the
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Thunderbolt is almost exclusively a 2012 Apple thing. Even people who HAVE Thunderbolt ports wind up wishing they had an extra USB port instead.
Apple will be happy to sell you an adapter to make a usable USB3.0 port out of your useless fucking Thunderbolt port for just $59.99... ;)
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I ran into this a few months ago. I had bought my player back when most models had all the outputs. In the past few years, though... almost all of them got rid of the analog ports.
I was shopping for a Blu-ray player with someone who had a decent CRT TV with no HDMI port. We went into various big box stores: Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Sears, local home theater stores, etc. and among those, there was only one model of Blu-ray player offered among all of those stores that had more than an HDMI port - and it wa
Firewire's failure begat USB 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
USB2.0 didn't "beat" Firewire, because Firewire had already failed. USB2.0 was an attempt to plug the resulting gap in the market for a high-speed bus. If Firewire hadn't been an expensive pain in the ass, we'd be using USB for our keyboards and printers and Firewire for our portable drives as originally intended.
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Expensive pain in the ass? as in REAL hardware processing using a chipset instead of spare IO pins on the chipset and let the processor waste time doing the job?
Yeah... And explain why it was and still is the standard in pro video and audio? Oh it's because USB is crap for transferring huge amount of of data.
USB 3.0 requires the "pain in the ass" that yu complain about as it requires a chipset to do the processing instead of being cheap crap that requires the processor to waste cycles on it.
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Only the noobs that dont know better are using USB 2.0 for external storage. My external raid boxes are firewire 800 and esata. Anyone needing REAL speed and is not using the drive as occasional use for small files went straight to eSata or FW800
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last week I bought a 500gb USB external hard drive for $35. there are reasons other than noobiness to eschew esata or fw.
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Its not a "defacto standard".
What I want is a non SHITTY high speed serial interface.
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Do you know what de facto means?
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Funny)
Do you know what de facto means?
Well, I know what everybody says it means, but not necessarily what the rules say it's supposed to mean.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Funny)
Woosh, sir. Woosh.
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That was a de facto woosh that just went over your head.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
I guess the usb guys are doing this to raise moar money for them.
Its also possible that in standard slashdot fashion the article / headline presents only one side of the story in an incredibly slanted fashion, and theres some important detail we're missing.
Forgive the cynicism, but after so many years here one begins to think that the summaries-- and often even the articles-- dont tend to be an accurate snapshot of reality.
Addendum: And of course, that appears to be the case. The letter sent wasnt a "screw you and your OSS tendencies", it was more of a "no, you cannot transfer PIDs like you want to; please cease pursuing that plan":
The VID is provided to the assigned company to identify only its own products and neither the VID nor associated PIDs may be sublicensed, transferred or offered for resale in any manner.
The policy of the USB-IF regarding vendor ID numbers (VIDs) is as stated in the attached policy statement. In general, VIDs are not transferable.
The USB-IF has long had a VID/PID process for hobbyists.
Please immediately cease.........
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The USB-IF has long had a VID/PID process for hobbyists.
*snip*
The letter sent wasnt a "screw you and your OSS tendencies", it was more of a "no, you cannot transfer PIDs like you want to; please cease pursuing that plan":
Arguably claiming "A two thousand dollar fee for your unique VID" combined with "hobbyist" is pretty dishonest at best.
The fact of the matter is, before Arachnid Labs requested a VID for this purpose the policy DID allow transfers and sub-allocations!
Very few hobbyists have that type of money to purchase one VID nor has need of all 65535 PIDs contained within.
I would also venture a guess that of the subset of hobbyists that can afford it, it is a smaller percentage wanting and willing.
Worse, the usb
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't a recent change; component distributors such as mecanique (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070825070852/http://www.mecanique.co.uk/products/usb/pid.html [archive.org]) used to on-sell blocks of PIDs from their VID many years ago, but the USB-IF started cracking down a number of years ago. Likewise, voti.nl was threatened with legal action (see http://www.voti.nl/shop/catalog.html?USB-PID-10 [www.voti.nl]).
For some projects, you can obtain a PID from the manufacturer of a USB chip (eg http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Knowledgebase/caniuseftdisvidformypr.htm [ftdichip.com]), but this generally means using the manufacturer supplied driver, and doesn't really help if you want to customize things more.
There doesn't seem to be a reasonable solution for small runs beyond the prototype phase. So in effect the USB-IF is motivating hobbyists to simply reuse VID/PID pairs from similar devices, which is only going to lead to compatibility headaches in the future.
I can understand that they wish to have an orderly process so that operating systems can have automatic device recognition and driver installation, but it is short-sighted not to provide an opportunity to licence a much smaller address space at a reasonable cost.
(For futher information, the prototype VID is 0x6666 and many known VID/PID pairs in http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids [linux-usb.org])
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
What I mean is: Is it forbidden by law to say "It's got USB" if it's not certified as USB compliant?
USB is a trademark. They don't let you use it if you're not compliant.
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afaict being compliant and buying a VID ($5000) isn't even enough to use the logo, you also need become a member($4000) or logo licensee ($3500)
I can understand that they need to get someone to pay for making the USB standard, but they could have provided something like a dummy VID so that
you don't get conflicts from people just picking random numbers
Seen it suggested else where that we should all just start using 0xF055 as VID
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Seen it suggested else where that we should all just start using 0xF055 as VID
Wouldn't that just make the conflict problem worse instead of better?
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Not if you set up an unofficial registry of PIDs using that VID and all the open hardware people agree to play nice. I'm not really clear what USB-IF could do about this. Of course, if some open hardware thingy takes off in the marketplace and they also 'officially' allocate 0xF055 to some other company then there will be conflicts, and you can bet the complaints will come back to the big company and thence to USB-IF, not to the unofficial registry.
Of course, PIDs are 16-bit, and I'm guessing 65,535 PIDs
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, the great thing about open source is that often times you can change things yourself if you do have problems.
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Ah, brain fart. I conflated VID and PID for some reason, so in my head it turned into everyone using exactly the same identifier.
I blame piss-weak coffee. Pay no attention to the putz behind the keyboard.
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So just say "uses an interface that is physically and electrically compatible to the USB standard".
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If I'm not mistaken, you cannot buy or resell USB-based hardware if you're not certified. You can buy units like USB-Serial bridges and implement them but you can't solder a connector on yourself. It's basically buying a license to the patents of USB.
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Depends, some microcontroller manufacturers are allowed to sublicense the certification to their customers.
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Compliance certification is different to VID/PID allocation. MCU manufacturers can and do sublicense their VID; how would they sublicence certification for a product they've never seen?
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Presumably the licence that gives them the right to sublicence includes an obligation to actually look at the products. Don't be mistaken, I'm not justifying what this group did, I'm pointing out that an alternative existed.
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If I'm not mistaken, you cannot buy or resell USB-based hardware if you're not certified. You can buy units like USB-Serial bridges and implement them but you can't solder a connector on yourself. It's basically buying a license to the patents of USB.
You are mistaken. There is no requirement for the hardware to be certified, but you cannot use the USB-IF's trade dress without agreeing to their licensing terms, which include certification. There is a big difference between purchasing a VID and being able to claim a product is "USB certified".
I'm surprised to read that "The USB-IF has long had a VID/PID process for hobbyists". The last time I looked, maybe three years ago, their "process" was to tell hobbyists to stuff it.
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The problem here is not compatibility or certification or compliance. The problem is identification.
When a USB device is connected to a host, the host asks for its VID and PID. On this basis, it decides what driver to load. There are other things that a host can ask to decide what to do - for instance, if it's an HID device then the device class is enough for the host to pick a driver (usually - people do some odd things with HID) - but for devices that require a driver specific to that device, VID and P
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Collisions are a real problem. As an example, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/devicekit-power/+bug/507247 [launchpad.net] Ubuntu recognises a whole bunch of things as a power meter, because they all use the same usb-serial chip, and so have the same IDs. Here they all use the same low level driver, but programs that try to talk to the device over that serial link have issues.
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Which is in turn a direct result of USB VID/PID pairs being expensive and a pain to obtain.
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Most deivces can get away with reporting and acting as a high speed serial interface or other device that already exists. Just copy the VID and PID of an existing device and call it done.
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Replying to myself, in case someone else is interested, it's just about the logo:
Start using the USB Logo Now! [usb.org]
Download the USB-IF Trademark License Agreement and Usage Guidelines for the USB-IF Logo. The license agreement must be signed to access Logo artwork and obtain the right to use the Logo with products that pass USB-IF compliance testing.
The agreement necessary for gaining access to the graphics approved for linking to the usb.org web site are also available.
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You pay a small fee per device to the consortium that created the standard, and in exchange your USB port is certified as not unleashing terrifying cyber-demons to everything that connects to it.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Funny)
your USB port is certified as not unleashing terrifying cyber-demons to everything that connects to it.
But what if that is it's advertized and intended purpose? IS there something saying i can't sell a device that unleashes terrifying cyber-demons?
I see this as just plain discrimination. Won't someone think of all the cyber-demons sitting around looking for work? Please people let them work, in turn they will create more work for SysAdmins and therefor will be a job creator, please people think of the jobs!
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Yeah John Carmack was furious, but what are you going to do?
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
1. If you don't go through whatever song-and-dance the USB IF wants you to to be 'certified', you can't use any of the trademarked logos (the little trident-thing symbol, possibly various words and phrases associated with 'USB'). Technologically, this isn't an issue, legally it might be(unless you are willing to use some janky-sounding circumlocution to suggest that, while not a 'USB device' your widget would probably do something useful if plugged into that rectangular, 4-pin port...)
2. VID/PID combinations are (ideally) supposed to be helpful in identifying USB devices without playing ugly little games of "20 questions" to try to discern what the hell you are talking to by fingerprinting its behavior. Device presents VID/PID, OS looks up appropriate driver, no muss, no fuss. There isn't anything the USB IF can do legally about a device declaring whatever VID/PID it wants (sure, just try to defend a trademark claim on a bunch of arbitrary numbers); but it would certainly be a huge pain for everyone involved if duplicate VID/PIDs start showing up in any quantity, since the OS would have to resort to fingerprinting heuristics to try to guess what it is actually talking to, and what driver should be used.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason(despite the fact that the namespace is huge), the USB IF is notably unhelpful for anybody who wants to do a small-run; but do so commercially. They, in their goodness, deign to make some "prototype" VID/PID blocks available, ostensibly only for noncommercial use; but getting a proper VID is some thousands of dollars, plus paperwork, and (as here) they are apparently pretty touchy about the (otherwise quite sensible) "Well, we have a lot of small hobbyists who can't afford a VID, and won't be putting out enough products to warrant one anyway, why can't we buy a single VID and hand out PIDs?" plan.
Some vendors, as a value-add for their USB-enabled silicon (FTDI for their USB/serial converters, some microcontroller makers with their USB-slave capable micros, etc.) will provide PIDs, for use with their products, for free, which is apparently OK for some reason; but they don't appear to like this idea very much.
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Hardware vendors can negotiate a licence agreement that allows them to sublicence. It strikes me that maybe that's what Arachnid Labs should have tried to do, rather than taking the "forgiveness is easier than consent" approach.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just looking over this: http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids [linux-usb.org] first list I could find of Vendor IDs.
Seems a simple solution. Name a new standard "CSB" or Compatible Serial Bus. It is identical to USB in every way, except reserves several sections of the VID range that are currently unused (there are many there is plenty of ID space) to be designated through this new body.
Then tell them which ranges you chose and that they can go fuck themselves, as they will be screwing over any vendor they assign those VIDs to, knowing that somebody else is claiming them and they are likely to cause conflicts.
Problem solved.
Re:Pardon my ignorance but... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is 'playing chicken' with the USB-IF, since they could decide to sell the VID in the future; but the idea is that, if there are enough squatter PIDs, along with whatever devices the dead company released during its life, in the wild, anybody paying actual cash to buy a VID would tell the USB-IF to go to hell if they were offered a 'used' VID.
I would hope that this absurd overreaction is just the legal/management assholes overreacting(the USB-IF is made up of technology companies; but their consortium's management and legal services are provided by an outside company that specializes in providing management and legal services to consortia, not in technology), and that the actual USB-IF stakeholders will see the wisdom of working with 'indie' device makers who are trying to work with them (rather than just wildcatting), especially now that hardware capable of implementing a USB slave device, with an arbitrary VID/PID prgrammed in, is so cheap.
If they don't, though, I would certainly be inclined to take the 'find a dead VID and squat on it' approach. Probably won't get your drivers past the WHQL process; but if it makes the Linux kernel maintainers' jobs easier, that's better than nothing.
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Can not be created a simple USB protocol that host devices use to identify it, ignoring the standard IDs? I believe mass storage devices are not identified by ids, so a new protocol called "Open Hardware Identification" can be tried when specific a USB ID is found, if successful, then identify it as the correct device, if not, use the Forum tables (if they decide to give somebody the specific ID open hardware settles). This at least can help with proper identification on FLOSS OSs that can implement this pr
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Mmmm. Might be regarded rather as the nuclear option of USB identification.
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In general it is about putting a sticker on your product.
However, that sticker means you need to follow the rules, and not have a product which may harm yourself or your hardware. If you do they can then intern punish you for making a non-standard compliment product.
Just recently we heard of people getting electrocuted on their mobile phones, due to 3rd party knockoff chargers. Which probably were not USB compliant, but fit in the USB slot. Lets say I took a USB port, and just wired it straight to the AC
Or missing the point entirely. (Score:2)
You don't make hardware USB-compliant simply by having a PID&VID. And the process - as with most processes where numbers are assigned (consider, for example, the IANA) - doesn't admit subversion by buying up a block of numbers then re-selling.
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It's like getting a driver's licence and then lending it to your friends and relatives so they can go for a drive. You're completely ignoring the whole point of certification, whether you agree with certification or not.
Re:Or missing the point entirely. (Score:4, Funny)
Getting USB certification is like getting a pharmacist's license from a drug dealer. Perhaps it's improved somewhat (been a few years since I worked w/ it), but lots of stuff out there is/was certified but horribly non-compliant. Depending on what you were using it for, the biggest problem by far was getting your stuff to play nice w/ other stuff, even though your stuff is compliant, and the other "certified" stuff isn't. We used to have an entire lab setup just for testing that.
Re:Or missing the point entirely. (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA. It specifically mentions three licensed vendors (Microchip, FTDI, and Openmoko) that already do exactly that. So no, this has nothing to do with quality control, and everything to do with control control.
Personally, though, I don't see the problem. VTM apparently thinks much too highly of their coveted IP, blinding them to the reality of their situation - They have "Xerox"ed themselves. Kleenex. Escalator. Genericization sucks, suckas!
USB has become so ubiquitous, products using it don't need to advertise that fact - If something comes with a visible USB A or B connector on it, end users will just plug it in without giving a second thought about what logos the box had on it.
Re:Or missing the point entirely. (Score:5, Informative)
No. [usb.org]
She said her PID was clean (Score:2, Funny)
But now I have a VID :(
Overreaction or conspiracy? (Score:2)
Why not both?
Don't cabals typically react with all the violence they can feel they can get away with?
The USB Implementers Forum (Score:5, Insightful)
So, The USB Implementers Forum is a cartel intended to make sure only approved corporations can play the game then?
And, once again, corporations take over everything and the rest of us can eat cake. Color me totally un-surprised.
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Pretty much... $5k for a single-page fax that has a little fucking number on it... just went through this not too long back.
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They designed and invented USB. They didn't take it over, it was theirs to begin with.
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Their "little games" are just the fact that, as the developers of the technology, they own it and they can sell it. Now, there's a whole debate about the ownership of designs and technologies here that entirely determines whether you agree with what the USB-IF does, but so long as they created the technology, in today's intellectual property environment, they can sell it as a product. And the way they sell it is, you don't get a vendor ID unless you're a customer.
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(i) are obligated to license on a royalty-free and non-discriminatory basis, certain IP that would be necessarily infringed by products compliant with the final USB 2.0 interface specification or its adopted supplements
USB is a closed, patented de-facto standard.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the de facto standard for computer connections, in that nowhere does it say that computers should or must use USB. The USB interface and hardware are explicitly standardised though.
European USB requirement (Score:3)
It's the de facto standard for computer connections, in that nowhere does it say that computers should or must use USB.
Mobile phones sold in certain parts of Europe must either use a USB micro-B charging port or be bundled with an adapter from USB micro-B to the charging port.
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It's about protecting their source of income. If organizations start reselling PIDs it cuts into their revenue stream which is needed to conduct activities maintining the standards. It's easy to paint the implementers forum as the bad guy but at least they are open enough to provide all documentation for free unlike organizations like IEEE that keeps an iron grip on their standards.
If you don't like their system then switch to something like ethernet where the licensing fees are baked into the price of a MA
Quite understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
It's quite understandable. Since a badly built commercial or home device can destroy the USB port on a computer or even feed back enough energy to destroy other components, making the "USB compliant" certification freely available without some trace of contractual responsibility is dangerousl. We went through this with Microsoft and their "Java" labels on their box. It would be too easy for those "magically freed" vendors to make, and sell, incompatible or even destructive hardware.
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I'd agree with you but for one reason. There are two kinds of buyers for electronic devices:
A - Those who don't know better.
B - Those who do.
Group A could buy with no more information that the labels on the box but they wouldn't be able to differentiate between the "Official" USB Compliant label and a different but similar one.
Group B could see the icon is not the official one, but they would probably know about a piece of hardware that destroys USB ports without needing the "Official" USB Compliant label.
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Having a USB VID and PID is not a "USB compliant" certification. Having a VID means you've paid some money to the USB-IF. Allocating a PID is done by the owner of the VID, not by any certifying body.
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It's quite understandable. Since a badly built commercial or home device can destroy the USB port on a computer or even feed back enough energy to destroy other components...
Yup...this happened to me. I bought a shoddily made media card reader that completely fried and destroyed my internal USB chipset, rendering all of the on-board USB ports useless....live & learn.
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USB-IF stops issuing PIDs for your products, so you can't make any more USB devices.
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I am now informed this is incorrect.
Clarifications (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
For those wondering about the original post, which contains a lot more information: Arachnid Labs: Usb-if: No VID for Open Source [arachnidlabs.com].
Their argument is reasonably solid (VIDs are for a specific vendor, and if you sublicense the PIDs to somebody else, that makes the VID pointless - as it is, of course, but that's another discussion), and concerns raised in this discussion regarding e.g. microcontroller vendors doing this are addressed in the USB-IF Policy Regarding Vendor Identification Numbers (VIDs) [arachnidlabs.com]
Ultimately,
Transparency is the problem here (Score:2)
These guys won't be able to pull it off now, but they could form a new corp with a new name, say they want to build usb connected gadgets, get their ID, *AND THEN* start sharing. It would probably help to get a device in the wild first so there isn't some sort of revocation issue.
Quick question (Score:2)
Did anyone else misread the title as "USB Implanters ..." and think of http://xkcd.com/644/ [xkcd.com] ???
So, squat on a VID. (Score:3)
The easiest way to blow this up is for the open hardware community to simply delcare, "Hey, USB-IF, we've decided we're going to sqat on this VID, namely , so be sure not to hand it out. We'll handle PID allocation under it.". The USB-IF is completely impotent to do anything about it. There are already numerous products that use randomly chosed VID/PID combinations that are *not* registered with USB-IF, and USB-IF does nothing about it. It is true that these products don't use the USB logo, no license fee paid, obviously, but also in part because they aren't USB devices in the traditional sense -- most of them simply used USB as a way to re-flash firmware or as debug ports, so consumers don't really buy the product for the USB functionality.
IMHO, the best way to handle this, though, would be to simply squat on a VID *without* making a beligerant declaration to the USB-IF. After a dozen or so USB devices get popular, then USB-IF will have no recourse except to write off the VID as a dead loss and move on. After all, they've already had to do that with the VIDs used by the current squatters that we just never hear about.
The only stick USB-IF can beat you with is the license needed to use the logo. If you don't care about the logo, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing at all, that keeps you from sqatting on a VID.
Miscommunication? (Score:3)
This may just be some crossed wires; the company tasked with handling the trademarks, legal papers, etc is just doing what they believe they are supposed to do: stop anyone from getting a Vendor ID, then subverting the normal USB process by sublicensing Product IDs. It is totally understandable that this would subvert the process and take control away from the USB-IF.
USB-IF does offer some VID blocks for testing, hobbyist, etc purposes.
They are also more than happy to sell you a VID block for $5000, even if you never bother to get a device certified or use the USB logo and trademarks.
What they are not currently setup to do is offer a "small" block at a cheaper price to someone who wants to sell a product commercially, but one that has a very limited run. It seems like they could easily set aside one VID for this purpose, then "subnet" that into different PID blocks. Offer a set of 10 PIDs for $100 for small companies. Would that not solve the problem?
You have to remember: USB-IF is not making money here; it is a non-profit itself. The fees go toward covering their costs.
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.breaknenter.org/projects/inception/ [breaknenter.org]
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Um, except that as well as the logo you need to pick a VID/PID for your device. This is how operating systems tell which driver to connect to a USB device. So if you and someone else pick the same ones...
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That problem already exists. I've had quite a few devices that use the Prolific PL-2303 chip in it. Ok, we know it's a USB serial chip, and it's VID_067B&PID_2303. That doesn't really tell us anything about what's on the other side of it.
The Prolific site says that counterfeits exist. [prolific.com.tw], and I'm pretty sure I've run into a few. One was a programming cable for a Chinese made HAM radio. The Prolific supplied driver doesn't work with it, so I had to switch to another that I found in a group somewhere
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You don't have to implement the USB device specification in discrete logic gates, you know. Chips such as the TI MSP430 series do the physical layer for you, just leaving you with the device-specific protocol to implement in software.
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This is not true. The MSP430, for instance, does not have its own PID, though TI offer to sublet their VID and assign you a PID. See this [ti.com] which says:
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And I want to know your Slashdot nickname, too. I suspect YOU are concealing something. Oh wait.