Arduino vs. Arduino

[LabSpokane]

A settlement will be reached since neither side is interested in going broke.

Don't bet on it. Foolish pride and American lawyers are a deadly combination for small businesses.

[bitwelder]

BTW: does anyone know what is the SmartProjects (or better Martino's factories) producing apart of arduino boards?

[george graves]

BTW: does anyone know what is the SmartProjects (or better Martino's factories) producing apart of arduino boards?

Nothing else that I can find - other then on a web site they mention arduino based controller for drones.  Their "factory" is actually very small looking.  I'll let you judge the "state-of-the-art-ness" of the factory.



http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407

This must be the room where they drill and etch the copper.



The only modern machines seem to be the pick and place.

[dannyf]

I'll let you judge the "state-of-the-art-ness" of the factory.

Seems very nice.

[Richard Crowley]

Wow, looks like the balkanization has already begun.
I thought that Adafruit (Limor Fried) was sympathetic to the originators, but I just saw this on their website....
The ADAFRUIT METRO 328.  Which is apparently an Arduino but with out the "Arduino" name, or even ___duino name.

[ataradov]

All clones still depend on the IDE. That's where main value of all this is. And if both Arduinos die, there would be no one to maintain the IDE.

I'm not sure how much Arduino IDE gets from community, but it can't be much. And I'm not sure that Adafruit can do anything  in that respect.

[donotdespisethesnake]

The impression I got from Adafruit is that officially they are "not supporting either side" (although it seems pretty obvious which side is the "right" side to be on), but seem to be keen to exploit the situation by selling their own Arduino-clone boards. 

There seem to be a few companies who would like to be "official US manufacturer" for Arduino.cc, and take the place of arduino.org, I think. So whatever the talk about "being excellent to each other", it's really about the chance to make a buck.

I have heard of a few distributors unwilling to cooperate with arduino.org, but for the larger ones like Adafruit I expect that Arduino sales are a decent size chunk of business which they don't want to give up. There is also a chance that arduino.org may win, and then the distributors who backed the wrong horse could find themselves cut out altogether.

I guess the rumored "big announcement" never happened, and the legal case drags on?

[neslekkim]

Note sure what Adafruit does, but Sparkfun also have their board, Redboard, but they pay royalties, I would guess Adafruit does the same?

[ataradov]

Royalties for what? If they don't use "Arduino" in the name, then the only way they have to pay anything is if they want to maintain good relationship with the Arduino team.

[andersm]

I think Adafruit's view is pretty clear.

[neslekkim]

Royalties for what? If they don't use "Arduino" in the name, then the only way they have to pay anything is if they want to maintain good relationship with the Arduino team.

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1791

[pickle9000]

So here's some what ifs.

- One or the other wins the IDE could still die, so could either company or both.
- Make up time, the get all lovey dovey and make lots of cash (without the lawyers running them into the ground).
- Just like with IBM the clones take over and the IDE is like Microsoft supplying to all vendors for a fee or free.
- Is the platform going to live (even under another name) regardless of the arguments.

[andersm]

Since it's all open source the only thing that can die are the companies involved. For users, the worst case is that the projects get splintered with no clear "main" branch. If you have the "Sparkfun IDE", the "Adafruit IDE", the "Seeed IDE" and so on, each with small differences and tweaks, it can get really confusing for newcomers.

[pickle9000]

Since it's all open source the only thing that can die are the companies involved. For users, the worst case is that the projects get splintered with no clear "main" branch. If you have the "Sparkfun IDE", the "Adafruit IDE", the "Seeed IDE" and so on, each with small differences and tweaks, it can get really confusing for newcomers.

Open source can die just like anything else, you need to force the issue to make it live. When I say force it needs to be profitable to the retailers and manufacturers of the hardware. Without a good IDE it's just a bunch of parts on a board to Joe Public. A direct model of support from (retailers, manufacturers) is common.

[miguelvp]

There are other players that use the Arduino IDE, Intel for their Galileo and Edison. Papilio and Papilio Duo. Maybe others?

[ataradov]

I would not use the word "use" here. "Leech" is more like it. As soon as makers leave Arduino, Intel and other would be the first to abandon it, since they have zero interest in maintaining it. But having "Arduino" in the name is what make people learn about the platforms.

There are a lot of powerful boards that have Arduino-compatible connector layout, but by my observations nobody uses them, or Arduino IDE to program those boards, since it is plain awkward.

[pickle9000]

I would not use the word "use" here. "Leech" is more like it. As soon as makers leave Arduino, Intel and other would be the first to abandon it, since they have zero interest in maintaining it. But having "Arduino" in the name is what make people learn about the platforms.

There are a lot of powerful boards that have Arduino-compatible connector layout, but by my observations nobody uses them, or Arduino IDE to program those boards, since it is plain awkward.

The connector is an item I think will have staying power. It forces standardized connection places, the same thing is what made the IBM clones work was adherence to a standardized bus.

The connector increases compatibility with other products. That increases sales.

[andersm]

Open source can die just like anything else, you need to force the issue to make it live.

All it needs is someone interested enough to hack on it.

As for the board vendors, my guess is that those who have the resources would fork their own branded versions with support for their own boards (though underneath they would all be pretty much identical). Over time, they might start diverging as each gets their own tweaks and additions. The smaller vendors would probably keep on using the last release until the day some future Windows version breaks compatibility.

[neslekkim]

There are other players that use the Arduino IDE, Intel for their Galileo and Edison. Papilio and Papilio Duo. Maybe others?

Teensy http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_download.html
Launchpad http://energia.nu/

[chicken]

Did Adafruit just extract itself out of the Arduino mess?

Adafruit METRO 328
http://www.adafruit.com/products/2466

Same specs and form factor as an Arduino UNO, but not one mention of Arduino on the whole page.

[donotdespisethesnake]

I think Adafruit's view is pretty clear.

I wouldn't say that it is clear at all. On one hand they are saying they want to be neutral and not seen to be supporting either side; on the other they are doing this twitter type "#teamarduinocc" campaign. They say they are paying royalties to arduino.cc, that's great, but they are still selling all the boards made by arduino.org. All arduino.org need to do to win is for distributors like Adafruit to keep selling the arduino.org boards and piling up the cash. Cash is king when it comes to legal fights.

This "made under license" packaging statement is already a part of the court documents filed by arduino.cc, I don't think getting further examples will help much. But if Adafruit want to stir up a bit of internet rage then fine.

Ironically, when I questioned them about whether they should be selling arduino.org boards, they banned me from their website, accusing me of "internet rage"!

It took a long while for Adafruit to decide that Makerbot weren't a good company to do business with either.

[pickle9000]

Did Adafruit just extract itself out of the Arduino mess?

Adafruit METRO 328
http://www.adafruit.com/products/2466

Same specs and form factor as an Arduino UNO, but not one mention of Arduino on the whole page.

Is there a rule against saying on the first line (in the ad) that it's an "Arduino clone" and has a bootloader installed?  This would make it easier to sell (I think). Perhaps even put "100% softfware compatible with the Arduino IDE". 

[alexanderbrevig]

Is there a rule against saying on the first line (in the ad) that it's an "Arduino clone" and has a bootloader installed?

I think you would at least be safer saying "Arduino^TM clone" , though I know nothing (my name is not John Snow though¹) .

1: I just had to use that GoT reference, sorry 

[aargee]

Derivative of "Arduino UNO R3 Reference design"  in Tech Specs

[ralphd]

I think Adafruit's view is pretty clear.

And yet for all the money that Adafruit gives to Arduino.cc, the IDE still doesn't come with support for Adafruit products like the trinket...