what it has to do with ftdi is a company acting like its products are made directly by god, him/herself.
and they feel they have a right to sabotage things that don't pass thru their blessed channels.
they are both hostile toward users unless the users play by THEIR rules.
I see lots of similarities in mind-think between the companies. maybe you don't, but the 'counterfit' argument is being used by both ftdi and nikon and it affects end-users unfairly. if I buy a used lens that does not have the US marking on it, why should I be denied ability to have it fixed, for a standard repair fee? nikon is going out of their way to make lives more difficult than they should be. they feel they are entitled to this and that. just like ftdi feels entitled to ruin hardware that claims the ftdi driver but is not ftdi hardware.
FTDI and many other companies are trying to create monopoly for them in many legal and barely legal ways. Such companies do extensive PR to spread FUD about dangers of "unofficial" products for end user, claims extensive monopoly rights (granted or not), do other "warfare" against competitors, limits support for products, etc. Granted, some information about "dangers" may be true or partially true, but still.
Among this "warfare", end user is negatively affected - user is left with ambiguous information about the market, gets less innovation and pays higher prices. I am not sure why some forum members tries to defend this "monopolistic" behaviour negatively affecting end users.
I have no idea what this has to do with FTDI though.
This is why:
<image of ICs with FTDI logos>
It's more a trademark issue than anything else.
Simple question - if you see an IC with FTDI logo, how do you decide that it is original? There is simply no 100% sure way short of de capping IC.
The issue that is clearly misunderstood by FTDI and some forum users - there are always some
probability that chip is not original even all available evidnece show that it is original. There is no certainty that chip is original or not. Even if you intent to use original chips, use strict policies, etc. Deal with it. And stop assuming that everyone who is using fake (or non genuine FTDI chips from FTDI) is scammer of some sort - that is wrong assumption.
FTDI simply
assumes that everyone who use non original FTDI chips (these may or may not have FTDI logo, be clones/fakes/etc. - mostly legal, some probably not,
FTDI does not know, you neither) are bad guys using illegal counterfeit chips and decides to punish them with killer driver (again, this is almost certainly illegal - FTDI cannot both themselves determine legality of other people's property and damage other people's property. There is legal systems for this.)
In short, FTDI pushes a risk of genuine chips to end users (which have nothing to do with it) and tries to establish monopoly barricades in this market via actions with unclear legal status. With recent actions FTDI increased this risk massively for FTDI branded chips so rational user/designer/manufacturer would less likely choose FTDI over competing products.