Free USB VID (Vendor ID) & PID (Product ID) for DE2 boards?

If you wish to formally use Altera's VID you'll need approval from Altera. The own the rights to all 65535 PIDs associated with their VID. I doubt they use them all(!) and you may find they have such a scheme available for programs like yours. You may receive an altogether different response - I hope not. Either way I'd suggest it's worth asking them - submit a service request via mysupport (https://mysupport.altera.com/alteraservreq/mysupporthomeclassesview.html).

If you wish to informally use Altera's VID then you'll have to take your chances.

Given recent events you might consider using one of Intel's VIDs...

Or perhaps you can persuade your university to get their own vid (http://www.usb.org/developers/vendor/). Good luck with that.

Cheers,

Alex