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>So.. you have to buy from a distributor. Those distributors also buy from 3rd parties In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. The larger issue is C

>So.. you have to buy from a distributor. Those distributors also buy from 3rd parties In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. The larger issue is China, Taiwan, etc don't respect IP and hard tactics like the FTDI driver bricking becomes a reality. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: Asian manufacturer corruption and lack of accountability with IP issues in those countries. Lets get one thing straight here. Multiple people/management in the supply chain here know these things are fake. They aren't stupid. They know that a no-name manufacturer who suddenly undercuts everyone else and uses FTDI's driver is a counterfeit. They chose this knowingly to save cost and said 'fuck all' to any issues later down the line. >Let's just not buy FTDI any longer. Dell didn't need to buy FTDI to have the nightmarish capacitor plague issue. FTDI didn't make all the toxic dogfood that killed all those US dogs in 2007. FTDI had nothing to do with putting melamine in infant formula. Again, you're ignoring the real issues of how China and Taiwan and other governments do a "wink, wink, nod, nod" when its comes to IP issues and encourage and even protect counterfeiters for the sake of economic output and underselling those who respect IP. Oh well, here comes the downvotes because on HN you can't criticize China, only Western nations. edit: to the person who thinks the capacitor issue was just a 'QA issue.' It was corporate espionage against Japan from China to get around IP issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Industrial_espionage_implicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Industrial_es...

Nullabillity 11y ago
> In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. The larger issue is China, Taiwan, etc don't respect IP and hard tactics like the FTDI driver bricking becomes a reality. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: Asian manufacturer corruption and lack of accountability with IP issues in those countries. Wait what? The real issue is that manufacturers can push broken drivers (kernel-mode code!), with seemingly no oversight, to users who no longer have an option to opt out.
deelowe 11y ago
> In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. I don't disagree with you, but you can't ignore the realities of the world. One of those is that almost all electronics are made in these regions (fake and genuine). This is why supply chain control is very difficult in these places. Additionally, supply chain control is not my problem to solve. It's the vendor's (FTDI). > Dell didn't need to buy FTDI to have the nightmarish capacitor plague issue. None of those issues were created intentionally by a reputable company. Dell didn't intentionally start building bad caps. It was due to a QA process gap at a fairly reputable capacitor manufacturer. It was a mistake... In this case, FTDI is doing this on purpose. It's totally reasonable to blame FTDI for a problem they created.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I think GP's point was the capacitor issue was still a corporate IP issue. A (tampered) formula for electrolytic capacitor dielectric was stolen and the resulting capacitors were prone to premature failure. I don't see that as a "QA process gap".
  - deelowe 11y ago
    Dell didn't intentionally create that issue. They simply should have been performing better HALT to ensure they had coverage for bad caps. That's the qa escape. In this case, there is no way to test for this as ftdi doesn't provide any way to do so. They simply break stuff after the fact. The only way to prevent this from happening is to not use ftdi branded parts.
dang 11y ago
> here comes the downvotes because on HN you can't criticize China, only Western nations. Please don't do this here. The HN guidelines explicitly ask you not to go on about downvotes, and the on-HN-my-opinion-is-oppressed line is tiresome.

Nullabillity 11y ago

> In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. The larger issue is China, Taiwan, etc don't respect IP and hard tactics like the FTDI driver bricking becomes a reality. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: Asian manufacturer corruption and lack of accountability with IP issues in those countries. Wait what? The real issue is that manufacturers can push broken drivers (kernel-mode code!), with seemingly no oversight, to users who no longer have an option to opt out.

deelowe 11y ago

> In countries that respect IP this isn't a problem. I don't disagree with you, but you can't ignore the realities of the world. One of those is that almost all electronics are made in these regions (fake and genuine). This is why supply chain control is very difficult in these places. Additionally, supply chain control is not my problem to solve. It's the vendor's (FTDI). > Dell didn't need to buy FTDI to have the nightmarish capacitor plague issue. None of those issues were created intentionally by a reputable company. Dell didn't intentionally start building bad caps. It was due to a QA process gap at a fairly reputable capacitor manufacturer. It was a mistake... In this case, FTDI is doing this on purpose. It's totally reasonable to blame FTDI for a problem they created.

sokoloff 11y ago
I think GP's point was the capacitor issue was still a corporate IP issue. A (tampered) formula for electrolytic capacitor dielectric was stolen and the resulting capacitors were prone to premature failure. I don't see that as a "QA process gap".
- deelowe 11y ago
  Dell didn't intentionally create that issue. They simply should have been performing better HALT to ensure they had coverage for bad caps. That's the qa escape. In this case, there is no way to test for this as ftdi doesn't provide any way to do so. They simply break stuff after the fact. The only way to prevent this from happening is to not use ftdi branded parts.

dang 11y ago

> here comes the downvotes because on HN you can't criticize China, only Western nations. Please don't do this here. The HN guidelines explicitly ask you not to go on about downvotes, and the on-HN-my-opinion-is-oppressed line is tiresome.