When open becomes opaque: The changing face of open-source hardware companies
A couple facts about Arduino to make sure the discussion doesn't take weird directions:<p>- In the last years, the Arduino team has been releasing MORE open source stuff than it had been doing in the past. This is documented transparently in the yearly open source reports:
<a href="https://blog.arduino.cc/2022/01/13/the-2021-arduino-open-source-report-is-out/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.arduino.cc/2022/01/13/the-2021-arduino-open-sou...</a>
<a href="https://blog.arduino.cc/2023/01/20/the-2022-arduino-open-source-report-is-out/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.arduino.cc/2023/01/20/the-2022-arduino-open-sou...</a>
Even recently, the flagship Arduino product (UNO) was renewed and with no surprise it's still completely open source.<p>- In parallel, a vertical line of industrial products (managed by a subsidiary called "Arduino Pro") was added that for documented reasons has all the requirements of open source hardware (including full schematics and fully open source software stack) except for the CAD files which are available on request. This level of openness is the same as a Raspberry Pi, if not higher because all components are available on the market. The existence of this additional product line does not imply at all that Arduino reduced its commitment to open source because, as said above, such commitment is even higher than in the past.<p>Based on these facts, in no way it is reasonable to state that "Arduino is going closed source" or that its business is "opaque". All opinions are legit, but if they don't take facts into account it's just misinformation or marketing...