Arduino - Banzi vs Musto Fight Is Over

[EEVblog]

Banzi wins all the Trademarks back and Musto is goneski!
I wonder how much money that took? and were did they get it from?

https://blog.arduino.cc/2017/07/28/a-new-era-for-arduino-begins-today/

[sleemanj]

Yawn.  The best thing that might come out of it is Phil Torrone might stop going on and on and on about it, it's like Musto personally pissed in his wheaties.

Banzi ain't no saint either.

[floobydust]

Arduino has no revenue model. It's a death spiral unless HQ has funding. Buy Genuino seems like a plea.

Is this right- Raspberry Pi Foundation, as a non-profit charity gets revenue from selling the Pi.
They have a monopoly on the hardware, the processor board.

2015 Pi Foundation financial's (converted to $USD)
Employees:66
2015 Revenue : $12M
2015 Expenses: $8.3M
End of 2015 Balance: $9.3M

They're doing fine.

[EEVblog]

https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/08/02/arduino-federico-musto-will-pursue-other-opportunities-outside-arduino-freearduino/

[cdev]

Has anybody here ever met any of them? Not really knowing much about the dispute I can't help but think that unless somebody was also a real a**** I would defer to forgiveness.  (Edit: actually, reading the post linked, no, I wouldnt forgive if it involved misrepresentation of material facts in a loan application to the government- such a shame because Arduino likely could have gotten the grant without his lying.  For the same reason I dont forgive governments when they make extreme misrepresentations of material facts to entire countries in order to allow corporations to steal our entire planets future. see link below.)

 I can see how people whose families have likely spent many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on their Ivy League educations might feel differently, but the fact is, lots of smart people cant afford that, and its going to get rapidly worse soon due to outsourcing.

Should the informally educated be excluded from all technical professions and companies? no. But as jobs get scarcer, thats what's happening.

That said, some people are just painful to have around. But thats a different issue.

[LabSpokane]

Banzi wins all the Trademarks back and Musto is goneski!
I wonder how much money that took? and were did they get it from?

https://blog.arduino.cc/2017/07/28/a-new-era-for-arduino-begins-today/

https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/08/02/arduino-federico-musto-will-pursue-other-opportunities-outside-arduino-freearduino/

He used these false credentials for Italian government resources.

One of the public documents as evidence used in the grift that stole Arduino, that may have helped the eventual return of Arduino to founders – (PDF).
...
According to multiple sources close to the matter, lying on public documents regarding a Ph.D is a crime and is being pursued and investigated. “Art. 483 Penal Code: Ideological fraud committed by a private public document”

After being alerted, a representative from the University of Messina stated that Federico’s status (Doghunter labs) has now been revoked.

So, unsurprisingly, Musto is a serial film-flam man, and likely had to walk away from the IP.  I'm guessing it didn't cost Banzi too much. 

[zeqing]

have a meet with Banzi 3 years ago, good Job. 

[EEVblog]

Arduino has no revenue model. It's a death spiral unless HQ has funding. Buy Genuino seems like a plea.

Yep, I can't see how they can stay afloat either selling hardware, the hardware horse has bolted. Welcome to Open Source Hardware.

[LabSpokane]

Has anybody here ever met any of them? Not really knowing much about the dispute I can't help but think that unless somebody was also a real a**** I would defer to forgiveness.

 I can see how people whose families have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education might feel differently, but the fact is, lots of smart people cant afford it.

Should they be excluded from all technical professions and companies? no. But as jobs get scarcer, thats what's happening.

That said, some people are just painful to have around. But thats a different issue.

The long and the short of it is, Italy has at least one law that makes sense, and through making false claims Musto committed fraud. Don't confuse that with some type of Bourgeois vs. Proletariat nonsense. 

[cdev]

"Live simply so that others can simply live" is a good motto but unfortunately its not being listened to today.



My impression of Italy from talking to Italians is that its a tax-mad country that is extremely difficult to start any kind of business in. Its so excited about getting to tax any business activity that its got to have major capitalization or its smothered before it even starts with taxes.

But, they have affordable, high quality health care.

I suppose everything is a tradeoff.

[EEVblog]

Has anybody here ever met any of them? Not really knowing much about the dispute I can't help but think that unless somebody was also a real a**** I would defer to forgiveness.  (Edit: actually, reading the post linked, no, I wouldnt forgive if it involved misrepresentation of material facts in a loan application to the government- such a shame because Arduino likely could have gotten the grant without his lying.  For the same reason I dont forgive governments when they make extreme misrepresentations of material facts to entire countries in order to allow corporations to steal our entire planets future. see link below.)

 I can see how people whose families have likely spent many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on their Ivy League educations might feel differently, but the fact is, lots of smart people cant afford that, and its going to get rapidly worse soon due to outsourcing.

Should the informally educated be excluded from all technical professions and companies? no.

Who said they are?
If you are trying to say that lying about your qualifications is somehow ok, then you likely won't find any people here who will agree with that.

[cdev]

I dont think its okay, actually. Hopefully my revision makes it clearer what I did mean.

Personally, I am honest, to a fault, but I'm also terrified what a world will be like that provides no path to getting an education and then trades away all the mid level jobs to people with extreme levels of formal qualifications - but who also are products of educational systems with substantial levels of corruption. (Told to me by other people who endured them)

Three times now Ive seen this happen in friends companies. Degreed newcomers displace longterm, loyal, self taught employees, who it turns out were the people who were keeping the businesses together. 

But, nobody in the management office was willing to admit they were, because they were taking the credit for the worker's ideas to higher ups.

Luckily in all three cases my friends got better jobs at higher salaries elsewhere, in one case just a few days later.

I bet that scenario plays out a lot.

[LabSpokane]

Educational access and opportunity is a different thread.

Full stop.

[donotdespisethesnake]

So, unsurprisingly, Musto is a serial film-flam man, and likely had to walk away from the IP.  I'm guessing it didn't cost Banzi too much.

Adafruit got the feds on to him, nice one He'll probably get a slap on the wrist, then will be free for the next setup...

I always thought he was dodgy. When the Arduino split first came up, I looked into Musto's background. He had a senior position at Red Hat, but appeared to suddenly leave without any explanation, which seemed unusual. I wondered if they found something about him, which caused them to drop him like a hot brick. Falsifying credentials to the point of fraud might do that. Seems pretty stupid to claim multiple degrees, he must surely expect someone would check at some point?

I'm not sure what will happen to all those projects "developed in partnership with DogHunter" etc, I guess it will be quite messy and some more products will be dropped. Not sure we will ever see the truly open Yun.

Anyway, back to "business as usual"  - Arduino give away the farm, and other companies in the "Arduino community" make some fat profits off Arduino with cloned hardware supported with free software from Arduino.  It seems that after "community pressure" Arduino have been forced to promise to give away all their stuff for free, forever. I can't quite see how that business is sustainable for Arduino either.

[cdev]

Perhaps because the real credit really goes to AVR for the underlying chips, most "Arduino" clones are quite "compatible" so "Arduino" has been and remains a big "success", even if nobody except parents buying gifts for kids buys a "genuine Arduino".

[LordNobady]

In my experience businesses also buy real arduino's. It is easier to find them by the big stores.

[EEVblog]

Anyway, back to "business as usual"  - Arduino give away the farm, and other companies in the "Arduino community" make some fat profits off Arduino with cloned hardware supported with free software from Arduino.

Fat profits on Arduino clone boards? 

Go try make one and sell it and see if you can make a living doing so.

[floobydust]

I guess that leaves the educational market for Arduino, schools purchasing genuine hardware for kids.

It's unfortunate creatives always have leeches like Musto feeding off them. He was a big hit to the whole venture, years to recover.
And I feel the window of opportunity is shrinking as Arduino is going obsolete, as an 8-bit MCU it is limited to 32KB code space and blinky LED's etc.
IoT is where it's at, think ESP8266 and Raspberry Pi and ARM-core MCUs supporting multi-threading.

Maybe they should merge with the Pi Foundation? Anything to kill off Python lol.
Or charge for the IDE. I would pay for it, it works well.

[David_AVD]

Or charge for the IDE. I would pay for it, it works well.

You can donate if you want.  It's right there on the Arduino site.  I did as I found it a useful tool.

[floobydust]

I think the problem with donations is they are unpredictable.
You never know how much money is coming in, so having a business dependent on that is too risky.

My way to support is to order genuine Arduino boards. I admit to trying cheap knockoffs but they are a hassle, after FTDI bricked Arduino's with the Windows USB driver, and alien MCU fuse settings... I stopped using the clones.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Anyway, back to "business as usual"  - Arduino give away the farm, and other companies in the "Arduino community" make some fat profits off Arduino with cloned hardware supported with free software from Arduino.

Fat profits on Arduino clone boards? 

Go try make one and sell it and see if you can make a living doing so.

I wasn't referring to the $3 ebay clones. Adafruit are making good money selling Arduino clones, it works if you are aggressive with branding.

[Assafl]

Arduino is a very well known and respected brand.

That means that they have an audience: they have an incumbent market that can help them convert a good strategy into a success - that is if they do the right thing. As technical folk we tend to poo-poo brand - but by far the hardest marketing trick is trying to create awareness.  It is vastly easier to succeed once you have the market's attention.

We have no idea what the "right thing" is. Only Arduino knows all of their customers and where their future opportunities may be. All we can do on the bleachers (or popcorn gallery) is to sit and hurrah the new CEO to drive the Arduino brand past its former glory - and financial success.

[LabSpokane]

Anyway, back to "business as usual"  - Arduino give away the farm, and other companies in the "Arduino community" make some fat profits off Arduino with cloned hardware supported with free software from Arduino.

Fat profits on Arduino clone boards? 

Go try make one and sell it and see if you can make a living doing so.

I wasn't referring to the $3 ebay clones. Adafruit are making good money selling Arduino clones, it works if you are aggressive with branding.

It would work better if Arduino forgot about selling hardware and monetized their market differentiator: the IDE.

[floobydust]

Thought about it and monetizing the Arduino IDE is not so great?

I pay, download it and use it for life?
Or is it a bastard cloud-based app with a monthly fee? Subscription or licence, and it all seems against 'open' anything.

I think the issue is they can't make money off the hardware.

I believe Pi Foundation gets a cut off every RPi (H/W) sold. That Broadcom deal maintains their (Pi H/W) monopoly and is insurance against clones.
If there were chinese clone Pi's out there, the foundation would be in a different boat right now, although it does get government funding.

Massimo Banzi's blog is a bit stale dated May 22, 2017 but he does discuss some IDE direction and changes. Great ideas but no profit, lol.

[jaromir]

The story with two arduinos is not over, as expected.
http://whatsnext.shop/#

Code: [Select]


WHOIS search results
Domain Name: WHATSNEXT.SHOP
Registry Domain ID: DO2796396-GMO
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Updated Date: 2017-08-30T08:53:57.0Z
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Registry Expiry Date: 2022-08-30T23:59:59.0Z
...
Registry Registrant ID: HA2231927-GMO
Registrant Name: Federico Musto
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Registrant Country: IT