reference firmware

[fnordlicht-mini] / firmware / fnordlicht-controller / usbdrv / USBID-License.txt

Royalty-Free Non-Exclusive Use of USB Product-IDs
=================================================

Version 2009-04-13

Strictly speaking, this is not a license. You can't give a license to use
a simple number (such as e.g. 1500) for any purpose. This is a set of rules
which should make it possible to build USB devices without the requirement
for individual USB IDs. If you break one of the rules, you will run into
technical problems sooner or later, but you don't risk legal trouble.


OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH hereby grants you the non-exclusive
right to use four USB.org vendor-ID (VID) / product-ID (PID) pairs with
products based on Objective Development's firmware-only USB driver for
Atmel AVR microcontrollers:

 * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1500 (=0x5dc) for devices implementing no
   USB device class (vendor-class devices with USB class = 0xff). Devices
   using this pair will be referred to as "VENDOR CLASS" devices.

 * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1503 (=0x5df) for HID class devices
   (excluding mice and keyboards). Devices using this pair will be referred
   to as "HID CLASS" devices.

 * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1505 (=0x5e1) for CDC class modem devices
   Devices using this pair will be referred to as "CDC-ACM CLASS" devices.

 * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1508 (=0x5e4) for MIDI class devices
   Devices using this pair will be referred to as "MIDI CLASS" devices.

Since the granted right is non-exclusive, the same VID/PID pairs may be
used by many companies and individuals for different products. To avoid
conflicts, your device and host driver software MUST adhere to the rules
outlined below.

OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH has obtained these VID/PID pairs from
Wouter van Ooijen (see www.voti.nl) for exclusive disposition. Wouter van
Ooijen has obtained the VID from the USB Implementers Forum, Inc.
(see www.usb.org). The VID is registered for the company name
"Van Ooijen Technische Informatica".


RULES AND RESTRICTIONS
======================

(1) The USB device MUST provide a textual representation of the
manufacturer and product identification. The manufacturer identification
MUST be available at least in USB language 0x0409 (English/US).

(2) The textual manufacturer identification MUST contain either an Internet
domain name (e.g. "mycompany.com") registered and owned by you, or an
e-mail address under your control (e.g. "myname@gmx.net"). You can embed
the domain name or e-mail address in any string you like, e.g.  "Objective
Development http://www.obdev.at/vusb/".

(3) You are responsible for retaining ownership of the domain or e-mail
address for as long as any of your products are in use.

(4) You may choose any string for the textual product identification, as
long as this string is unique within the scope of your textual manufacturer
identification.

(5) Matching of device-specific drivers MUST be based on the textual
manufacturer and product identification in addition to the usual VID/PID
matching. This means that operating system features which are based on
VID/PID matching only (e.g. Windows kernel level drivers, automatic actions
when the device is plugged in etc) MUST NOT be used. The driver matching
MUST be a comparison of the entire strings, NOT a sub-string match. For
CDC-ACM CLASS and MIDI CLASS devices, a generic class driver should be used
and the matching is based on the USB device class.

(6) The extent to which VID/PID matching is allowed for non device-specific
drivers or features depends on the operating system and particular VID/PID
pair used:

 * Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD and other Unixes: No VID/PID matching is
   required and hence no VID/PID-only matching is allowed at all.

 * Windows: The operating system performs VID/PID matching for the kernel
   level driver. You are REQUIRED to use libusb-win32 (see
   http://libusb-win32.sourceforge.net/) as the kernel level driver for
   VENDOR CLASS devices. HID CLASS devices all use the generic HID class
   driver shipped with Windows, except mice and keyboards. You therefore
   MUST NOT use any of the shared VID/PID pairs for mice or keyboards.
   CDC-ACM CLASS devices require a ".inf" file which matches on the VID/PID
   pair. This ".inf" file MUST load the "usbser" driver to configure the
   device as modem (COM-port).

(7) OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH disclaims all liability for any
problems which are caused by the shared use of these VID/PID pairs. You
have been warned that the sharing of VID/PID pairs may cause problems. If
you want to avoid them, get your own VID/PID pair for exclusive use.


HOW TO IMPLEMENT THESE RULES
============================

The following rules are for VENDOR CLASS and HID CLASS devices. CDC-ACM
CLASS and MIDI CLASS devices use the operating system's class driver and
don't need a custom driver.

The host driver MUST iterate over all devices with the given VID/PID
numbers in their device descriptors and query the string representation for
the manufacturer name in USB language 0x0409 (English/US). It MUST compare
the ENTIRE string with your textual manufacturer identification chosen in
(2) above. A substring search for your domain or e-mail address is NOT
acceptable. The driver MUST NOT touch the device (other than querying the
descriptors) unless the strings match.

For all USB devices with matching VID/PID and textual manufacturer
identification, the host driver must query the textual product
identification and string-compare it with the name of the product it can
control. It may only initialize the device if the product matches exactly.

Objective Development provides examples for these matching rules with the
"PowerSwitch" project (using libusb) and with the "Automator" project
(using Windows calls on Windows and libusb on Unix).


Technical Notes:
================

Sharing the same VID/PID pair among devices is possible as long as ALL
drivers which match the VID/PID also perform matching on the textual
identification strings. This is easy on all operating systems except
Windows, since Windows establishes a static connection between the VID/PID
pair and a kernel level driver. All devices with the same VID/PID pair must
therefore use THE SAME kernel level driver.

We therefore demand that you use libusb-win32 for VENDOR CLASS devices.
This is a generic kernel level driver which allows all types of USB access
for user space applications. This is only a partial solution of the
problem, though, because different device drivers may come with different
versions of libusb-win32 and they may not work with the libusb version of
the respective other driver. You are therefore encouraged to test your
driver against a broad range of libusb-win32 versions. Do not use new
features in new versions, or check for their existence before you use them.
When a new libusb-win32 becomes available, make sure that your driver is
compatible with it.

For HID CLASS devices it is necessary that all those devices bind to the
same kernel driver: Microsoft's generic USB HID driver. This is true for
all HID devices except those with a specialized driver. Currently, the only
HIDs with specialized drivers are mice and keyboards. You therefore MUST
NOT use a shared VID/PID with mouse and keyboard devices.

Sharing the same VID/PID among different products is unusual and probably
violates the USB specification. If you do it, you do it at your own risk.

To avoid possible incompatibilities, we highly recommend that you get your
own VID/PID pair if you intend to sell your product. Objective
Development's commercial licenses for V-USB include a PID for
unrestricted exclusive use.