tldr; arduino teases its “from blink to think” ai launch amid $54m funding, raising questions about open-source certification, attribution, and the future of maker hardware.
In today’s mail, Arduino is teasing its “From Blink to Think” global event, branding it as the biggest reveal yet. A new product is set to launch that promises to “redefine tech” and empower builders everywhere, and it’s what will make the $54 million invested in Arduino all come together. So, yeah, it will be some AI thing.
Blink (the classic “hello world” LED tutorial) –> Think (AI).
Arduino has $54 million in funding, which is. Do investors care about breadboards and blinky LEDs? Or do they care more about recurring subscription revenue and having what is being called “AI” all over the place, from IDEs to the hardware.
Arduino will be acquired, or that’s a likely fate with funding, the investor need a return, this is a good time for vc-funded-Arduino to collaborate with open-source Arduino contributors. Some issues have shown no movement or progress on the IP/code/attribution front, and much of open source is about demonstrating intent. There are zero Open Source Hardware certifications from Arduino (there is from SparkFun, which licensed Arduino). It worth noting that it looks like the open-source SparkFun Arduino pro mini has had more sales than the Arduino version which is not open-source certified. I know some people do not think it matters if it’s open-source, but game is game ya’ll – it’s pretty cool to see the for-sure open-source doing well.
Arduino could also announce at this event that they are open-sourcing the Uno with an Open Source Hardware certification. Does it matter? No. It’s only if Arduino wants to send the signal. I asked 2 years ago, message received.
“We considered your suggestion of submitting our products for OSHWA certification, but we believe this would not provide any benefit to us or to end users as our strong commitment in open source hardware and software is already well known.”
And before Arduino goes full on AI… It would be great for Arduino to look at another A I first, Adafruit Industries! Please look at the library manager closely, we’ve had a long history with Arduino, including making Arduino’s in the USA (back when their company was taken over and there were two Arduinos)… and Limor has been a top contributor from the start, she is also about to have kid #2, so we’ll be busy with that soon and I want to be able to show our kids it’s always possible to try to fix things, and if not – document what happened, publish, and keep moving. Look like we’re gonna keep movin’
The “iArduino” contributions that appeared in the Arduino open-source report, from Arduino, indicate that something called iArduino, which isn’t Arduino itself, has made its code part of the ecosystem. We reported this, along with examples from Limor’s code where it appears the attribution was removed and the code was translated into Russian, among other instances. Arduino agreed something was “weird” and changed the name on the presentation and then instructed us to issue DMCA (take-down) requests, no thank you. That raises questions about ownership, attribution, and compliance. Arduino stated that they could not prevent the iArduino from using their trademark, but perhaps there is some information I am not aware of.
Since this might be an issue going forward, we used an edited Edge Impulse PR (acquired by Qualcomm). The PR does the same thing; it adds trademark rules in rules-trademarks.yml. Arduino’s complex history with trademarks and intellectual property is a thing. “AI” is its current state is still in court, a bunch of other people’s copyrighted stuff, this could add additional complexity depending on where Arduino goes.
Arduino surely has an open-source person in charge of open-source, no. The role of “Head of Maker Business, Open Source & Community” appears to be no longer in existence at Arduino. The Arduino CEO informed us and referred us to the “Chief Product Officer.”
That’s a bummer; it appears the more funding, the less open-source, and the less open-source-focused staff. The move to Arduino Pro, removal of the open-source commitments on the about pages, to “From Blink to Think” – likely a new AI board, all this costs tons of money too. See – “What will we do with an additional $22M?” – Arduino blog.
Arduino will likely pitch their new thing as the future. But the future isn’t what anyone expects, or can predict (maybe, sometimes you get to make it).
One thing is for sure, Arduino is a community, and Arduino like it or not is stuck with us, so please Arduino – you can pivot or whatever to AI and cloud IDEs with AI and hardware with AI, just spend the time to make it clear what’s open, what’s not, the $54m in funding happened _because_ of open source, not because of some future AI offering or “Industrial IoT” of whatever flavor of the day was.
Log in
