So today, there was an article on Techcrunch “CEO controversy mars Arduino’s open future” with a quote from the new CEO of Arduino (Federico Musto “Ph.d”) that said the maker market is “is in some way reducing” and used Intel’s roll back of Arduino support as the evidence.

Musto also believes the maker movement is contracting especially considering a move by Intel to roll back some of its Arduino support. “As I mentioned it looks like I’d be insane if I’d do anything to change the DNA of Arduino. Arduino is open source and open hardware and it will stay open source and open hardware, full stop,” he said. “The maker movement is in some way reducing and everyone is concerned about how we can protect our investment.”

The only “full stop” and “reducing” is the bizarre Arduino.org product line up, lack of open-source at Arduino.org, and the leadership at Arduino.org. INTEL was making and supporting boards with the Arduino logo stamped on it as part of a partnership, they got stuck with the new Arduino CEO (just like the community did) – what could INTEL possibly do besides end the product lines that had anything to do with Arduino? The Arduino 101 sold in the tens-of-thousands of units and the dev board market depending on who you ask is thriving with sales in the millions of units. INTEL isn’t going to be able to publicly say “This new Arduino.org is a mess” – they’ll just end the Arduino(org) partnerships and products and focus on the community and the makers (and start new/better partnerships).

I emailed INTEL for a quote about all this, and they replied right away.

Intel remains an enthusiastic supporter of the maker community and maker mindset. We will continue to support tomorrow’s makers through education and community outreach programs such as Maker Share (https://makershare.com/). – William Moss, Intel Corporate Relations

Intel + Make: Maker Share.

The goal for me for Maker Share is to do some of the magic that we do at Maker Faire online, where almost anybody has access to it.
-Dale Dougherty, Make: Founder and CEO

..

The skills you learn through making is what is going to make you successful in innovating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
-Rajiv Mongia, Director Maker Experience and Outreach at Intel

This is smart, celebrate the community, makers, and avoid the nonsense of arduino.org. The new Arduino CEO went to say “The maker movement is in some way reducing and everyone is concerned about how we can protect our investment.” – his investment, and it’s only reducing because of his actions (and inactions).

There are at least 15 million Raspberry Pi’s, probably over a million micro:bits by now, Adafruit just hit 1,500,000 orders (we’ve outsold Adafruit vs Arduino related products at least 15 to 1 for a very long time, FEATHER, TRINKET, GEMMA, CIRCUIT PLAYGROUND, ETC, ETC). There’s more going on then ever and our companies and efforts are growing.

Don’t blame the maker movement, blame dumb decisions on people and product.

There still is not a promised Arduino foundation, that Arduino promised.
There still is not open-source hardware files for many/most of the Arduino.org products.

Related:
CEO controversy mars Arduino’s open future – Techcrunch.
ARDUINO’S NEW CEO, FEDERICO MUSTO, MAY HAVE FABRICATED HIS ACADEMIC RECORD – WIRED.
Arduino’s new CEO has spent years pretending to have an MIT PhD and an NYU MBA – BoingBoing.
“Free Arduino” – MAKE magazine.
“Arduino and Open Source Hardware” – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
THE ARDUINO FOUNDATION: WHAT’S UP? – Hackaday.
Arduino’s “arm’s-length” foundation is being run by CEO who lied about his degrees from MIT and NYU – BoingBoing.
Arduino: the next installment– ELEKTOR (USA).
Thoughts about Arduino, again … ELEKTOR magazine (German)
Arduino launches IoT developer kit for LoRa – Developer Tech.
What happens with Arduino project? – OLIMEX.
“#FreeArduino”- Related posts and more – Adafruit.