Openmoko USB Product ID and IEEE OUI (Ethernet MAC Address) range available to the community

As it has been quite some time since Openmoko, Inc. (the company) has released any hardware, I have obtained the permission to "donate" the Openmoko-assigned USB Product ID and IEEE OUI (MAC Address) allocations to the community.

As the actual allocations cannot be transferred unless the registrant (Openmoko. Inc.) is sold, the official registration will remain with Openmoko Inc. while the various Free / Open Source Software and hardware communities can make use of the range.

Registering a USB Vendor ID is expensive (USD 2000), and even if it wasn't for the money, many companies (let even aside community projects) will never require the 65535 product IDs allocated within that one USB Vendor ID.

As for Ethernet/Wifi/Bluetooth MAC addresses, they are allocated from the IEE OUI number ranges, which are also quite expensive (USD 1600) - but at least you get 16.7 million (24bit) and not just 16bit like USB ;)

So if you are running a small homebrew or community built project that implements a USB device or Ethernet ports, and either the software or the hardware of it is available under a free software / open source license, you can follow the instructions given at the pages in the Openmoko wiki that I linked above and request an allocation.

I'd like to thank Openmoko Inc. and especially Sean Moss-Pultz for making this donation.