Massimo Banzi: Fighting for Arduino | Hacker News Reader

Massimo Banzi: Fighting for Arduino

makezine.com

224 pointszaaaaz58 comments

"After the process of registering in the US was over and our lawyer tried to extend the trademark to the rest of the world, he realised that somebody had registered it already in Italy. We (Tom, David, David, and I) were shocked and demanded explanations. Gianluca reassured us that this was done to protect our collective investment."

I'm surprised it took them two years to figure this out in the first place, but once it was uncovered then that is the point where you say, "Great, you protected it, now transfer it immediately."

Unfortunately, when it wasn't turned over that means this person is not your friend, and they do not have your, or the organization's best interests at heart. So legal action starts right then and there. I know it is hard to discover someone you work with is (or has been) planning to take advantage of you all along, but history has shown that once its clear that is what they are (or were) thinking, there is no "reconciliation" there is only winning and losing.

I've had similar experiences. "when ... that means this person is not your friend" was the best way to put it. A reasonable advice for all "friend team" members: keep an eye on IP and profit distribution from Day 1.

http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-ii/

Note that the arduino.cc store is out of stock of pretty much everything, which makes sense if Arduino Srl is no longer manufacturing anything for them: http://store.arduino.cc/category/11

Additionally, tinkerkit.com (Arduino LLC's line of branded sensors for Arduino boards) has been down for at least a year now, which sucks, since that's where all the example code and datasheets are kept. We've seen sales for those drop through the floor.

The legal battle seems to have significantly impacted operations at Ardunio LLC, to the point that they're not really a functioning company anymore.

An interesting tale. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly people can behave. And, yeah, maybe this does explain why they seem to have not really made it past their initial burst of creativity. At some point the BeagleBone Black and the π2 just make a whole lot more sense. I still have a soft spot for the Due w/ a PoE shield though.

Agreed with your general sentiment, but the BeagleBone Black is still quite lacking when it comes to documentation.

I'm a very experienced web developer, but am new to programming for embedded type devices. While the BeagleBone Black in browser development environment is quite nice, the lack of documentation makes it hard to figure out fairly basic things like reading values from a gyroscope/accelerometer/magnetometer. A lot of this hardware has existing libraries for Arduino, which is why in my opinion the Arduino is still a superior platform for anyone who is somewhat new to embedded computing.

I agree. I'm the opposite: a very experienced embedded developer but relatively new to web development (though my BBB is currently serving up a page monitoring my mechanical room).

It's like pulling teeth to find out any but the most basic specs of the BBB. I haven't used it much because a lot of what I wanted to do would have required so much experimentation to figure out stuff that should already have been documented. I just don't have that kind of time these days.

Experienced embedded developer here as well.

For some reason I haven't had any trouble with the Beaglebone at all. A kernel driver is a kernel driver, and I2C bus is an I2C bus.

What specs on the BBB do you need, specifically, that are causing you trouble?

It's been a while since I looked at it. IIRC, the main problem I had was that many of the IO lines had shared/multiple functions and I couldn't find any documentation that explained how to switch them.

e.g. (contrived example), if a bit was MOSI for an SPI interface or DIO on port C, I had no idea which one it defaulted to and how to use it for the alternate function.

I got it to work for basic I/O, but it's obviously capable of much more.

If you're running Linux on it, I believe you need to use device tree overlays. See http://kilobaser.com/blog/2014-07-28-beaglebone-black-device...

Interesting. I actually got mine to try and run Scheme on it:

http://armpit.sourceforge.net

Last April there was an hackathon at my university and TinkerKit provided a bunch of kits; they said they could be bought through arduino.cc, so they probably just ditched the TinkerKit website to bring everything together ([The libraries are still on GitHub though](https://github.com/TinkerKit), at least there's that).

I was annoyed with TinkerKit's wire arrangement for their 3-wire connectors. The wire order for most standard hobby servos (e.g. Hitec) are [signal, +v, g], but TinkerKet went with [+v, signal, g]. That means I couldn't easily use most hobby servos with their system. I'm kinda happy TinkerKit's wire arrangement didn't become a more popular standard.

As one of Arduino's very first distributors (http://littlebirdelectronics.com), this explains the total disarray we've seen with communicating (what we only now know is two) companies. I'm shocked that Massimo hasn't contacted their partners (like us) to tell them what was going on!

Totally off-topic but we'd love better coverage down-under (as would our customers!) if you'd be interested in potentially distributing some of our range. :-)

We do mostly Raspberry Pi stuff including HATs and cases which we manufacture in our own workshop in Sheffield, UK: http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi-2 and http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/hats

My e-mail is in my profile if you're up for it!

Rather than fight over the name, it may be more productive to choose a new name, trademark it, and get out a new generation under that name from an existing friendly manufacturer (Sparkfun?)

The name is the valuable thing, though; the hardware design is old and heavily cloned already.

If you tell people you changed name, you could keep the reputation?

In theory, yes - but in practice it rarely works that way.

Brands switch names to be forgotten (Comcast -> Xfinity, Blackwater -> Xe)

If one is truly vile, it can take a couple tries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi

That's right. There are much better options like the https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ !

Raspberry Pi should acquire Arduino. They are complementary and have lots of wonderful synergies.

In the mean time, if you're interested in solidly-designed and open-source arduino clones, you can check out those over at Olimex:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-32U4/ope...

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-328/open...

The second one has a better voltage regulator (9-30V input) and higher safe temperature range.

Had the chance to meet Massimo quickly long time ago; a truly passionate innovator and honest at hearth. I'm so sorry to read this story and I feel as much proud of what he did as much disappointed and disgusted for the "dark side" of the story. #keepPushing Massimo!

I can say the same about David Cuartielles, who's I'm sort of a colleague with at Malmö University. Rarely see him, but he's a great guy.

If I well understood, it is recommended now to support the team to buy a clone rather that an original Arduino?

Absolutely. Arduino (both of them) have dropped the ball. Atmels are great for small low-everything projects. But once you move up to dealing with more complex data, they just don't have the horsepower... And when they do, you end up with the Arduino Yun, which is a binary blob of closed sourceness. Might as well go with a RasPi/uno combo for best of both worlds.

Since the Chinese have been innovating here a lot, here's some links to get you started. And yes, I like AliExpress and Ali Baba.

Pro mini $1.68 http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Pro-Mini-Module-Atmega328-5V-...

Nano $2.52 http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PCS-Nano-3-0-controller-comp...

Uno $3.15 http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Best-prices-UNO-R3-MEGA328P-f...

Mega $9.85 http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping-Mega-2560-R3-Meg...

There's the arduino zero(cortex-m0) or arduino due(cortex-m3) which are powerful,and mostly compatible with the arduino - and probably have a decent community around them. So i'm not sure they've"dropped the ball".

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STM32F103C8T6-ARM-STM32-Minimum-Syst...

Wow £2.15 for a Uno! Paid 4x that on eBay.

I currently have one switching a fan on and off periodically to exercise some seedlings (tomatoes, chillis) so not a massive CPU demand here :)

The RPi is based on a 32 bit processor and complex operating software. Great for things that need a web interface or have to interact with complex protocols. You wouldn't consider something like a RPi if you could get the reliability and ease of implementation of a simple program running on an 8 bit processor.

I agree.

Where the Rpi<>Arduino combo comes in is where you need PWM and analog inputs in an easy form factor. Arduino talks to RPi over USB serial, and is easy to script. The Arduino can be the controller interface while logic can be done on the RPi.

Also if you're doing computation expensive things (like using Arduino to pick up EEG data), the CPU on an Arduino is sufficient in ferrying the data to a faster CPU.

I know I'm living in a pretty small world of likeminded people and startup IoT companies, but it seems to me _everybody_ hits on the idea of "RaspberryPi + Arduino", then iterates until they end up with some very familiar looking ARM SOC + Atmel 8 bit microcontroller. It's astoundingly common. (And that's because it's a really good idea.)

What Ive seen in the tight knit IoT communities is the ESP8266 going like wildfire. Its a crazy little chip, cheap and easy to use with LUA.

And when it finishes FCC tests, will be legal to implement in designs here :)

Holy cow that's cheap. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the six that I just bought, but now they'll be accessible at a moment's notice when the inspiration strikes.

Wow, those prices are insanely low. The atmel chips themselves can cost more than these boards.

Those prices are amazing. Do you know how the quality level compares?

Sure do. I'v reviewed them over at crankylinuxuser.wordpress.com , my blog.

Tl;dr: They're worth it. Well worth it.

And you with the CH340 serial driver, you won't be FTDIcked around.

Well, in fact the CH340 can be a problem, at least for Macs.

The manufacturer's own driver is unsigned, so for years you had to disable kernel security features just to run it, and with the latest OS X release, it causes kernel panics outright.

There is an excellent third party driver at https://www.mac-usb-serial.com, but the $7 for that (in itself a very reasonable price) start pushing the clones back toward the price range of the originals.

If you want to support the team you should buy from http://store.arduino.cc/ or from any other site. You should not buy from http://www.smartprj.com/ which is the Arduino Srl site.

Except that almost all the boards are sold out. Is there any other alternative?

Sparkfun's Arduino-like boards pay back a percentage to the inventors.

Here is a huge list of presumably legit distributors:

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Buy

For example: DigiKey has thousands of the Arduino Uno in stock.

Except that there are reports (http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=307397.0) that the boards from official distributors are shipping with Arduino Srl's USB Vendor ID, indicating that purchasing any "official" Arduino is likely funding the attack on Arduino LLC.

Hence the GP's observation that buying a 'no-name' clone seems to currently be the least-harmful option available.

Well that absolves me of a ton of guilt!

I've bought a few cheap clones off ebay over the last couple of years.

Shouldn't feel guilty. It's OSHW, anyone can build their own and resell.

Once you already have an Arduino (one with a DIP socketed AVR chip like an Uno), a great option is to just buy ATMEga 328 or similar ICs with the Arduino bootloader burned on them and build standalone circuits around those, which requires only a 28 pin socket, a voltage regulator, a 16mhz crystal(or whatever clock rate you want to use), and a couple caps. Your Arduino board basically then serves as a programmer for the AVR.

You can read the federal court filings (so far) here:

https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/mad/167131/

I know that from the story it looks pretty ironclad that Massimo Banzi and the original Arduino guys (arduino.cc) are on the side of good - and my gut tells me this is correct - but is there anything from the perspective of Guillermo/Arduino Srl or are they maintaining radio silence?

If you're looking for another side to the story, it seems a good place would be to ask about the relationship between Arduino and Hernando Barragán, the inventor of the Wiring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiring_(development_platform) language used by Arduino. Banzi supervised Barragán's MIT thesis on Wiring http://wiki.wiring.co/images/7/76/Wiring_thesis.pdf .

I had the pleasure to meet Banzi and be interviewed with him during last year's Maker Faire in Rome, he sounded really passionate and excited about the future of Arduino and I believe that while this is a problem, it's in no way holding them back. They recently joined the 3D printing world with Materia 101 and they're bound to release a new IDE soon-ish. Most people buying Arduinos in Italy usually have them imported from elsewhere; they also sponsor lots of events here in Rome, I have 4 boards and I got 3 of them through Maker Faire/hackathons, I imagine those profits go straight to Arduino (the legit one).

Wonder why they didn't register the arduino.org domain though...

Wow! I had no idea all this was going on behind the scenes. Hate to see such a good thing be spoiled by greed and deceit.

Agreed, even though we've only seen one side of the story I can't see this working out well for the guy behind Arduino Srl. He may somehow sneak a win in court, but the community will likely shun anything he's involved with.

One more reason that will make a lot of people to migrate to mbed platform.

Isn't mbed still stuck with that "cloud IDE" nonsense?

indeed, would be interesting to see more gcc coverage for ARM e.g. as in these examples https://github.com/muccc/arm-workshop

I am biased towards Massimo because he's a fellow Italian, but what does this mean for the Arduino hardware?

The "defector", Gianluca Martino, is also Italian, no?

He's correct, that doesn't make us proud tho

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