Since early 2015, there has been a great divide in the maker community.
Arduino — the ubiquitous development platform that has become a mainstay of the maker community — was split into two factions. One was Arduino LLC (or arduino.cc) led by Massimo Banzi and the other was Arduino SRL (arduino.org) with Federico Musto at the helm. Both claimed different grievances, a lawsuit was filed, and the last few years have left Arduino aficionados and the maker community struggling to make sense of who the “real” Arduino was and where their loyalties should lie.
Fortunately, that period of confusion seems to be over as just this past Saturday (October 1), Banzi and Musto took to the stage at World Maker Faire New York to announce that the two entities have settled their differences and reached agreement on a single entity.
This is great news not only for the folks directly involved, but also for the maker community at large. By the end of this year, the newly formed “Arduino Holding” will be the single point of contact for all Arduino products. This also means no more mixed messages about where to turn to for support and which Arduino to side with.
Furthermore, there will also be a new entity known as the “Arduino Foundation,” which will maintain the open source Arduino IDE as well as provide support for the maker community.
For a company that helped fuel recent growth of the maker movement, the legal disagreement between the two sides seems to have greatly affected both side’s ability to innovate. This new agreement means that Arduino can turn their collective focus back to what made them so immensely popular in the first place — providing powerful and flexible platforms and a thriving community that help drive innovation in the world of makers, engineers and hobbyist electronics enthusiasts.
Fortunately, that period of confusion seems to be over as just this past Saturday (October 1), Banzi and Musto took to the stage at World Maker Faire New York to announce that the two entities have settled their differences and reached agreement on a single entity.
This is great news not only for the folks directly involved, but also for the maker community at large. By the end of this year, the newly formed “Arduino Holding” will be the single point of contact for all Arduino products. This also means no more mixed messages about where to turn to for support and which Arduino to side with.
Furthermore, there will also be a new entity known as the “Arduino Foundation,” which will maintain the open source Arduino IDE as well as provide support for the maker community.
For a company that helped fuel recent growth of the maker movement, the legal disagreement between the two sides seems to have greatly affected both side’s ability to innovate. This new agreement means that Arduino can turn their collective focus back to what made them so immensely popular in the first place — providing powerful and flexible platforms and a thriving community that help drive innovation in the world of makers, engineers and hobbyist electronics enthusiasts.