Jmg, it comes down to intent, and that's what the legal is for. There are risks, and if I do get into that end user mess, it will be funded. At that point, it's just work. When the users see all of that, they will be just fine. Stuff happens.
I've nearly three decades of experience related to these kinds of things. It's just not hard.
Anyone complaining about more testing, etc... can and should be directing that at the clowns making it harder for everyone, not FTDI.
Honestly, I totally question the intent of those selling really cheap stuff. I don't believe for a minute they just didn't know. Of course they did. The OEM pricing is stiff. Too good to be true pricing is a rather obvious problem. I believe a blind eye was turned toward the whole thing in the vast majority of cases.
One last thing on the end user issues. The bricking was not OK. That's an act of aggression against people who did nothing to warrant doing that.
This is much different. Having it just not work leaves options for those who need them.
The real fault here lies with the counterfeit chip producers, and the teams who put them into products. I do believe some teams just got caught up in it all. I don't believe that is the majority case.
Anyway, a review and test of FTDI USB is gonna happen before I get involved with the product. The typical end user will not be a consumer, and the support expectations will be high, and funded. Of course stuff gets tested, and it's gonna need to be funded too.
I'm glad to know this and can do the right thing. Lots of people right now should be glad to know this and be working on how to do the right thing, or be working on engineering and designing FTDI out of future products.
All of that can be sensible. Might cost a bit, and blame goes right to the infringers for those additional costs and risks. Truth is, there are few of those when people ignore the problem and expect FTDI to live with it. That's great for everyone but FTDI.
I'm happy to play ball and have no problem with making sure it's the real deal, or designing it out. What goes around, comes around. A healthy market requires those in the market play fair. Doing that won't be the cheapest in most cases, but it is good for everyone overall.
The very clear message here is a couple bucks savings on the BOM cost isn't worth it, and it's not worth it because FTDI has no interest at all in making it worth it. They have had enough.
I won't blame them for that. Not one bit.
Sometimes the school of hard knocks hurts.
What would you do?
I personally would figure out how I might find pricing options that don't eat current run rate revenue, if doing that is possible. It might not be.
The overall opposition here is cost for genuine FTDI parts. Supporting low cost, criminal clones isn't an appropriate way to handle the problem.
Meaningful competition is. So far, that has not happened. Maybe someone will see this opportunity and do the work needed to deliver lower cost options. That would force FTDI's hand, and that's just fine business. Bring it.
Until then, FTDI did the work and has set their price. If that price is too high, design it out. Fair is fair here.
If FTDI can detect these counterfeit chips, then surely their driver can be made to simply not work with them.
No doubt. But that does not make the situation better. They have still crippled systems by remote control. This is not good.
I agree 'I find it hard to believe that anyone could think what FTDI has done is somehow "right".'
Here is my plan:
1) I will use Linux and whatever drivers come with it.
2) If some serial/USB chip happens to work with that I will use that.
3) Preference will be given to anything that does not have "FTDI" stamped on it.
Why 3)? Because experience shows that neither the fakers or the original manufacturers are to be trusted.
When I get to specifying parts for real systems that my company sells for money FTDI will be off the list of trusted suppliers. Because even if we try to use genuine parts they have no qualms about nuking us when we happen get duped into not doing so.
I'm risk averse, and I like to avoid lawyers, and endless admin, so I take a slightly different path to you.
I simply move FTDI down the preferred supplier list, and I have bought and qualified other alternatives, as we do this. Costs FAR less than lawyers & admin layers.
Silabs are already mentioned, and if you need better performance than FTDI, the new EXAR parts are worth a look.
The XR21 series parts have better baud granularity, and highest sustained baud throughput of any FS-USB device we tested.
At $1.46/1k they seem already cheaper than FT232RL, and for lowest price we use CP2104 / CP2105 from $1.25/1k
For higher volumes, we are looking at EFM8UB1, which start at 61c/1k
Putting bogus data in the data stream is just wrong. Considering that damages to innocent and unsuspecting end-users are easily foreseen consequences, I think FTDI's actions could be considered willful negligence.
I'm not saying I don't sympathize with them, only that they reacted in a way that might expose them legally, whereas a more carefully thought-out strategy would not. But I'm not a lawyer, so this is just speculation.
For reselling in the US, some attorney time is worth insuring the contract plays well for all parties.
I'll move that risk to them. They can decide to design it out, or not. Their design, their risk.
I'll have my own, and a fair split here only makes sense to move product and insure a good overall experience. Should the fakes show up, and they botch it, we will have a funded plan. I'm fine with it from there.
Again, that is worth it or not, their call. Maybe they do design it out. Fine by me.
I'm asking what would you do as FTDI?
It's a tough place for them. But, I'll bet the calculation is most of their major business won't be impacted. Worth it, if true.
Heater says, "right?"
I don't know of a "right" answer on this. What I do know us FTDI gets to do this and they have said why. I also know the clowns selling fakes are hurting FTDI enough for this kind of thing to be worth doing.
I won't ask them to live with it.
Maybe a similar effort to find and out the fakers would be equally worth it.
The way I see it, my cost and risk exposure went up because some clowns thought crime is a good idea.
Without this move, just what kind of awareness would FTDI have?
I don't like it either, they have made their call (however ill conceived), and I do not blame them, but I have chosen to reduce my own risk of being caught in any crossfire here, by choosing other alternatives from an expanding list.
Given others are cheaper and better, in most cases, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
Cost here was a little more qualification time - we found one corner-case bug in EXARs driver in our stress testing, & fed that back to them.
Hmm, not sure completely disabling the driver would accomplish anything but a lot of hair pulling. Exactly how do you troubleshoot something that provides no output? Reinstall the driver half a dozen times? Check the cable over and over? From a troubleshooting standpoint, this is probably the worst alternative. Looping the string "NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!" at least gives you something to look at.
Some here are forgetting that there's no express or implied responsibility by FTDI to support non-genuine devices that masquarade as their own. Sending an error message is not "bricking" the device, in any conceivable definition of the term. Could there be some firmware in fakes that are harmed by such a string? I suppose, but if a simple string of text can break their firmware or chip, they have no excuse for putting out such junk in the first place.
Looping the string "NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!" at least gives you something to look at.
... assuming the app that uses it includes a window that displays the data stream. I suspect that many do not and that innocent users who unwittingly bought a device that uses a bogus chip will be left scratching their heads. Not everybody knows how to open a terminal screen to look at serial data.
No, what FTDI is purported to have done is just passive-aggressive nonsense. I'm sure they meant it as some kind of punishment, but when unwitting end users become collateral punishees, they damage their reputation and their brand in the process. It was not a smart move.
Then what do you propose FTDI do? I am not aware of any practical recourse that FTDI could take which would not inconvenience end users.
It's okay to inconvenience the end users of bogus parts if they know why they're being inconvenienced. But just to let their equipment suddenly misbehave in mysterious ways because it's receiving weird data is not the way to go about it.
Well, look at all the discussion. Bet yer Smile a USB serial failure will be linked to fake chips a whole lot more now. They may well find it on a simple Google query.
Everyone running a fake needs to go back to their suppliers and make demands. They can own up, improve their processes and continue.
So far, most of the more irate people seem to also source cheap chips. The FTDI pricing gets brought up a lot. Of course, FTDI built a solid reputation and did the work to warrant those prices too.
The worst thing is the fakers are trying to get people to think they are FTDI.
I suspect why we don't see a legit lower cost clone has a lot to do with all the costs involved. Making chips is one thing. Making a quality solution is quite another
These people are damaging FTDI, not just financially.
I just asked a buddy about this. They work for someone well established. They won't think this is a big deal. Quality is worth it, and their own testing will catch an error and their suppliers will make it right too. Fakes are a fact of life. The sooner it is caught out, the better.
IMHO, the most noise is coming from low price, low volume or clone shops trying to make a buck bottom feeding. FTDI isn't going to feel their loss, if there even is a big loss, due to their well established business doing just fine.
Given that noise source, I very strongly feel people want to escape the high prices, yet benefit from the quality work FTDI did.
Again, an opportunity for someone. Do that work and sell for less than FTDI. Get after it!
Furthermore if you don't want a issue with cheap knock-offs from China, buy direct from FTDI and remove the doubt. If you buy direct from China, you deserve what you get.
So what if FTDI hacks off a bunch of cheapskate hobbyists, if you don't want to buy from Mouser or other reputable supply houses, you're cutting corners where you shouldn't.
And no one is forcing to you use FTDI parts. Go use Silabs or some other vendor.
Still it's really sad what I see in terms of response. Here's is a company being eaten alive by Chinese IP pirates and a country that shields said pirates. This is about their only recourse. Of course to hobbyists and who have no monetary or job concerns it's all irrelevant.
Again, an opportunity for someone. Do that work and sell for less than FTDI. Get after it!
Certainly is an opportunity, one that many have already taken. (see above posts)
EXAR are a relative newcomer, and SiLabs have been making USB-UARTS for a long time, and recently added the enhanced EFM8UB1 USB MCU for well under the Bridge prices. - and they offer drivers for this too.
2016 has more choices than ever in this.
I have no idea. We have a ton of trademark, copyright, and patent law in place. With international agreements galore. If none of that can be leveraged to stop people stamping "FTDI" on chips then why on Earth do we have it all ?
@Spud,
Yes, I talk about "right". As in ethically and morally acceptable. For sure I cannot talk about the actual legal standing of all this, or how well it might actually go in a court of law in which ever jurisdiction.
As far as I can tell the end user license agreement for Windows and most other software specifically points out that it is not fit for any purpose in any way and the vendor is not liable for it not doing what you want, or conversely not liable for it doing what you don't want.
In that light FTDI can do whatever they like.
That does not make it "right" or even sensible from a business perspective.
Perhaps it might have been wise for FTDI to get on the right side of people like David Jones and get their voice heard w.r.t. fake chips. Perhaps they could have written those drivers for Linux. Perhaps they could put out fake chip detection utilities.
Perhaps they should just give it up as a bad job. It's just a UART at the end of the day.
Give it up? Lol. People don't start companies just to have criminals put them out of business. On that basis alone, FTDI is well within their rights to play hard ball, as they should.
I very strongly suspect having your home, retirement, etc... invested in a business well built and competently run with a great reputation and position in the market, might change "right" just a little, tiny bit. I've had to go through something like that when I was self employed. Another party wanted in on my contracts. When it got serious, so did I. Coming home, only to wonder how those people are going to live if I allow it to be taken away... let's just say, I didn't.
That other person did low things too. There was some damage and dirty laundry aired. Was that, or no mortgage payment. Easy call, didn't think twice. And yes, they did things that would make me look bad, unless I capitulated. So I looked bad, for a little while. Worse, I had to rub their face in how ugly their behavior was and largely shut them out of my niche too. Who knows what they are doing today? Maybe remember that outcome next time? I don't care.
These people are criminal. They are not "competetors" and they don't care about anything but some money too.
Worse, they are harming lots of people, not just FTDI. And now a lot of us know why and how too. That is what FTDI wants. Buy their solution or not, your call. But, it is theirs, they did the work, etc... it's not the criminals.
Jmg just posted a list of legit competition. So there are options for people. No worries.
What FTDI is up against is impossible pricing, crime, and others leveraging their reputation. Those are not petty things, yet a lot of the framing implies they are.
I read that as, "don't care, I just want my cheap stuff to work" and it's cheap for good reason.
There just aren't a lot of options for FTDI. And some guy in charge walks in there, sees people who have lives and families and there is no way in hell it makes any sense at all to allow it to be taken by criminals.
Here is what I think will happen.
A few cycles of this will get the counterfeit message out there. People will tighten up their supply lines and a few nice deals might get made.
Most established firms won't even do much more than chuckle over this.
More legit business will be done with FTDI and it's real competition. This is good for everyone, but the criminals.
The naysayers will largely go away as they realize sourcing parts from criminals isn't worth it.
If we say the end user must always be protected, then we also say FTDI can and should be subject to extortion too. I'm not OK with that at all, and I'm not OK with it because the problem is criminal, not just a meaningful difference in business models, etc...
Besides, end users get hosed all the time. Bad caps? Bad hard drives? DRM ugly everywhere... part of life product selection boils down to, "you get what you pay for" and you don't get what you don't pay for too.
The race to the bottom is a lot more expensive than people seem to recognize. That's part of why I personally select good stuff and rarely go rock bottom on price. I want the people making money by adding value to have a shot. The ones just doing it cheaper always overstep. Happens all the time. Why? Because when cheaper is the only value, eventually it makes sense to do the wrong things.
That is a risk every end user took when they selected their products, and how they value things and what they value impacts that. Maybe this little spat changes that value equation some. Hope it does.
It is my opinion, after researching this some, the cheap stuff is the most impacted. It was cheap for a reason. Buying products is not risk free. Never has been.
There is exactly one reason why we are discussing this, and it is criminal, not FTDI.
I don't disagree with most of what you say. Stamping some other companies name, logo and part numbers on your devices and passing them off as something they are not is counterfeiting and misrepresentation at it's worst.
Certainly FTDI should take steps to stop this. They have a right to try and protect their lively hood.
But. I am not happy with the idea that companies can fight this kind of turf war on my equipment. At my inconvenience. This is lawlessness, the wild west. I don't want to be collateral damage.
The course of action is clear. We have to try and protect ourselves. Try to avoid fake parts. This starts with not using anything stamped FTDI as clearly there is a big problem with fake FTDI parts, compounded by the problem that the original manufacturer distributes malware with little regard for end users.
Then of course we have to keep vigilance regarding every other component we use...
Make your choices. That's fine. If avoidance is your choice, great! You got legit options.
As for the turf war... it's been going on the whole time. That's a part of product selection in my book. It's about a lot more than features and cost. Always has been.
Frankly, I'll pay easily for quality, and I expect to get it when I do. Most people using FTDI are getting quality and won't have a problem with this whole thing.
The ones who want that quality, but don't want to pay are going to make the most noise, because they were largely getting it, at the expense of FTDI. They, or most of them, will simply move to the next ultra cheap thing and carry on.
Comes down to what is worth what, and we all will evaluate that differently.
That still leaves the problem of the fine upstanding people who pay good money in good faith for their computer and OS and peripherals. Only to find that they have been duped by a counterfeiter and then screwed by the manufacturer they put their trust into putting malware on their machines.
You cannot be sure that one day that is not you. Despite your best efforts.
But. I am not happy with the idea that companies can fight this kind of turf war on my equipment. At my inconvenience. This is lawlessness, the wild west. I don't want to be collateral damage.
You keep using the term "turf war". This isn't a turf war. If FTDI was preventing Silabs hardware from working, then it would be a turf war.
As for your inconvenience, has the FTDI driver update actually affected you?
Sure it's a turf war. The turf is all the money that can be had from selling USB/Serial adapter chips. The combatants are FTDI and the Chinese cloners. The battle ground, sadly, is the machines of the very people who supply the money.
...has the FTDI driver update actually affected you?
No.
Perhaps indirectly. It's yet another reason for not using closed source systems. But that is another worm can.
It doesn't affect me, but then I don't let Windows update device drivers. The FTDI drivers I currently use date from 2012 and they work just fine. Which causes me to wonder, just what exactly has FTDI added to any of their more recent drivers that actually benefits the end users?
I hope we can all agree that many constructive points have been raised and debated on this topic, and the importance of advising the Parallax community has been dealt with.
Any further escalation of concerns ought to be carried over to the FTDI forums or FTDI customer support, so that they can have the chance to understand and respond to your concerns.
Needless to say, Parallax only uses genuine FTDI parts in all their products, and as such Parallax products are NOT affected by this matter!
Having run its course, I will let this thread sink slowly now, so as not to impact with other new topics.
No, what FTDI is purported to have done is just passive-aggressive nonsense. I'm sure they meant it as some kind of punishment, but when unwitting end users become collateral punishees, they damage their reputation and their brand in the process. It was not a smart move.
So far, there isn't clear indication the non-genuine chips go much beyond DIY parts, so yes these users DO have a terminal to look at, or at least should know they can visit forums to ask about it.
For turn-key consumer products, users may not be savvy to troubleshoot, but they can contact the company, who had better sort it out. It's the maker's responsibility to resolve the issue, since they are the ones who fostered the problem.
For commercial, industrial, military, or other critical applications, any of these that either rely on an unsupported driver, or who allow non-licensed parts to be used in their designs, deserves the repercusions.
Let's put the responsibility where it belongs, and not assume FTDI can or should support their competitors' products, especially when these competitors use unfair (and potentially illegal) business practices. While I would have looked to another alternative (and not pushed this down automatic updates), it is what it is.
You wrongly presume the supplier always 'chose'.
See my example above, for how even you can get caught - others will then claim you chose to do this.
The law is always clear about this: accept stolen goods, even if you were not aware they were stolen, and you're still guilty. Ignorance is not a defense.
I don't work with FTDI, but I'd be surprised they don't have a validation tool. Even if you don't check every chip, random samplings of finished product could easily expose fakes in the supply line.
If FTDI can detect these counterfeit chips, then surely their driver can be made to simply not work with them.
I'm sorry, but what is the difference between the driver doing nothing, and the driver sending an error message? Both end up stopping the hardware from operating, a condition that continues until an appropriate replacement driver is installed. At least with the error message, there's something to troubleshoot.
Either there is more regulation or not. Where it matters in the major vertical markets, we have a LOT of regulation, and for the most part this kind of thing does not happen. It's as life threatening as it is unacceptable.
Consumer goods and product design have a much looser set of rules, and it comes down to potential product liability.
Controlling that industrial robot with a home brew control is a significant liability, which is why that kind of thing just isn't done on things that really do matter.
And that level of risk avoidance is seriously expensive. 10x in a lot of cases.
Where a lot of us play, it's not needed, and we like cheap, we like custom, DIY, and all that jazz.
Gotta take the good with the bad. The wild west is pretty cool. Ordinary people like me can participate and that's just not true where we regulate and manage risks formally.
So this means hacking on our stuff, building our own stuff, etc... can and should happen, but it also means something like this FTDI mess can too.
What is worth what?
We each answer that in our own way, and the risks are there no matter how we answer, though they can be marginalized or maximized depending on just what is worth what.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it!
Sometimes tech sucks. Then it doesn't, until it does again.
The law is always clear about this: accept stolen goods, even if you were not aware they were stolen, and you're still guilty. Ignorance is not a defense.
This is not hot phones being sold in a pub somewhere.
What the customer pays for here, is not a stolen goods.
If FTDI can detect these counterfeit chips, then surely their driver can be made to simply not work with them.
I'm sorry, but what is the difference between the driver doing nothing, and the driver sending an error message? Both end up stopping the hardware from operating, a condition that continues until an appropriate replacement driver is installed. At least with the error message, there's something to troubleshoot.
I agree, a warning message would be better than just not working, however, currently neither is happening. I read that it wasn't possible for the driver alone to display a warning message. Maybe what I read was wrong.
I agree, a warning message would be better than just not working, however, currently neither is happening. I read that it wasn't possible for the driver alone to display a warning message. Maybe what I read was wrong.
Sure, Printer drivers display messages all the time, FTDI instead chose to be more immediately aggressive, and cause collateral damage by having working systems fail, with no user warning, or allowing the customer any time to check and source a remedy.
Even innocent customers will be forced off line, and a Driver Rollback may be the fastest way to recover.
Sounds like a support call to Microsoft, who must be loving this....
Not sure where that will leave them, in motivation to recommend FTDI to other users ?
Comments
I've nearly three decades of experience related to these kinds of things. It's just not hard.
Anyone complaining about more testing, etc... can and should be directing that at the clowns making it harder for everyone, not FTDI.
Honestly, I totally question the intent of those selling really cheap stuff. I don't believe for a minute they just didn't know. Of course they did. The OEM pricing is stiff. Too good to be true pricing is a rather obvious problem. I believe a blind eye was turned toward the whole thing in the vast majority of cases.
One last thing on the end user issues. The bricking was not OK. That's an act of aggression against people who did nothing to warrant doing that.
This is much different. Having it just not work leaves options for those who need them.
The real fault here lies with the counterfeit chip producers, and the teams who put them into products. I do believe some teams just got caught up in it all. I don't believe that is the majority case.
Anyway, a review and test of FTDI USB is gonna happen before I get involved with the product. The typical end user will not be a consumer, and the support expectations will be high, and funded. Of course stuff gets tested, and it's gonna need to be funded too.
I'm glad to know this and can do the right thing. Lots of people right now should be glad to know this and be working on how to do the right thing, or be working on engineering and designing FTDI out of future products.
All of that can be sensible. Might cost a bit, and blame goes right to the infringers for those additional costs and risks. Truth is, there are few of those when people ignore the problem and expect FTDI to live with it. That's great for everyone but FTDI.
I'm happy to play ball and have no problem with making sure it's the real deal, or designing it out. What goes around, comes around. A healthy market requires those in the market play fair. Doing that won't be the cheapest in most cases, but it is good for everyone overall.
The very clear message here is a couple bucks savings on the BOM cost isn't worth it, and it's not worth it because FTDI has no interest at all in making it worth it. They have had enough.
I won't blame them for that. Not one bit.
Sometimes the school of hard knocks hurts.
What would you do?
I personally would figure out how I might find pricing options that don't eat current run rate revenue, if doing that is possible. It might not be.
The overall opposition here is cost for genuine FTDI parts. Supporting low cost, criminal clones isn't an appropriate way to handle the problem.
Meaningful competition is. So far, that has not happened. Maybe someone will see this opportunity and do the work needed to deliver lower cost options. That would force FTDI's hand, and that's just fine business. Bring it.
Until then, FTDI did the work and has set their price. If that price is too high, design it out. Fair is fair here.
I agree 'I find it hard to believe that anyone could think what FTDI has done is somehow "right".'
Here is my plan:
1) I will use Linux and whatever drivers come with it.
2) If some serial/USB chip happens to work with that I will use that.
3) Preference will be given to anything that does not have "FTDI" stamped on it.
Why 3)? Because experience shows that neither the fakers or the original manufacturers are to be trusted.
When I get to specifying parts for real systems that my company sells for money FTDI will be off the list of trusted suppliers. Because even if we try to use genuine parts they have no qualms about nuking us when we happen get duped into not doing so.
I simply move FTDI down the preferred supplier list, and I have bought and qualified other alternatives, as we do this. Costs FAR less than lawyers & admin layers.
Silabs are already mentioned, and if you need better performance than FTDI, the new EXAR parts are worth a look.
The XR21 series parts have better baud granularity, and highest sustained baud throughput of any FS-USB device we tested.
At $1.46/1k they seem already cheaper than FT232RL, and for lowest price we use CP2104 / CP2105 from $1.25/1k
For higher volumes, we are looking at EFM8UB1, which start at 61c/1k
I'm not saying I don't sympathize with them, only that they reacted in a way that might expose them legally, whereas a more carefully thought-out strategy would not. But I'm not a lawyer, so this is just speculation.
-Phil
I'll move that risk to them. They can decide to design it out, or not. Their design, their risk.
I'll have my own, and a fair split here only makes sense to move product and insure a good overall experience. Should the fakes show up, and they botch it, we will have a funded plan. I'm fine with it from there.
Again, that is worth it or not, their call. Maybe they do design it out. Fine by me.
I'm asking what would you do as FTDI?
It's a tough place for them. But, I'll bet the calculation is most of their major business won't be impacted. Worth it, if true.
Heater says, "right?"
I don't know of a "right" answer on this. What I do know us FTDI gets to do this and they have said why. I also know the clowns selling fakes are hurting FTDI enough for this kind of thing to be worth doing.
I won't ask them to live with it.
Maybe a similar effort to find and out the fakers would be equally worth it.
The way I see it, my cost and risk exposure went up because some clowns thought crime is a good idea.
Without this move, just what kind of awareness would FTDI have?
I don't like it, but I can't blame them at all.
Given others are cheaper and better, in most cases, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
Cost here was a little more qualification time - we found one corner-case bug in EXARs driver in our stress testing, & fed that back to them.
Some here are forgetting that there's no express or implied responsibility by FTDI to support non-genuine devices that masquarade as their own. Sending an error message is not "bricking" the device, in any conceivable definition of the term. Could there be some firmware in fakes that are harmed by such a string? I suppose, but if a simple string of text can break their firmware or chip, they have no excuse for putting out such junk in the first place.
Then what do you propose FTDI do? I am not aware of any practical recourse that FTDI could take which would not inconvenience end users.
No, what FTDI is purported to have done is just passive-aggressive nonsense. I'm sure they meant it as some kind of punishment, but when unwitting end users become collateral punishees, they damage their reputation and their brand in the process. It was not a smart move.
It's okay to inconvenience the end users of bogus parts if they know why they're being inconvenienced. But just to let their equipment suddenly misbehave in mysterious ways because it's receiving weird data is not the way to go about it.
-Phil
Everyone running a fake needs to go back to their suppliers and make demands. They can own up, improve their processes and continue.
So far, most of the more irate people seem to also source cheap chips. The FTDI pricing gets brought up a lot. Of course, FTDI built a solid reputation and did the work to warrant those prices too.
The worst thing is the fakers are trying to get people to think they are FTDI.
I suspect why we don't see a legit lower cost clone has a lot to do with all the costs involved. Making chips is one thing. Making a quality solution is quite another
These people are damaging FTDI, not just financially.
I just asked a buddy about this. They work for someone well established. They won't think this is a big deal. Quality is worth it, and their own testing will catch an error and their suppliers will make it right too. Fakes are a fact of life. The sooner it is caught out, the better.
IMHO, the most noise is coming from low price, low volume or clone shops trying to make a buck bottom feeding. FTDI isn't going to feel their loss, if there even is a big loss, due to their well established business doing just fine.
Given that noise source, I very strongly feel people want to escape the high prices, yet benefit from the quality work FTDI did.
Again, an opportunity for someone. Do that work and sell for less than FTDI. Get after it!
Furthermore if you don't want a issue with cheap knock-offs from China, buy direct from FTDI and remove the doubt. If you buy direct from China, you deserve what you get.
So what if FTDI hacks off a bunch of cheapskate hobbyists, if you don't want to buy from Mouser or other reputable supply houses, you're cutting corners where you shouldn't.
And no one is forcing to you use FTDI parts. Go use Silabs or some other vendor.
Still it's really sad what I see in terms of response. Here's is a company being eaten alive by Chinese IP pirates and a country that shields said pirates. This is about their only recourse. Of course to hobbyists and who have no monetary or job concerns it's all irrelevant.
Certainly is an opportunity, one that many have already taken. (see above posts)
EXAR are a relative newcomer, and SiLabs have been making USB-UARTS for a long time, and recently added the enhanced EFM8UB1 USB MCU for well under the Bridge prices. - and they offer drivers for this too.
2016 has more choices than ever in this.
@Spud,
Yes, I talk about "right". As in ethically and morally acceptable. For sure I cannot talk about the actual legal standing of all this, or how well it might actually go in a court of law in which ever jurisdiction.
As far as I can tell the end user license agreement for Windows and most other software specifically points out that it is not fit for any purpose in any way and the vendor is not liable for it not doing what you want, or conversely not liable for it doing what you don't want.
In that light FTDI can do whatever they like.
That does not make it "right" or even sensible from a business perspective.
Perhaps it might have been wise for FTDI to get on the right side of people like David Jones and get their voice heard w.r.t. fake chips. Perhaps they could have written those drivers for Linux. Perhaps they could put out fake chip detection utilities.
Perhaps they should just give it up as a bad job. It's just a UART at the end of the day.
I very strongly suspect having your home, retirement, etc... invested in a business well built and competently run with a great reputation and position in the market, might change "right" just a little, tiny bit. I've had to go through something like that when I was self employed. Another party wanted in on my contracts. When it got serious, so did I. Coming home, only to wonder how those people are going to live if I allow it to be taken away... let's just say, I didn't.
That other person did low things too. There was some damage and dirty laundry aired. Was that, or no mortgage payment. Easy call, didn't think twice. And yes, they did things that would make me look bad, unless I capitulated. So I looked bad, for a little while. Worse, I had to rub their face in how ugly their behavior was and largely shut them out of my niche too. Who knows what they are doing today? Maybe remember that outcome next time? I don't care.
These people are criminal. They are not "competetors" and they don't care about anything but some money too.
Worse, they are harming lots of people, not just FTDI. And now a lot of us know why and how too. That is what FTDI wants. Buy their solution or not, your call. But, it is theirs, they did the work, etc... it's not the criminals.
Jmg just posted a list of legit competition. So there are options for people. No worries.
What FTDI is up against is impossible pricing, crime, and others leveraging their reputation. Those are not petty things, yet a lot of the framing implies they are.
I read that as, "don't care, I just want my cheap stuff to work" and it's cheap for good reason.
There just aren't a lot of options for FTDI. And some guy in charge walks in there, sees people who have lives and families and there is no way in hell it makes any sense at all to allow it to be taken by criminals.
Here is what I think will happen.
A few cycles of this will get the counterfeit message out there. People will tighten up their supply lines and a few nice deals might get made.
Most established firms won't even do much more than chuckle over this.
More legit business will be done with FTDI and it's real competition. This is good for everyone, but the criminals.
The naysayers will largely go away as they realize sourcing parts from criminals isn't worth it.
If we say the end user must always be protected, then we also say FTDI can and should be subject to extortion too. I'm not OK with that at all, and I'm not OK with it because the problem is criminal, not just a meaningful difference in business models, etc...
Besides, end users get hosed all the time. Bad caps? Bad hard drives? DRM ugly everywhere... part of life product selection boils down to, "you get what you pay for" and you don't get what you don't pay for too.
The race to the bottom is a lot more expensive than people seem to recognize. That's part of why I personally select good stuff and rarely go rock bottom on price. I want the people making money by adding value to have a shot. The ones just doing it cheaper always overstep. Happens all the time. Why? Because when cheaper is the only value, eventually it makes sense to do the wrong things.
That is a risk every end user took when they selected their products, and how they value things and what they value impacts that. Maybe this little spat changes that value equation some. Hope it does.
It is my opinion, after researching this some, the cheap stuff is the most impacted. It was cheap for a reason. Buying products is not risk free. Never has been.
There is exactly one reason why we are discussing this, and it is criminal, not FTDI.
I don't disagree with most of what you say. Stamping some other companies name, logo and part numbers on your devices and passing them off as something they are not is counterfeiting and misrepresentation at it's worst.
Certainly FTDI should take steps to stop this. They have a right to try and protect their lively hood.
But. I am not happy with the idea that companies can fight this kind of turf war on my equipment. At my inconvenience. This is lawlessness, the wild west. I don't want to be collateral damage.
The course of action is clear. We have to try and protect ourselves. Try to avoid fake parts. This starts with not using anything stamped FTDI as clearly there is a big problem with fake FTDI parts, compounded by the problem that the original manufacturer distributes malware with little regard for end users.
Then of course we have to keep vigilance regarding every other component we use...
As for the turf war... it's been going on the whole time. That's a part of product selection in my book. It's about a lot more than features and cost. Always has been.
Frankly, I'll pay easily for quality, and I expect to get it when I do. Most people using FTDI are getting quality and won't have a problem with this whole thing.
The ones who want that quality, but don't want to pay are going to make the most noise, because they were largely getting it, at the expense of FTDI. They, or most of them, will simply move to the next ultra cheap thing and carry on.
Comes down to what is worth what, and we all will evaluate that differently.
You cannot be sure that one day that is not you. Despite your best efforts.
This is not good.
You keep using the term "turf war". This isn't a turf war. If FTDI was preventing Silabs hardware from working, then it would be a turf war.
As for your inconvenience, has the FTDI driver update actually affected you?
Sure it's a turf war. The turf is all the money that can be had from selling USB/Serial adapter chips. The combatants are FTDI and the Chinese cloners. The battle ground, sadly, is the machines of the very people who supply the money.
No.
Perhaps indirectly. It's yet another reason for not using closed source systems. But that is another worm can.
Is that relevant to the debate ?
I hope we can all agree that many constructive points have been raised and debated on this topic, and the importance of advising the Parallax community has been dealt with.
Any further escalation of concerns ought to be carried over to the FTDI forums or FTDI customer support, so that they can have the chance to understand and respond to your concerns.
Needless to say, Parallax only uses genuine FTDI parts in all their products, and as such Parallax products are NOT affected by this matter!
Having run its course, I will let this thread sink slowly now, so as not to impact with other new topics.
FTDI don't seem to have a forum. They have been blocking peoples comments on this matter any way.
Ah well.
So far, there isn't clear indication the non-genuine chips go much beyond DIY parts, so yes these users DO have a terminal to look at, or at least should know they can visit forums to ask about it.
For turn-key consumer products, users may not be savvy to troubleshoot, but they can contact the company, who had better sort it out. It's the maker's responsibility to resolve the issue, since they are the ones who fostered the problem.
For commercial, industrial, military, or other critical applications, any of these that either rely on an unsupported driver, or who allow non-licensed parts to be used in their designs, deserves the repercusions.
Let's put the responsibility where it belongs, and not assume FTDI can or should support their competitors' products, especially when these competitors use unfair (and potentially illegal) business practices. While I would have looked to another alternative (and not pushed this down automatic updates), it is what it is.
The law is always clear about this: accept stolen goods, even if you were not aware they were stolen, and you're still guilty. Ignorance is not a defense.
I don't work with FTDI, but I'd be surprised they don't have a validation tool. Even if you don't check every chip, random samplings of finished product could easily expose fakes in the supply line.
I'm sorry, but what is the difference between the driver doing nothing, and the driver sending an error message? Both end up stopping the hardware from operating, a condition that continues until an appropriate replacement driver is installed. At least with the error message, there's something to troubleshoot.
Indeed!
Either there is more regulation or not. Where it matters in the major vertical markets, we have a LOT of regulation, and for the most part this kind of thing does not happen. It's as life threatening as it is unacceptable.
Consumer goods and product design have a much looser set of rules, and it comes down to potential product liability.
Controlling that industrial robot with a home brew control is a significant liability, which is why that kind of thing just isn't done on things that really do matter.
And that level of risk avoidance is seriously expensive. 10x in a lot of cases.
Where a lot of us play, it's not needed, and we like cheap, we like custom, DIY, and all that jazz.
Gotta take the good with the bad. The wild west is pretty cool. Ordinary people like me can participate and that's just not true where we regulate and manage risks formally.
So this means hacking on our stuff, building our own stuff, etc... can and should happen, but it also means something like this FTDI mess can too.
What is worth what?
We each answer that in our own way, and the risks are there no matter how we answer, though they can be marginalized or maximized depending on just what is worth what.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it!
Sometimes tech sucks. Then it doesn't, until it does again.
What the customer pays for here, is not a stolen goods.
I agree, a warning message would be better than just not working, however, currently neither is happening. I read that it wasn't possible for the driver alone to display a warning message. Maybe what I read was wrong.
It's a serial driver. They put the message into the stream. So it doesn't work and explains why.
Even innocent customers will be forced off line, and a Driver Rollback may be the fastest way to recover.
Sounds like a support call to Microsoft, who must be loving this....
Not sure where that will leave them, in motivation to recommend FTDI to other users ?