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Comment by ingenieros | Hacker News Reader

Could somebody shed some light on this? The only thing I took away from the poor translation is that one of the four original founders changed the name of his own manufacturing company from Smart Projects SRL to Arduino SRL. The article states "The central point of contention is where the future official Arduino boards are made" However, why would this be an issue with a project that has always waved the open hardware flag? Everybody from Sparkfun, Adafruit to Spark.io have based their own boards on arduino's architecture so why is this all of a sudden become an issue? Io non ho capito

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The way I understand it, Smart Projects, who is a hardware manufacturer that currently exclusively manufactures the official Arduino boards, is trying to take over the brand in fear that the actual Arduino management is going to drop the exclusivity and allow other manufacturers to make offical boards. They've renamed Smart Projects to Arduino SRL and made an arduino.org to compete with arduino.cc. The real Arduino, which is a US-registered LLC is claiming, seemingly with good reason, that this is a trademark violation and dilution of their brand. That's what this is about. While they've never had a problem with compatible and even direct copies of the DESIGNS they've always strongly defended the right to CALL their products Arduino. This is now under threat as their exclusive manufacturing partner is trying to cut them out.

That makes a lot more sense!

Hmm, not sure how to feel about this. I've always liked that Arduino was made in Italy and so it feels like a more ethical purchase than most electronics.

This HaD article is a bit more coherent and references the linked German article.

http://hackaday.com/2015/02/25/arduino-v-arduino/

(based on the German version of the article)

The LLC mostly cares about the idea and the software and is thinking about allowing other manufacturers to use the Arduino name (All the third-party boards right now legally only can say "Arduino-compatible" and can't use the logo). The SRL manufactures all the official boards right now and of course doesn't like cheaper official alternatives and is more oriented towards industry cooperations and getting an IPO. With the renaming and a new website (arduino.org, against the original arduino.cc run by the LLC) they are trying to get a stronger association between the name "Arduino" and themselves.

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