I am in the process of designing an Arduino compatible board that does not use the traditional ATMEL MCU. Something similar to INTEL's Galileo and Edison boards. The board it self is complete and functional. Now I want to write a plug-in to configure the Arduino IDE to accommodate my board and program it. My question is that would there be an issue, legal wise, if I ever decide to distribute(free or sell) the board and software in the future? I know Arduino is an open source, my concern comes from the fact that I will be piggy-backing my board on the Arduino IDE.
Also advice or feedback on my endeavour will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
AFIAK, Maple, Energia, Wiring, and MPIDE, Teensy3, and more, are all based on the Arduino code.
You probably need to make your plugin/etc open source as well, even if you sell it. I can vaguely imagine ways to do a non-open-source target, but it would be pretty tough, and against "the spirit of the license."
jag86:
I am in the process of designing an Arduino compatible board that does not use the traditional ATMEL MCU.
...
Also advice or feedback on my endeavour will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
The Arduino IDE is open-source and freely downloadable. No problem there.
If you utilize ANY core libraries, 3rd party libraries, then you must follow the licenses of those libraries completely.
However, it is my opinion that you can write a 3rd party package which "integrates" with the GUI only but provide your own core & libraries without having to provide source... Just .o files. Working out the details on how to get these over to the temp directory may require a few gray cells, however. Also, remember that Arduino has stock code that hooks into main() that would follow the open source requirement.
Ray