Arduino.org

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I think the court of public opinion already delivered their verdict!

But, I work in construction and I think I have a higher threshold for unethical operation than some. I don't engage in it myself, far from it - indeed I pride myself on not dropping to "their" level, but this kind of thing would simply be considered a "play" by many big construction firms in order to win a project for example.

It's no justification for the approach they are taking though, it is the dirtiest of "play"s, I've not seen anything _quite_ this bold, or aggressive, but worst of all I think, is the abuse of trust and what once must have been friendships.

It's very sad. I wouldn't want to come across as supportive of arduino.org, I am not. I just see 2 businesses trying to make their way, both of which have made, or are making, some very big mistakes.

I
 
Paul,
There have been many of what I would call unscrupulous actions over the decades that people seem to overlook or have forgotten.
Ironically, there are even a few things that many people might call "good" or even "great" things that originated from some of these unscrupulous actions.

Interestingly enough, UNIX wasn't supposed to be open source to be made freely available.
It was through some careless actions with Berkeley and lack of quickly filing lawsuits to protect the IP that it essentially/effectively became open source.
Unix was being given out as source code for porting and for research (you pretty had to in those days) but it was still owned and copyrighted by Bell Labs.
It was not open source but through what some people might call "unethical moves" it became "open source".
And that "open source" is what I believe allowed the eventual creation of freeBSD unix which I believe things like GNU, MACOS and as well as linux owe their very existence.

around 30 years ago you - or a company, could get a "research licence" from Berkeley to get all the UNIX source code for academic/resource purposes for just a few hundred dollars.
It came with an NDA that Berkley never really bothered to enforce.

Had ATT fully enforced their IP ownership early on against Berkeley, I doubt we'd have as much open source as we do today.
All the "UNIX" type lawsuits over decades for control of "nix" IP all essentially go back to the ATT screw-up with Berkley.

And then don't forget the blatant copying/theft of the Xerox PARC GUI desktop environment that Apple stole to create their GUI desktop.

And then there is always the origin of MS/PC dos itself. It was through some much and clever legal wrangling that Gates was able to get a unlimited distribution license of CPM for the x86 processors from Digital Research by purchasing Seattle Computing.


In many of these cases the "theft" bordered on the edge of legality (a few it was clearly over). but for sure they were over on the edge of morality.

In some cases certain individuals without authority acted outside the rules and contracts, and in some just flat ignored the copyrights.
And then through sloppy follow-up or lack of enforcement, IP rights were eventually lost.

I know of another specific case at US Robotics (since I knew some of the people involved) where the exiting executives at PALM essentially gave away all the s/w IP to a future competitor right as they were walking out the door. and one of those competitor companies is where one of the executive landed.


But for some reason, most people seem to ignore the sins of these institutions, particularly for companies like Apple and Microsoft.

--- bill
 
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In 10 to 20 years, or maybe even 5 years from now, this Arduino conflict will probably be seen as ancient history.

Yes, lots of people did unscrupulous things and got away with them, especially when they controlled most of the market as a result. My guess is that was probably Musto's plan... once in full control of all Arduino product sales, right or wrong, there would be nothing the original founders could do without money to fight.
 
I saw that posted/removed 'unlicensed notice' as a shot across the bow - a legal stake in the ground - as the .CC folks had the agreement to license manufacturers all along to use the 'Name & Logo' - just that .ORG was associated with the only one they ever used - if I read that part of their claim right. Of course the IDE can identify hardware to some degree - but not tell if the board has the 'Name & Logo' on the silkscreen.
 
I see it as both from the .ORG side - the .cc folks seem like innocent lambs just trying to put out a product that people can use. The .cc guys would have had to have actually tried harder to be any more naïve about securing the patent and ownership rights for fame and money.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams is a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and our second President.
Click to expand...

This 'quote' just came to mind - I assume the .CC folks were working on a gentleman's agreement and a handshake?
 
defragster said:
I assume the .CC folks were working on a gentleman's agreement and a handshake?
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devils advocate for discussion:

Gentlemens agreement between the 4 founders that gianluca martino would be sole manufacturer arduino boards for the european markets and most of US products. Smartprojects SRL founded and everything was great for years. A few years later, other companies begin to muscle in such as sparkfun and adafruit on us market.

Fast forward to 2014 - Gianluca is informed that the agreement is now being reneged on, they're going out to all markets for manufacture. Sorry buddy but your business is screwed.

Gianluca stops paying royalties because his business is being undermined and he now needs to think about downsizing. Something has to give either his company shrinks with the market share or something else has to happen.

Noone wants to downsize and lay off good employees.

Gianluca decides to protect his business and livelihood by any means necessary. He owns the italian trademark, he still provides all the boards for 90% of the market, he's been the foundation on which the hardware is built for years, and he feels that a large part of Arduino's success has been the quality of his supply chain, he wants to grow that supply chain as Arduino continues to grow, but he's just been stabbed in the back by his mates (who he has fairly been paying dues to until now, as he made the boards - his part of the gentlemens agreement). He has a fairly strong legal case....

_______________________

It seems fairly mean, how he has been treated by the CC team as well, is the point I am making. Just trying to see both sides of the coin. Still don't agree with his actions but I dont think it is as cut-and-dried as many make out. I think both sides have been very mean to each other.
 
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I opened an esplora from arduino.org today

the box was boards manufactured in a batch from january 2014 (so it was written on the box - I have a box of 20 or so).

they appear to have reboxed them with .ORG and attached this sticker on each board:
sticker.jpg

same goes for due without headers, but not proto shields etc.

Can't see inside any of the uno's, leonardo's, Mega 2560/ADK's or Due's without breaking the seal. I can only assume this is the case for those as well.

I'll have to include an advice slip in each telling them to download the IDE from arduino.cc.

This sucks, and there's nothing anyone in europe can do about it until arduino.cc pull their finger out.

:-/
 
Paradise is cool - and then somebody bites the apple.

Lots of parallels to 'razors' (inkjets): give away the handle and sell the blades/refills. But open source, and ever cheaper electronics parts and 'global' market accessible cheap labor make that a race to the bottom.

And also the PC evolution IBM tried to own the hardware and outsourced PC/MS-DOS, Compaq came out, I'm tried PS2, Compaq made their IDE and the market built around both of those. IBM tried OS/2 and failed. MSFT touched JAVA and got sued, Google clones it and extends a keylogger to the world.

Funny about the new stickers added to old stock. Saw a post asking for .cc labeled hardware photos - this 'retrofitting' goes well to the point of that.
 
http://blog.arduino.cc/2015/06/15/arduino-zero-now-available-for-purchase/


First glimpse of the new Genuino silkscreen identifier.

Still can't see how this helps european distributors with the 100k euro clause much. The advice to me was an "arduino" must be bought from them, or otherwise described as "arduino compatible", to prevent breach of the clause.

So in Europe, we'd all have to sell "Arduino Compatible Genuino boards".


OR, the other option, the vendor offers to contribute an amount per board sold to the arduino.cc team. There is an element of trust required there but it kind of solves a problem.

The brand is pretty screwed IMHO.
 
I went into Maplin today (UK equivalent to Radio Shack), all of the retail Arduino's were arduino.org.
 
Pensive said:
The brand is pretty screwed IMHO.
Click to expand...

I disagree. In the short term, I expect there to be some confusion. In the long term, I expect this to become some sort of profit-maximizing device for the .org people, i.e. trying to see how high a premium they can charge the .cc folk to go away and 'give' .cc the rights to "Arduino" without further litigation. Litigation is expensive and only makes the lawyers rich. Arduino is the only asset of long-term value that the .org people possess, so I expect some serious heel-digging re: giving that up.

However, long term, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the .org people come to an agreement with .cc to be a prefeerred supplier for all things AVR (at least in the EU) and be allowed a place at the supplier table for future platforms. I.e. have their wares featured in the .cc website, alongside the .cc stuff.

I don't expect .org to make it's own path as without a working forum, a dedicated base of library developers, hackers that inspire, etc. and all the free advice that is given in forums, they don't stand a chance.

So I expect this to be settled. The question is at what cost to the .cc folk. Hopefully, they will take this as an impetus to run their business more like a business and less like a lifestyle venture.
 
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I hope you are right. :)

i note the zero in the previous link States made in the EU which is positive.

i think it's up to the market to create demand for genuino - enough to make .org pay .cc for the use of the genuino moniker.

i worry it's just an excuse to buy Chinese and cheap and not support development.
 
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I'd wager they looked at how many they were selling and decided on that basis. Actually supporting a platform costs money - see the issues that have to be ironed out every time a new IDE is released.

Plus, how does one compete with Shenzhen re FTDI adapters, for example? Seems like a fools errand.
 
I suspect in general the full board Leonardo just wasn't used as much once the smaller form factors started coming out. Most people wanting that form factor, would stay with the Uno (or upgrade to the Mega). If you want to do USB things without a shield, you would typically want a smaller form factor. If they eliminated all ATmega32u4's, it might cause problems for Teensy2, a-star, etc. in the future as stuff decays.
 
I just to add my name to the list of people looking for a good debug facility. I'm using Visual Micro, and it's a (small) step forward, but not good enough that I can give up my >25 years of 8051 experience, and my latest favorite, Silicon Labs parts for their built-in debugging facility. I do love the Teensy3.1 however!
 
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