Embedded USB-to-serial converter

Down with proprietary protocols for such a simple task. The "USB comms port" profile should have been standardised by USB long ago, like USB HID for keyboards and mice, mass storage devices, etc. Then they would all work the same way regardless if it were FTDI, Prolific, or a clone.

And down with closed-source opaque binary drivers where you don't know what you are getting. Plug an FTDI device into a Linux machine, and it works. Plug a fake FTDI device into a Linux machine, and it works too - and it keeps working.

Of course the very purpose of USB was to *create* opportunities for vendor lock-in. It was specifically *designed* to wrest from us the control of what we are permitted to connect to it. We were all (OK, almost all) tricked into accepting that because it was supposed to be "universal". For some time, it even looked like it would be.

Jeroen Belleman