Licensing for Arduino platform

Community General Discussion
1

Hallo,
I apologize if I create a new topic, but I could not find the right (other place) for my question.

Licensing issues seems to be more much more complex then tax issues. I could not find any answer to my question on other topics.
And here we go

I like Arduino community. I learned so much about microcontrollers by experimenting with Arduino boards. And I would like to give my experience back.

Now I am so far to release a commercial product based on one of many microcontroller platforms. But I like Arduino and would like to know some points before starting into the right direction.

My question would be:
I would like to introduce a communication protocol which can be used by Arduino (as well as any other microcontroller platform)
I want this protocol to be free for personal use but would like to charge for commercial usage.
I would like to sell the product based on Arduino design (official source for Arduino is ok for development, but for production purposes the pricing seems to be far away from realistic world of commerce)
I would like to use existing Arduino libraries for commercial product (again, private usage - free, commercial usage - I am responsible to decide)

As I mensioned earlier - the licensing of ANY kind of software seems to be the field for experts, and I, even a user of such licenses, never got so far to even understand a bit of the explanation (in english or native language).

So, probably repition, but

  • I have a product I like to sell - hardware
  • this hardware is Atmera Microcontroller and shall use Arduino libraries
  • I like to share the definition with Arduino comunity for free
  • but, I would want to have different model for commercial usage (I want to sell products)

Any help would be appreciated.

gudwin

2

For which country?
The laws are not the same in the US, EU and various other countries worldwide.

Arduino schematic board are Open Hardware and are based on the micro-controller manufacturer recommendation (Atmel) like datasheet and Application Note Atmel AVR042: AVR Hardware Design Considerations.

Manufacturers' recommendations are made to help customers to use the products. They are free to use.

IMHO there is no restriction on hardware.

For software all files of Wiring / Arduino core that I opened are under the Lesser GPL licence.

3

thank you 68tjs for the quick reply

for which country

need to be worldwide

supplier

I am pretty safe, that due to some restrictions I will be the only one to deliver the hardware in required configuration. So there will be no discussion, if the customer will order the hardware from me (which will be a "divice designed, admitted and approved to some standards"). So, I have guarantee that I am the only suplier of the hardware (for commercial usage). Still: private usage - want to be free.
I know that customer will allways order from me. Never from somewhere else. But, I like it to be available for private usage. Has many positiv aspecsts(Of course I make errors, I'm only human; others can correct me; and can participate on the project; and again - free to use for private but not for commercial).