> Well, at some point you have to decide whether you want to be an
> OS and protocol stack developer, or an "application" developer.  For
> large companies, it certainly seems to be easier to buy a USB stack
> than to spend a couple man years (at $100k+ each) writing one that
> then isn't compatible with anything else (at the internal API layer) and
> requires each new employee actually LEARN about its idiosyncracies
> before they can start using it...

I agree that the USB "stack" is something the operating system should take
care of for you, but I wasn't talking about that.  I was only reacting to
people saying that one should not attempt to create a new USB device because
it's too complicated and to use an FTDI chip or HID class even if your
device has nothing to do with HID.

I'm sure there are gotchas, but at least there are interfaces that are
supposedly intended for creating your own USB device.  If you do everything
according to the interface spec, it should be the OS vendor's task to make
it run on any hardware supported by that OS.

> (There's a related "open source"
> dilemma.  Sure, you can find and fix bugs yourself.  Theoretically.  But
> the number of people actually capable of doing that is much smaller
> than the number of people likely to be affected by that bug...)

Yeah, I agree that open source is way overrated.  In some ways it's bad
because it lets someone writing software be lazy and rely on others fixing
bugs for them.  For stuff I use to get my job done, I'd rather pay for
working software.  And no, I don't want to see the code because I've got
better things to get on with.  I don't care what's inside, I just want it to
work and am willing to pay for the software to get that.  Open source
software is the most expensive kind.


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