Dear Arduino community, we need to talk

Today is the day of a solar eclipse, some of these are once in a lifetime events.

Arduino is definitely one of the events that will define my life along with many other people’s life.

I’m feeling incredibly blessed to have contributed to create this amazing community which gathered around the idea that we can empower people to master complex technologies and unleash their ability to create with them.

Dear community I’m sorry I didn’t comment earlier, I was keeping quiet to try to find a resolution to our internal issues that would not damage you, the community.

We’ve been so committed to keep the issues internal that for a year we haven’t receiving any royalty from the boards made in Italy, but we continued to work hoping to find a solution.
I’ve told the story to Make read it if you want to know more.

Now the other party has abandoned the negotiating table and, after a lot of recent events, the cat is out of the bag.
I owe you to be part of what is going on.

We created Arduino based on a set of values that have enabled the community to grow, touch any kind of people and contribute to changing the world a bit.

I am here to say that we will continue to fight so that Arduino stays true to those values. There is only one Arduino and there is only one Arduino community. We’re strong, we’re having a positive impact on so many people’s life.

We have so many news we want to share with you but be patient until Arduino Day, let’s celebrate together the amazing community we are (261 Global events!!!) , and you’ll know more.

I’m sure you have a lot of questions an we’re going to try to answer them in due time, compatibly with the fact that lawyers are involved and I can’t say too much.

An eclipse is just a temporary moment of darkness, but soon after the sun comes back shining.

The sun is about to come out, wear your sunglasses!!

Massimo Banzi with David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe , David Mellis

Well. That's ominous...

Anyone that's been in a serious restructure (buyout) knows what's coming next...

You guys have done so very much to benefit everyone. It's really amazing.

I've been contributing regularly to Arduino since 2009, and I plan to continue for years to come.

There is so much space for improvements, however, the "staff / owners" of this community fail to reply to any of my emails.

Iam currently busy on a project that will gather all arduino projects on 1 website

janvier123:
There is so much space for improvements, however, the "staff / owners" of this community fail to reply to any of my emails.

they are on legal fight for the name of their own creation, i think they are a little busy right now.

x iscrizione

txdo_msk:
Anyone that's been in a serious restructure (buyout) knows what's coming next...

Worst case scenario, they fold up shop, and the community organizes and forks the code (or creates something new).

We just can't name or call it "Arduino"...

Remember, the Arduino isn't the company, nor the board, nor the founders - the Arduino is US. We made the Arduino what it is today, and we'll continue to make it what it is in the future.

Even if Atmel folds and no more ATMegas are produced (not likely, but anything can happen I suppose) - we'll just move on to another platform.

What will be the hardest transition won't be the hardware - it will be this forum and the members moving to another forum; since such a forum doesn't exist - it would have to be created (by someone) and hosted (on some server somewhere) and someone will have to pay for it. Given the likely traffic, it wouldn't be cheap.

We'll only fall if we don't stick together and realize that we are a community helping each other - along with the promotion and use of the product. If we ignore that - today or tommorow - we're all lost.

So let's keep our heads up, our eyes open, and our mouths moving (well, fingers typing) - follow this story, keep everyone abreast of the issues as we know more, and keep doing what we're already doing.

Long live the Arduino.

The war on the brand is so anti-Arduino, I'm not sure how to feel at this point.

As others have pointed out, Arduino is more than just a brand. It is a board. It is some code. It is a community. And it is also a Brand.

Such a a shame the name itself is being dragged through the dirt, for no (obvious, at this point) reason. Other than, something petty?

I will continue to support Massimo and the true team. I just wish we could find a way to put this stuff behind us and keep moving forward.

Massimo,

Hi, it's good to hear from you, I hope it is not too late.

I don't think anyone can pretend to say it is "business as usual". It clearly isn't. Something radical must be done.

It was perhaps inevitable that Arduino would meet a pretender, and have to mount a legal challenge. We all know you have been plagued by counterfeits. I guess no one expected that pretender to be one of your own, with resources and intent to cause an existential threat. Either way, the pretender has come.

It's not even certain you will win the legal battle. I realise it is a depressing thought that you might lose what you have built. But Arduino goes beyond "Arduino(tm)".

So here are two things to consider that are certain: 1) you have the community; 2) even if you win the legal battle, you will sink a lot of time, mental effort and money into the legal fight.

Don't throw good money after bad. The other party have made their decision, that is done and is not your fault.

So here's radical. Don't fight. Evolve. Rebrand as "Arduino Original" or something. Continue to do what you do under that name. Make your own boards with that brand. Through the merit of your contributions to the project, persuade people to back you instead of the "other Arduino".

The community will be behind you. Good luck.

I don't think it's wise to presuppose an outcome re who will win the Arduino trademark case. If anything, it's a lesson regarding the need for competent legal representation when it comes to filing trademarks and ensuring all t's are crossed and i's dotted to put the protection offered by the USPTO on your side.

Something that may have seemed like an afterthought at one point has turned into perhaps the most valuable asset of the company... This is why the SRL folk are going after the name in the first place. If their hardware could easily survive on its own merits, they would have forked the code and come up with their own company and product names. There are innovative hardware / software makers like Paul Stoffregen with his Teensy or the folk at Ruggeduino who did just that.

But building a brand is much harder than riding on coat tails. It's likely that the manufacturing assets in the SRL branch feel like they made a significant contribution towards the successes of Arduino and hence are entitled to it. As a community, we may feel otherwise and ultimately, the market will decide whether the SRL folk will prevail. Ie it's up to us users to decide whose hardware to buy.

For me, the most important thing going forward is asking a simple question: how can we help the LLC? For example, is there a paypal account that we can send money to? What hardware still results in royalty payments to Arduino LLC. And so on. Best of luck!

In France we used to say, "Who hears a only one bell, does hear only one sound."
MB has spoken and that's fine, it was essential to do it.
Now to make up my own mind and not chasing that of a noisy majority I expected that SRL people will speak . Certainly more SRL people slow to speak more they will spend for aggressors

Because as I have already written it can't be a totally victim group and an entirely guilty group. The truth is always in the middle.
The question is whether it is closer to LLC or SRL ?

On the other hand less public discussion is, more likely to agree increases.
And an agreement is the more important.

In the UK we say "actions speak louder than words". So the actions: Smart Projects took their own trademark of "Arduino", Smart Projects renamed to Arduino Srl, Arduino Srl took the domain arduino.org, Arduino Srl have pretty much copied the Arduino.org website, Martino sold his shares in Smart Projects to Federico Musto, Musto announced to the press that he is now head of Arduino project, and Banzi is taking a back seat.

It's obvious that Arduino Srl are trying to take over the Arduino brand, you'd have to be a fool not to see that.

Arduino Srl don't need to say anything, because all the "official Arduino" distributors are selling their hardware and giving money to Arduino Srl.

But you're right, let's hear Martino speak to justify his unethical actions. Is he going to say, "Arduino LLC and the other founders wanted to push me out, so I have stolen their business?"

Unfortunately, i`m one of the "people bought an Arduino board made in Italy in the last year thinking they were supporting the project". =((
I pay the difference over cheap clones only to return Arduino's boys a little reward for so many hours and $ dedicated to this colossal project.
The worst thing, IMHO, is to realize that some people don't understand nothing of the open culture, and in a real oposition to this philosophy they take for them all the disinterested work of many people that dedicated part of his life to contribute to a project.

I would like to have the "Arduino" brand to be connected to Arduino.cc
It has become a strong brand name.

But I don't mind if the Arduino.org boards still carry the Arduino name and are called "original Arduino board made in Italy". That will be something like "Coca-Cola Regular". Other tastes can be made elsewhere and be "Certified by Arduino.cc".

It is nevertheless a sad turn in the Arduino story.

68tjs:
Because as I have already written it can't be a totally victim group and an entirely guilty group. The truth is always in the middle.

The truth is often, but not always, in the middle.

Rarely, but sometimes, the truth really does end up looking like 1 side was totally right and the other totally wrong. For example, one hypothetical scenario might look like an extraordinarily unethical American businessman buys out an Italian PCB shop and then exploits a long-standing royalty dispute to underhandedly take full control over a well establish trademark/brand, so he can keep all the profits and increase sales his own products that failed to gain market share under their own brand name.

Of course, since the truth is often in the middle. There may actually be some reasonable & ethical explanation behind Arduino Srl and their actions over the last several months. Maybe.

But not necessarily. Sometimes the truth really does turn out to be that 1 party acted honestly & ethically & acted faithfully. Sometimes one side is fully guilty and deserving of all the blame.

Time will tell....

It saddens me to see this happen.

It is hard to look at the sold out arduino.cc shop.
.... the zero pro in arduino.org shop
.... arduino.cc not being a distributor of arduino.org.
....Man this is war.....
May the force be with you arduino.cc
Jantje

the org has also its github repo and in the splashscreen the name of Banzi has been moved has last of the list. lol

Well, not even the smartest of us would have seen this coming (or maybe the core team could..).

The thing is: we all know that OPEN SOURCE is NOT PROFITABLE and WILL NEVER BE! nobody works for free. what is profitable is SELLING hardware. This is why everybody (Arduino, Teensy, SeeedStudio, Mbuino, MBED, among others) SELL HARDWARE.

I am not really surprised that at least ONE of the original Arduino founders was smart enough to try and make profits out of it!.

Sorry not sorry for being sincere, but truth is truth.

I guess your truth is not my truth.
The Arduino boards that were made in Italy paid for a part of the development of the software. When agreements were violated and both parties claim the name "Arduino", then there is something that is not smart and not truthful. However, I don't know the whole story.

You are right, that it is not easy to make an open source company profitable. Even Wikipedia needs donations. However Ubuntu (Canonical) has a free operation system and they earn money with support, in a way some of Arduino.cc also do.
That is why I kindly ask you to make a donation, since you use this forum

clovisf:
I am not really surprised that at least ONE of the original Arduino founders was smart enough to try and make profits out of it!.

All of them ALREADY make profit. Ando you know what? open source, if done right, IS profitable. look at Mozilla, the linux foundation, the apache foundation.. and you know what? they DOMINATE in what they are supposed do.

and this is because people GET PAID to bring on development:

"The number of paid developers is on the rise, as companies aggressively recruit top Linux talent. More than 80 percent of kernel development is done by developers who are being paid for their work. Volunteer developers tend not to stay that way for long."

from http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/02/linux-foundation-releases-linux-development-report