title: Why does PyUSB / libusb require root (sudo) permissions on Linux?
body: <p>I have been toying around with <a href="http://pyusb.berlios.de/" rel="noreferrer">PyUSB</a> lately, and found that it works beautifully on Linux (Ubuntu has <a href="http://www.libusb.org/" rel="noreferrer">libusb</a> 0.1 and 1.0, as well as <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/openusb/develop" rel="noreferrer">OpenUSB</a>)... but only if I run the program with root privileges (with <code>sudo</code>, of course).</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone tell me why it requires elevated privileges and, more importantly, if I can change the permissions somehow to make it work for normal user accounts?</p>