arduino's response to the discourse is here:
https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/11/21/the-arduino-terms-of-serv...
https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/11/21/the-arduino-terms-of-serv...
I'm not saying the person(s) who wrote that is(are) lying. It's just that it doesn't seem to come from someone with authority to make decisions like that or even from someone well informed about the global strategy of the corporation.
To me "Arduino Team" is just a bunch of hopeful or even naive employees.
> It's just that it doesn't seem to come from someone with authority to make decisions like that or even from someone well informed about the global strategy of the corporation.
Arduino is owned by Qualcomm, Qualcomm is known for being litigious. Whoever wrote that note, unless it was the CEO of Qualcomm, doesn't actually call the shots and if tomorrow the directive comes from above to sue makers they will have to comply.
It's maybe better to look at incentives, something that blog posts can help illustrate. Does Qualcomm want to mine the maker community for IP or get them to adopt its technology?
To a point. Public statements do carry some legal weight, due to the principle of "Promissory Estoppel"[1]. There are limits to that though, but it's not nothing.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Promissory_estoppel