Arduino's New Terms of Service Worries Hobbyists Ahead of Qualcomm Acquisition (arstechnica.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Some members of the maker community are distraught about Arduino's new terms of service (ToS), saying that the added rules put the company's open source DNA at risk. Arduino updated its ToS and privacy policy this month, which is about a month after Qualcomm announced that it's acquiring the open source hardware and software company. Among the most controversial changes is this addition: "User shall not: translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform's operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements ..."
In response to concerns from some members of the maker community, including from open source hardware distributor and manufacturer Adafruit, Arduino posted a blog on Friday. Regarding the new reverse-engineering rule, Arduino's blog said: "Any hardware, software or services (e.g. Arduino IDE, hardware schematics, tooling and libraries) released with Open Source licenses remain available as before. Restrictions on reverse-engineering apply specifically to our Software-as-a-Service cloud applications. Anything that was open, stays open."
But Adafruit founder and engineer Limor Fried and Adafruit managing editor Phillip Torrone are not convinced. They told Ars Technica that Arduino's blog leaves many questions unanswered and said that they've sent these questions to Arduino without response. "Why is reverse-engineering prohibited at all for a company built on openly hackable systems?" Fried and Torrone asked in a shared statement. There are also concerns about the ToS' broad new AI-monitoring powers, which offer little clarity on what data is collected, who can access it, or how long it's retained. On top of that, the update introduces an unusual patent clause that bars users from using the platform to identify potential infringement by Arduino or its partners, along with sweeping, perpetual rights over user-generated content. This could allow Arduino, and potentially Qualcomm, to republish, modify, monetize, or redistribute user uploads indefinitely.
In response to concerns from some members of the maker community, including from open source hardware distributor and manufacturer Adafruit, Arduino posted a blog on Friday. Regarding the new reverse-engineering rule, Arduino's blog said: "Any hardware, software or services (e.g. Arduino IDE, hardware schematics, tooling and libraries) released with Open Source licenses remain available as before. Restrictions on reverse-engineering apply specifically to our Software-as-a-Service cloud applications. Anything that was open, stays open."
But Adafruit founder and engineer Limor Fried and Adafruit managing editor Phillip Torrone are not convinced. They told Ars Technica that Arduino's blog leaves many questions unanswered and said that they've sent these questions to Arduino without response. "Why is reverse-engineering prohibited at all for a company built on openly hackable systems?" Fried and Torrone asked in a shared statement. There are also concerns about the ToS' broad new AI-monitoring powers, which offer little clarity on what data is collected, who can access it, or how long it's retained. On top of that, the update introduces an unusual patent clause that bars users from using the platform to identify potential infringement by Arduino or its partners, along with sweeping, perpetual rights over user-generated content. This could allow Arduino, and potentially Qualcomm, to republish, modify, monetize, or redistribute user uploads indefinitely.
Ah, well. (Score:5, Funny)
Arduino was fun while it lasted.
If you need a corner to weep in, just follow the VMWare customers. They know where it is.
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Capitalism at its finest!
Re:Ah, well. (Score:4, Informative)
All the Arduino stuff is open-source. All Qualcomm bought was just a lot of assets including the name. But the IDE, the bootloader, etc are all open source.
Just fork and continue.
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It might not even be necessary to fork much. Genuine Arduino hardware is so expensive most people use clones, lots of people use Platform IO instead of the Arduino IDE, and the Arduino core for the newer microcontrollers is not made by Arduino anyway.
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I use Emacs and Arduino is just a code library and API from my perspective.
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This! Arduino is a great kids project and the Arduino IDE reflects that, but the Arduino platform is actually powerful and using a system like Platform IO is orders of magnitude better for any project beyond making a light blink.
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I tried to install Platform IO to try it out, but the multi-gigabyte Visual Studio won't work on my old macbook. The Arduino 2.0 IDE isn't exactly fast and efficient, but it at least installs. A plain old text editor is fast, efficient, and installs no problem.
Arduino is powerful because it's a collection of device drivers and other libraries written to a reasonably uniform standard and mostly cross platform too. You can write firmware for an ATMega hooked up to some obscure sensors and an old RS-485 driver
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The "magic" Arduino bit is the Arduino bootloader. That is also open source and anything that can speak the protocol can upload new firmware.
That's why Arduinos encompass more architectures than just AVRs - you can get ARM based Arduino compatible boards, I bel
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The Arduino bootloader does indeed make using ATMegas nicer, but the ESP32 uses its own bootloader, which is burned in, not modifiable. The RP2040 too, and I expect most or all of the RISC-V chips as well.
The Arduino toolchain also contributes a lot but, except for the ATMega, it's also created and maintained by not-Arduino.
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It's been the case for many years that few people bothered with official Arduino hardware, because other manufacturers offered better options at lower cost. There is a whole ecosystem around it, mostly from Chinese companies but also from people like Adafruit.
I doubt Qualcomm could kill it if they wanted to.
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Yep, said the same thing a month ago when the news was first posted on Slashdot. It won't be long now until private equity snaps it up and bleeds the platform for every last cent before destroying it completely.
Ouch. (Score:3, Interesting)
A Shame, But... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a real shame to see this happen. But, it's not the end of the world. There are numerous other Arduino-like microcontrollers out there.
Fork Arduino, move on with whatever. Espressif ESP32, Raspberry Pi Pico, Teensy, Particle Photon...
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Semicolon keys can finally get a breath of relief
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Every line ends with a semicolon.
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Well, whatever they do it's not going to be less open than Espressif lolol
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Fork Arduino, move on with whatever. Espressif ESP32, Raspberry Pi Pico, Teensy, Particle Photon.
It'd be SuperNice(tm) if Espressif merged their modifications upstream to OpenOCD instead of distributing their own fork for their microcontrollers. (Their custom installers don't play well in container environments.)
Just sayin'.
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Indeed, and I look forward to whatever fork of the IDE comes out of this. Whatever it is, it's going to need a good name.
Right now, you can search for "arduino " and it'll turn up a breakout board or an otherwise 'hackable' product that does what you need. Almost zero of those hits are ever going to do anything with Qualcomm, but hey... The point is, the name "arduino" has become the google search hook to find hobby project stuff on the Internet. The likes of ESP32 and Raspberry Pi are close, but I'd say ar
The Best Business Strategy (Score:3)
I call this approach the good ol' "this house will keep us warm as it burns down around us."
The keen vision and planning of corporate officers cannot be overstated.
Blessed be the shareholders.
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I doubt they bought it to reap the huge profits of selling to the maker community (/s)
They most likely want to slowly enshitify it to drive people away from that hippy maker stuff and back to proprietary, segmented development tools.
Arduino "commitment to open-source is unwavering" (Score:2, Informative)
Arduino responded to this recent drama just a few days ago, saying "Our 20-year commitment to open-source is unwavering" with a good explanation of the new T&C.
https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/1... [arduino.cc]
I believe Arduino is sincere with their statement.
One man speaking with Adafruit's social media accounts seems to feel otherwise. He probably believes he's doing good by raising the alarm. Maybe some of the points have some merit? But the tone really looks like an attempt to stir up drama and harm Arduino's rep
Re:Arduino "commitment to open-source is unwaverin (Score:5, Insightful)
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Maybe, maybe not. However given that we know who the poster is and what he has contributed to the Arduino community, I would give what he says a lot more weight than what you say!
Although I do have to ask him, would it be okay if Qualcom took Arduino in the direction you've taken Teensy, with a proprietary, closed-source,and un-clone-able boot loader to prevent clones of the new Arduino boards? I'm quite torn on that one.
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Arduino responded to this recent drama just a few days ago, saying "Our 20-year commitment to open-source is unwavering" with a good explanation of the new T&C.
https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/1... [arduino.cc]
I believe Arduino is sincere with their statement.
My advice would be to rely more on the content of the (presumably) legal contract rather than a blog post in these matters. But you do you.
Re:Arduino "commitment to open-source is unwaverin (Score:5, Informative)
paul,
“one man speaking with adafruit’s social media accounts”
lazy. limor was quoted directly in the article and you still couldn’t credit her.
your claims aren’t accurate. we were asked to step in and build arduinos during the period when the guy falsely claiming an mit phd took over. we helped stabilize the platform and stayed a reseller until demand and circumstances shifted. every board, up until the last years, was shown to arduino before release to see if they wanted to make it, support it, etc. for example we presented feather, they were not interested.
“maybe some of the points have some merit?”
the concern isn’t imagined. the open source community is vocal because the issues are real there are a lot of people in the arduino world, discords, and dev channels raising the same flags. you not being in those spaces doesn’t mean it does not exist. you’re not tuned into these conversations. but at least don’t erase limor’s words and claim it's just me or downplay the people who are doing the work.
Re: Arduino "commitment to open-source is unwaveri (Score:2)
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Makerbot (Score:2)
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No biggie (Score:3)
The world is awash in microcontrollers and clever ways for hobbyists to use them, even without an EE degree. If the whole arduino ecosystem collapses, there are many other options.
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Arduino isn't about the microcontrollers. It's about the IDE and the community built around it.
Non-EE people may find it much harder to program up a communication systems with an external display compared to simply clicking on the display in their IDE, having it load the library, and then typing drawline(x,y).
That said PlatformIO would be a good contender, I'm not sure of any others, and I'm not sure how dependent it is on Arduino upstream.
It's Qualcomm (Score:2)
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition(tm)
Excuse my ignorance (Score:3)
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Something to sell off later on down the road at a loss to private equity for a tax incentive.
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Sucks (Score:2)
Just a reminder! It's "blog post," not "blog!"
To address the contents of the post: yeah, this sucks, a textbook example of enshittification.
Self-Inflicted Wound Like Unity (Score:2)
Just fork it... (Score:3)
Someone should take all the bits of the Arduino ecosystem that are open source software or open source hardware and fork/mirror it all so that you can download and use everything without needing to visit any Qualcomm or Arduino owned websites or agree to any terms of service.
Qualcomm stomps on its new possession (Score:2)