Arduino - Banzi vs Musto Fight Is Over - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 28, 2017, 11:55:10 pm
content: 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/

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2017, 12:08:50 am
content: 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.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2017, 07:35:20 pm
content: 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:662015 Revenue : $12M2015 Expenses: $8.3MEnd of 2015 Balance: $9.3MThey're doing fine.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 03:49:21 am
content: https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/08/02/arduino-federico-musto-will-pursue-other-opportunities-outside-arduino-freearduino/

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 03:59:46 am
content: 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 toget rapidly worse soondue 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.

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:03:14 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on July 28, 2017, 11:55:10 pmQuote from: EEVblog on August 05, 2017, 03:49:21 amQuoteSo, 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.

author: zeqing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:05:02 am
content: have a meet with Banzi 3 years ago, good Job.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:08:35 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on July 31, 2017, 07:35:20 pmYep, I can't see how they can stay afloat either selling hardware, the hardware horse has bolted. Welcome to Open Source Hardware.

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:08:40 am
content: Quote from: cdev on August 05, 2017, 03:59:46 amThe 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.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:12:11 am
content: "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.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:12:26 am
content: Quote from: cdev on August 05, 2017, 03:59:46 amWho 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.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 04:27:43 am
content: 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, becausetheywere 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.

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 05:11:38 am
content: Educational access and opportunity is a different thread.Full stop.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 12:42:39 pm
content: Quote from: LabSpokane on August 05, 2017, 04:03:14 amAdafruit got the feds on to him, nice oneHe'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.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2017, 03:58:45 pm
content: 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".

author: LordNobady
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2017, 12:29:22 pm
content: In my experience businesses also buy real arduino's. It is easier to find them by the big stores.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 21, 2017, 01:53:57 pm
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on August 05, 2017, 12:42:39 pmFat profits on Arduino clone boards?Go try make one and sell it and see if you can make a living doing so.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2017, 07:01:59 pm
content: 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.

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2017, 09:08:39 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on August 21, 2017, 07:01:59 pmYou can donate if you want. It's right there on the Arduino site. I did as I found it a useful tool.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2017, 09:57:50 pm
content: 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.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2017, 11:38:35 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 21, 2017, 01:53:57 pmI wasn't referring to the $3 ebay clones. Adafruit are making good money selling Arduino clones, it works if you are aggressive with branding.

author: Assafl
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2017, 02:04:12 pm
content: 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.

author: LabSpokane
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 01:24:09 am
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on August 22, 2017, 11:38:35 amIt would work better if Arduino forgot about selling hardware and monetized their market differentiator: the IDE.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 03:50:20 am
content: 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 blogis a bit stale dated May 22, 2017 but he does discuss some IDE direction and changes. Great ideas but no profit, lol.

author: jaromir
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 18, 2017, 09:23:33 pm
content: The story with two arduinos is not over, as expected.http://whatsnext.shop/#Code:WHOIS search resultsDomain Name: WHATSNEXT.SHOPRegistry Domain ID: DO2796396-GMORegistrar WHOIS Server:Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.comUpdated Date: 2017-08-30T08:53:57.0ZCreation Date: 2017-08-30T08:53:56.0ZRegistry Expiry Date: 2022-08-30T23:59:59.0Z...Registry Registrant ID: HA2231927-GMORegistrant Name: Federico MustoRegistrant Organization: CC Logistics SrlRegistrant Street: Via del Paschetto 14Registrant City: San Giorgio CanaveseRegistrant State/Province: TurinRegistrant Postal Code: 10019Registrant Country: IT

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 18, 2017, 10:54:31 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on August 23, 2017, 03:50:20 amThere are tons of RPi clones, cheaper and more powerful, they just use different processors.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 18, 2017, 10:56:02 pm
content: Quote from: jaromir on October 18, 2017, 09:23:33 pmSo what does this mean? Musto is starting an Arduino clone company?

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2017, 11:46:40 pm
content: What's next seems to be over priced run-of-the-mill arduino clones. Not sure what the draw would be, but he's free to try just like anybody else.

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2017, 12:20:45 am
content: Quote from: sleemanj on October 18, 2017, 11:46:40 pmThese have, colour...

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2017, 01:49:01 am
content: The guy has55+ domains containing the trademarked name “arduino”It all looks like place-holder websites forCC Logistics Srlto takeover the world. Google street view could be somebody's house lol.I imagine he'll remain a parasite and hawk some boards and drive right by the Arduino project.Qualcomm Atheros CPU's in the new boards, they've crossed into RPi turf. So Linux... "a Linux distribution based on OpenWRT named Linino OS"I'm still studying open-source andJeff Howe's crowdsourcing book.It's an interesting read but flawed in many ways.Fundamentally, you need centralized management on a project and open-source slits it's own throat there. There's no revenue model to keep the leadership sustained. Give it all away to the masses and there's no food left for the farmer. This is my view so far.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 10:55:54 am
content: Open Source was never intended to be a "business model", so it is not surprising businesses struggle to find ways to monetize it. Open Source is really a model for how people who are normally mere consumers to cooperate in creating community projects.Of course, businesses are always hoping to find "free stuff" to make a profit out of. So companies' idea of Open Source is often "there is a way to get people to work for you free" they are all for it. Of course, when it comes to giving back to the community (and potential competitors) it's "no way!" and they actively find ways to prevent others' benefiting, aka "tivoisation".Companies have plenty of existing ways to fund their operations and extract profits from the community, while letting others pay for the environmental damage they cause, it would be really nice if they could avoid fucking up Open Source.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 10:03:56 pm
content: One of the early names for FOSS was "copyleft" meaning copy-encouraged. Not copy limited.That is a good way of seeing it. Its a gift which is to all of us which cannot be sold. Because it adds to everybody's wealth, without taking from anybody.Some corporations want to make open source illegal and impossible, behind the scenes.They are doing this not only with open source, they feel threatened by dozens of things.Virtually every good thing that a government could do, regulations that people everywhere expect from governments - to protect them - are under attack.Corporations frame all those things as thefts or reductions in "their" "freedom" -They have created a new doctrine of "indirect expropriation" and increasingly sue countries in special rigged courts..Giving people things which cost more than they are charged for them is now a growing subject of lawsuits by corporations against countries, corporations are suing governments more and more, in a process called investor vs. state dispute settlement, or ISDS.These cases occur out of sight in special arbitration courts which consistently rule in corporations favor.Its highly likely that governments will soon be successfully sued under ISDS if they encourage open source.That is coming, we should be ready for it.These cases, are often not public, like when a French corporation sued Egypt for raising their minimum wage after they had a revolution, or a Swedish company sued the German taxpayer for deciding to stop using nuclear power after the Chernobyl accident made parts of Germany so radioactive that livestock raised there was no longer safe to eat.Nobody knows how much they got in their settlement.A parallel can be drawn between encouraging open source and the idea of free public education.Both are "public goods" that hurt nobody. Both are now being framed as a theft from corporations of profits they're alleged to be "entitled" to.Some historical context..open source software was intended from the beginning to be a business model and that business model is that of a gift to all that could not be sold.One which was and would always remain owned byeverybody.Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 01, 2017, 10:55:54 amOpen source was intended to be a business model, that of a common good, like education or knowledge.Like them it is hoped that it cannot be taken away.But then countries signed agreements which committed them in a binding manner to limit any "measure of general application" (which broadly means any law or policy or change of any kind) "affecting trade in services" to only those which deregulated things, meaning allowed corporations to make more money. By extension that means not help people afford things they can't.In fact, its quite controversial whether corporations should be allowed to privatize essentials like a country's water supply.Unfortunately, although people expected that the natural wealth of countries was in some way a shared wealth, in most of the developed world they never got it in writing, so starting around 1990, with NAFTA between the North American countries and the WTO, corporations started workin hard on turning their agenda into international law. And their agenda was torpedoing the concept of states protecting people from excesses of greed by corporations."in sectors where specific commitments are undertaken, each Member shall ensure that all measures of general application affecting trade in services are administered in a reasonable, objective and impartial manner". Sounds innocuous.Later on, they attempted to spin their agenda as helping poor countries. but there is virtually no evidence that these policies do anything other than hurt the poor everywhere. Still, "they persisted".You can read more here:http://unctad.org/en/docs/edmmisc232add31_en.pdfFurthermore, at least one large economic giant pushed hard for a much broader opt out approach that would prevent discussion of these sensitive issuesby just including everything by default. So called "negative list"Any act or policy or rule or law or non-action that could effect "measures tantamount to expropriation" of investors investments could become a subject of an investor versus state suit in a special arbitration court.Thats a policy which is unashamedly so in conflict with the gift to everybody concept inherent in open source that one has to see it as literally a war on the very concept of a public good."negative list" as its called frames public goods as "discrimination" against corporations. It also contains a ratchet which freezes any expansion of the government as protector model in a binding manner."the agreement should cover substantially all sectors and modes of supply and provide for the absence or elimination of existing discriminatory measures and/or the prohibition of new or more discriminatory measures. This should be without prejudice to the possible exclusion of a limited number of services sectors from the liberalisation commitments. As in the (previous agreement), the .... shall not take commitments on audiovisual. The Agreement shall not coverservices supplied in the exercise ofgovernmental authority."The best the people could realistically hope for under these conditions is that each new set of politicians elected did nothing.Things they do to bring about some policy goal must be done in the most minimally trade restrictive way possible if any public money is involved. In services a database is even being set up by the OECD to tell countries what best practices they pursued would be likely to attract an investor state lawsuit and which would not.The message is, things governments do cannot be too good at solving problems that some corporation would make money on. Or help any more people than the bare minimum, and them, only in a way which makes as much money as possible for somebody, for example, trades away business as a sort of payback to other countries. Virtually nothing they might do is excluded. Which is where the potential clash with FOSS comes in.Open source is a highly optimized solution, as its what communities of makers optimally do themselves to create the best tools. Were it not being given away or had open source not existed before 1994, it might already be illegal. Precisely because it likely would be seen astoo goodof a tool for people to be given.To illustrate how this concept works, a similar dynamic exists with health care in the US and its described in the neoliberal concept of "crowd out". The new body of law its spawned is broadly called competition policy.Open source software is often of extremely high quality, and it encourages a diverse flexible solutions for problems. It doesn't lock people in to closed ecosystems or limit their knowledge.Its an intentionally shared wealth.Its not passive, its people making their own future.Open source originated within the government and it represents the best aspect of government. This is the concept of government of by and for natural (human, flesh and blood, not juridicial) people that existed before state capture by corporate special interests and lobbyists.The key idea is we all own it.Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 01, 2017, 10:55:54 amRichard Stallman's vision of the future has been much denigrated but that is exactly what is happening.the very concept of general purpose computing is under attack. What the biggest multinational corporations want is profitable surveillance and content delivery platforms, enabling wealth extraction.Cell phones are a good example of what they want. Is what they want a walled space where you can't do anything without intentionally or not, buying their stuff? There is a very real risk of that happening, I think.But it could go either way, depending on how much we are aware of the underlying issues. Their proposals wont stand long if the light of day is shone upon them.Computing should not be turned into a pipeline to indebtedness or prison where every motion you make will expose you to or incur one new cost or another. or record something you do, some tidbit of knowledge about you which can then be sold to somebody. For example, health insurers who hope to soon use variations in peoples health status to jack up "medical risks" (their name for people who have a higher risk of illness) peoples prices driving them away or dumping them off coverage.Thats where we are going in that area. Technology of all kinds will be abused more and more by increasingly large and ruthless powerful corporations to enslave people by debt or otherwise, on the path we are on now. Thats the default. Unless we wake up now - they are trying to make these changes irreversible.------Contrast that with electronics and free software. Its clear that these two areas are tremendous positive forces but also viewed as massive failures by some parts of the corporate world, despite the wealth they have in many ways created. They see their relative lack of the most oppressive effects of hierarchy as a problem.So we should be thankful that we've gotten where we are in the world of electronics and computing but we need to be aware of the changes that are occurring. We urgently need to stand up more for the values of democracy and open source and the concept of the public good and access to knowledge as bringing wealth to everybody. Corporations are emphatically not people and people need governments of by and for actual flesh and blood feeling human people to temper the otherwise terrifying, nightmarish potential for sudden economic change. Simple changes can occur which can leave millions of people jobless within years or soon, possibly even months. But they push for more and more irreversible privatization and deregulation. But, its the human people not the juridicial ones that deserve protection, but corporations- are demanding changes to the social contract which should be totally impossible. its as if they are engaging in a preemptive strike against the people of the planet so people cant and wont have the futures we deserve, all of us. Instead they are trying to capture that future for themselves.This is completely evil. They are doing this by means of so called 'trade and investment agreements' that do an end run around democracy. they attempt to make these changes permanent and impossibly costly to change by voting.A series by you tube user "New Thinking on Investment Treaties" is informative.You'll see that the world is being stolen by deception. Its an attempt to 'future proof' the future for corporations to the exclusion of human rights.We all need to see through what amounts to a big con game and be the best people we can and rise above their static and speak up for what we care about.Open source is really a positive force, perhaps the best new development of the last two decades, standing in stark contrast to the forces arrayed against it, and attempts to denigrate it are lacking in substance.Lets call them out and speak up for the things we see as important, or we'll lose not only them but everything else as well.