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Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

They basically admit it on their license page:

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/FTDriverLicenceTerms.htm

"Use of the Software as a driver for, or installation of the Software onto, a component that is not a Genuine FTDI Component, including without limitation counterfeit components, MAY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE THAT COMPONENT."

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It appears that from @FDTIChip's twitter stream that in fact they do think that this ambiguous license clause makes it OK to deliberately destroy hardware. https://twitter.com/FTDIChip/status/524918979840585729

Even though their TOS might state that, it's extremely poor PR to go after the end user rather than the distributor. Most people won't even know that they have a counterfeit chip. Even though it may be well within their rights the customers will eventually find out what they have done and bear a grudge.

May cause more problems than it fixes.

A statement being in a license does not imply intent, it is there to protect them if they accidentally do damage. "may damage rip-offs" doesn't mean "will intentionally damage rip-offs", it means "we won't care if it accidentally does damage rip-offs, we can't test out code against every rip-off on the market, you paid your money you took your choice".

Of course if they have deliberately broken people's hardware that is a different matter, that clause in the license does not give them permission to in any way (either by my reading of the wording, or my understanding of how the law usually works in such cases).

Of course they should roll back the drive and investigate, but what if the problem is due to a new feature that can't be implemented some other way, and there is no way to detect a "genuine" chip? Should users of their chips do without a feature (or have to mess around opting in) because some other manufacturer's chip has a problem with it?

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