Re: [Libusb-devel] USB VID/PID for open source projects

[Xiaofan C. <xia...@gm...>]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:17 AM, Tim Roberts <ti...@pr...> wrote:
> It's a tough call.  Is it really Microsoft's job to act as the USB
> police or the PCI police?  Who would get to decide?  Would they be
> opening themselves up to a lawsuit if they refused to bless a driver
> because of this?

Once upon a time (actually not so long ago) they do add the USB-IF Test
ID (TID) in the Windows Logo Kit (WLK) requirement.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee820106.aspx

Of course that will not go down so well on the vendors...
So Microsoft has to change the requirement.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2010/09/30/usb-if-testing-requirement-in-windows-logo-kit.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463175.aspx

> I appreciate the position they're in.  WHQL probably gets hundreds of
> submissions per day, and only a very small percentage of them ever gets
> touched by human hands.  They don't need yet another roadblock in the
> process.
>

With the new license requirement, they do add another roadblock
for people who want to get WHQL for libusb-win32 based driver
package.  So we will change the driver license to BSD type
in the future.

On the other hand, I can understand why companies like
Microsoft and Apple want to protect from the impact of GPL.

-- 
Xiaofan