Pico
I agree with most of what you say but not all of it.
I would advice to listen to the video (the open source thread is in the Q&A part).
I would formulate the statement like "We do not feel hurt by people making variations of arduino ( because they bring added value); we do not feel hurt by people making and selling arduino clones; we do feel hurt by people why make and sell a clone that looks like an arduino and sell it like an arduino. This because Arduino sponsor money is not send to arduino."
I see this as: Someone goes around with a collection box for Arduino and does not give the collected money to arduino. This is called fraud. This has nothing to do with the open source nature of Arduino.
However the open source nature of arduino makes it easier for people to fraud.
pico:
The other thing is that if you are open, you must expect to be copied by people whose sole motivation is to make a buck. That's just axiomatic. I don't see how you could ever imagine it's not going to happen.
So the question is: Why are you going down the "open" route in the first place? Can your business (or non-business) model stand being potentially undercut by cloners?
Eventhough I agree with the first part of the statement, I find that the second part is extremely dangerously wrong minded. The sentence may be interpreted like "As you do open source don't complain people copying your work". This interpretation is completely wrong.
As a human I would say it sounds like "If you go out with money; don't complain when you get robbed."
A more legal comparison is with patents: If you request a patent in the USA you have to disclose all details. As soon as that is done, china can copy your work 100% legal and 100% informed just as if it is open source. But no country in the world with a mutual patent agreement with the USA is legally allowed to import those goods. So it is law which is protecting the patent owners and it is law which protects the arduino trademark.
pico:
OTOH, surely the whole point of open hardware and open source is not about a financial reward, but rather non-monetary rewards. I'm thinking about the Stallman manifesto on "free" software from way back when.
It is very noble to give stuff away for free. However everybody needs to eat. The question is: Do you go for "enough to survive" the "whole plate", the "whole dish",......the"whole world". From all donations for my plugin I'm not able to feed myself during the time I developed it. I'm not sad about it, it was my choice to develop it, my choice to shape it, and it will be my choice on how to take it further. My point is, if you want to survive in a donation world you need to push people to donate. Arduino has this push with their branding.
pico:
Fair enough. But when you consider the IDE is really essentially wrapping paper for the Gnu compiler that actually does all the heavy lifting, how does it make sense to financially reward only the makers of the wrapping paper but leave the makers of the Gnu compiler financially unrewarded?
i advice you to rethink the value of good wrapper software. I have been in software development for decades and I can really appreciate a good wrapper like the IDE. The fact most people do not know that the ide is mostly a wrapper means it is a really good wrapper.
pico:
It strikes me as akin to taking a taxi to hospital where a brilliant surgeon saves your life, and then tipping the taxi driver handsomely in your gratitude!
This happens all the time. Think about what managers and sales people urn compared to technical people. ]
It is impossible to say who or what did it; so finding out who really urns the tip is nearly impossible.
I really like this analogy because giving tips is essential to any eco system. And tip's do not have to be financial. I know for instance that some people have made an arduino library as contribution because they felt they already got so much from the eco system. Other people give away their code because they see no commercial benefit so they feel they can just as well make it open source.
My conclusion: Indeed it is a complex eco system. The only way that the eco system will stay healthy is by a huge amount of members doing a contribution. Contribution is in most cases not money.
But in the end we all need to eat and feed our children. So -in our society- money will come lurking around. And I feel the Arduino core team is really mature about it. I would translate it as "When you start learning Arduino; buy a UNO and then we'll see." and "Don't fraud."
Sorry for the rant
Best regards
Jantje