The cofounders of the Arduino open source programmable circuit board have finally buried the hatchet. On October 1 at Maker Faire New York, Massimo Banzi and Federico Musto announced the creation of Arduino Holding, as “the two Arduinos become one” at the end of 2016.
“This allows us to start a new course for Arduino made of constructive dialogue and disruptive innovation in the education, Makers and IoT fields,” commented Massimo Banzi. With Arduino Holding, which merges Arduino LLC (arduino.cc) and Arduino SRL (arduino.org), the new best friends will launch by late 2016 the Arduino Foundation, dedicated to promoting the open source movement.
War had been waged since 2008. On one side, Massimo Banzi registered the Arduino brand in the U.S. and globally (under the company name Arduino LLC), in agreement with four of the five cofounders. On the other side, without the blessing of his partners, fifth cofounder Gianluca Martino registered the Arduino brand in Italy. The dispute was taken to court, and led to a complicated mess. Gianluca Martino refused Arduino LLC access to Arduino’s historical factory based in Italy and started the company Arduino SRL. As a result, Arduino boards all sold out, and Arduino SRL was forced to change the name of its board (to Genuino) and use a new manufacturer (Adafruit).
While waiting for the two Arduinos to become one, the good news should benefit all makers in the long term. Arduino SRL president Federico Musto believes that the Arduino community will witness “amazing technical developments including NFC, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), voice controls, and more.” The first brick was laid on September 28, with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for Eslov, an Arduino kit for the Internet of Things.