git.zerfleddert.de Git - fnordlicht-mini/blob - firmware/fnordlicht-controller/usbdrv/USBID-License.txt

   1 Royalty-Free Non-Exclusive Use of USB Product-IDs
   2 =================================================
   3
   4 Version 2009-04-13
   5
   6 Strictly speaking, this is not a license. You can't give a license to use
   7 a simple number (such as e.g. 1500) for any purpose. This is a set of rules
   8 which should make it possible to build USB devices without the requirement
   9 for individual USB IDs. If you break one of the rules, you will run into
  10 technical problems sooner or later, but you don't risk legal trouble.
  11
  12
  13 OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH hereby grants you the non-exclusive
  14 right to use four USB.org vendor-ID (VID) / product-ID (PID) pairs with
  15 products based on Objective Development's firmware-only USB driver for
  16 Atmel AVR microcontrollers:
  17
  18  * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1500 (=0x5dc) for devices implementing no
  19    USB device class (vendor-class devices with USB class = 0xff). Devices
  20    using this pair will be referred to as "VENDOR CLASS" devices.
  21
  22  * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1503 (=0x5df) for HID class devices
  23    (excluding mice and keyboards). Devices using this pair will be referred
  24    to as "HID CLASS" devices.
  25
  26  * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1505 (=0x5e1) for CDC class modem devices
  27    Devices using this pair will be referred to as "CDC-ACM CLASS" devices.
  28
  29  * VID = 5824 (=0x16c0) / PID = 1508 (=0x5e4) for MIDI class devices
  30    Devices using this pair will be referred to as "MIDI CLASS" devices.
  31
  32 Since the granted right is non-exclusive, the same VID/PID pairs may be
  33 used by many companies and individuals for different products. To avoid
  34 conflicts, your device and host driver software MUST adhere to the rules
  35 outlined below.
  36
  37 OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH has obtained these VID/PID pairs from
  38 Wouter van Ooijen (see www.voti.nl) for exclusive disposition. Wouter van
  39 Ooijen has obtained the VID from the USB Implementers Forum, Inc.
  40 (see www.usb.org). The VID is registered for the company name
  41 "Van Ooijen Technische Informatica".
  42
  43
  44 RULES AND RESTRICTIONS
  45 ======================
  46
  47 (1) The USB device MUST provide a textual representation of the
  48 manufacturer and product identification. The manufacturer identification
  49 MUST be available at least in USB language 0x0409 (English/US).
  50
  51 (2) The textual manufacturer identification MUST contain either an Internet
  52 domain name (e.g. "mycompany.com") registered and owned by you, or an
  53 e-mail address under your control (e.g. "myname@gmx.net"). You can embed
  54 the domain name or e-mail address in any string you like, e.g.  "Objective
  55 Development http://www.obdev.at/vusb/".
  56
  57 (3) You are responsible for retaining ownership of the domain or e-mail
  58 address for as long as any of your products are in use.
  59
  60 (4) You may choose any string for the textual product identification, as
  61 long as this string is unique within the scope of your textual manufacturer
  62 identification.
  63
  64 (5) Matching of device-specific drivers MUST be based on the textual
  65 manufacturer and product identification in addition to the usual VID/PID
  66 matching. This means that operating system features which are based on
  67 VID/PID matching only (e.g. Windows kernel level drivers, automatic actions
  68 when the device is plugged in etc) MUST NOT be used. The driver matching
  69 MUST be a comparison of the entire strings, NOT a sub-string match. For
  70 CDC-ACM CLASS and MIDI CLASS devices, a generic class driver should be used
  71 and the matching is based on the USB device class.
  72
  73 (6) The extent to which VID/PID matching is allowed for non device-specific
  74 drivers or features depends on the operating system and particular VID/PID
  75 pair used:
  76
  77  * Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD and other Unixes: No VID/PID matching is
  78    required and hence no VID/PID-only matching is allowed at all.
  79
  80  * Windows: The operating system performs VID/PID matching for the kernel
  81    level driver. You are REQUIRED to use libusb-win32 (see
  82    http://libusb-win32.sourceforge.net/) as the kernel level driver for
  83    VENDOR CLASS devices. HID CLASS devices all use the generic HID class
  84    driver shipped with Windows, except mice and keyboards. You therefore
  85    MUST NOT use any of the shared VID/PID pairs for mice or keyboards.
  86    CDC-ACM CLASS devices require a ".inf" file which matches on the VID/PID
  87    pair. This ".inf" file MUST load the "usbser" driver to configure the
  88    device as modem (COM-port).
  89
  90 (7) OBJECTIVE DEVELOPMENT Software GmbH disclaims all liability for any
  91 problems which are caused by the shared use of these VID/PID pairs. You
  92 have been warned that the sharing of VID/PID pairs may cause problems. If
  93 you want to avoid them, get your own VID/PID pair for exclusive use.
  94
  95
  96 HOW TO IMPLEMENT THESE RULES
  97 ============================
  98
  99 The following rules are for VENDOR CLASS and HID CLASS devices. CDC-ACM
 100 CLASS and MIDI CLASS devices use the operating system's class driver and
 101 don't need a custom driver.
 102
 103 The host driver MUST iterate over all devices with the given VID/PID
 104 numbers in their device descriptors and query the string representation for
 105 the manufacturer name in USB language 0x0409 (English/US). It MUST compare
 106 the ENTIRE string with your textual manufacturer identification chosen in
 107 (2) above. A substring search for your domain or e-mail address is NOT
 108 acceptable. The driver MUST NOT touch the device (other than querying the
 109 descriptors) unless the strings match.
 110
 111 For all USB devices with matching VID/PID and textual manufacturer
 112 identification, the host driver must query the textual product
 113 identification and string-compare it with the name of the product it can
 114 control. It may only initialize the device if the product matches exactly.
 115
 116 Objective Development provides examples for these matching rules with the
 117 "PowerSwitch" project (using libusb) and with the "Automator" project
 118 (using Windows calls on Windows and libusb on Unix).
 119
 120
 121 Technical Notes:
 122 ================
 123
 124 Sharing the same VID/PID pair among devices is possible as long as ALL
 125 drivers which match the VID/PID also perform matching on the textual
 126 identification strings. This is easy on all operating systems except
 127 Windows, since Windows establishes a static connection between the VID/PID
 128 pair and a kernel level driver. All devices with the same VID/PID pair must
 129 therefore use THE SAME kernel level driver.
 130
 131 We therefore demand that you use libusb-win32 for VENDOR CLASS devices.
 132 This is a generic kernel level driver which allows all types of USB access
 133 for user space applications. This is only a partial solution of the
 134 problem, though, because different device drivers may come with different
 135 versions of libusb-win32 and they may not work with the libusb version of
 136 the respective other driver. You are therefore encouraged to test your
 137 driver against a broad range of libusb-win32 versions. Do not use new
 138 features in new versions, or check for their existence before you use them.
 139 When a new libusb-win32 becomes available, make sure that your driver is
 140 compatible with it.
 141
 142 For HID CLASS devices it is necessary that all those devices bind to the
 143 same kernel driver: Microsoft's generic USB HID driver. This is true for
 144 all HID devices except those with a specialized driver. Currently, the only
 145 HIDs with specialized drivers are mice and keyboards. You therefore MUST
 146 NOT use a shared VID/PID with mouse and keyboard devices.
 147
 148 Sharing the same VID/PID among different products is unusual and probably
 149 violates the USB specification. If you do it, you do it at your own risk.
 150
 151 To avoid possible incompatibilities, we highly recommend that you get your
 152 own VID/PID pair if you intend to sell your product. Objective
 153 Development's commercial licenses for V-USB include a PID for
 154 unrestricted exclusive use.