While the APPEARANCE of a hard-to-get chip coupled with the VID/PID mishegas may seem to be a little annoying, we don't think that means that the Arduino team is being malicious or attempting to MAKE life difficult for people who make derivatives. The move to an '8u2 makes the Arduino more powerful, and easy to use as there are fewer drivers to INSTALL. While there is a shortage now, there will eventually be plenty of chips on the market.

Some people in the Arduino forum have thought of forming a group that would purchase a VID for Arduinites to use in personal projects. This is a pretty good idea and its probably the best WAY to avoid VID/PID conflicts. Between 65,536 projects, that comes to under a nickel per PID.

And of course, because they didn't get rid of the bootloader SYSTEM, you can always just use an FTDI chip.

While the appearance of a hard-to-get chip coupled with the VID/PID mishegas may seem to be a little annoying, we don't think that means that the Arduino team is being malicious or attempting to make life difficult for people who make derivatives. The move to an '8u2 makes the Arduino more powerful, and easy to use as there are fewer drivers to install. While there is a shortage now, there will eventually be plenty of chips on the market.

Some people in the Arduino forum have thought of forming a group that would purchase a VID for Arduinites to use in personal projects. This is a pretty good idea and its probably the best way to avoid VID/PID conflicts. Between 65,536 projects, that comes to under a nickel per PID.

And of course, because they didn't get rid of the bootloader system, you can always just use an FTDI chip.