We have been gifted a Vendor ID by a company that was issued one by USB-IF and has since ceased trading they obtained the Vendor ID before the USB-IF changed their licensing terms to prohibit transfers or subassignments.
Pid.codes seeks to solve this issue for anyone producing open-source hardware. These solutions make things worse for everyone, by damaging the assumption that a VID/PID combination is unique to a given device.
The USB-IF’s position is that the only way to do this is for each organisation to pay $6000 for a unique Vendor ID, which they may not share with other individuals or organisations.įor many makers and small companies, this is a prohibitive amount of money, and forces them to resort to workarounds, such as using other organisations’ VIDs without permission, or simply making up a VID and PID. If you’re a maker, hobbyist, or startup company producing your own USB device, you’ve probably discovered that you need a USB Vendor ID and Product ID to uniquely identify your device to computers.
