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18 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
18 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
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layout: page
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title: About pid.codes
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permalink: /about/
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---
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If you're a maker, hobbyist, or startup company producing your own USB device, you'll need a USB Vendor ID and Product ID to uniquely identify your device to computers. The USB-IF's position is that the only way to do this is for each organisation to [pay $5000 for a unique Vendor ID](http://www.usb.org/developers/vendor/), which may not be shared with other individuals or organisations.
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For 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. These solutions make things worse for everyone, by damaging the assumption that a VID/PID combination is unique to a given device.
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pid.codes seeks to solve this issue for anyone producing open-source hardware. 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.
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pid.codes will assign PIDs on any VID we own to any open-source hardware project needing one. To learn how to get a PID or PIDs for your project, see the [how to get a PID](/howto/) page.
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pid.codes will also gladly accept donations of Vendor IDs from other organisations that no longer require them, and take responsibility for administering them. If you have a VID code that is no longer in use, please contact us at [admin@pid.codes](admin@pid.codes).
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This site is in no way supported or endorsed by [USB-IF](http://www.usb.org/).
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