[camillomiller]

Banzi might come out as a douche, like Steve Jobs was. At a very very very different level they achieved the same. Would you prefer a world where wiring would still be a pretty niche project badly marketed only available for those in the field or a world where someone much more marketing oriented made Arduino explode and ignite a small but meaningful revolution in the approach to electronics?

[stdbrouw]

This is a false dichotomy. I would prefer a world in which Banzi worked together with Barragán, which Barragán would have clearly loved and which might have given Arduino an innovator at its helm and the ability to actually keep up with the times, rather than being steamrolled by the Raspberry Pi on one end and by better microcontroller designs like Particle (Spark), Tessel and the MicroPython boards on the other.

[camillomiller]

Of course, you're right, but we don't really know whether that could work. From the way Barragan puts it I don't think he would have liked the path Arduino followed, although he's of course happy about the success, just frustrated by attribution issues. Therefore I think your outcome would have been improbable at least.

[ArduinoGuy]

If you put two Steve Jobs in a room and ask them to work together, the result isn't always going to be mecha-Jobs, it will just as often be a fight over clashing visions. Open source is great because it lets people pursue those visions. Sometimes it isn't going to work out.

[goldenkey]

Still, super scummy not to be open about ehat arduino really was. And then to make oodles of profit and not even give a gift or some type of consolation? Highly against internet standards for openness.

[goldenkey]

After watching the entire documentary I have reconsidered. It appears there is inconsistebt behavior or an exaggeration on the part of OP. Banzi is quite transparent and the origins seem pretty innocuous.

https://vimeo.com/18539129

I would say, as open source developers, we have no right against commercial forks of our code lest we choose a more restrictive license. I believe OP is tormented by the lack of valor in the quite prickly situation but as hackers and devs we need to defend fair use of what code is licensed by. Fair licensing, fair commercial endeavor. It sucks when someone forks without even making contact but part of me feels like open source should be a little bit wild west. The rules are sharp square and leave little for interpretation, thats how we want our freedom

[fapjacks]

I wish it were possible to bottle up your last paragraph and force new developers to drink it before they could learn to program. I mean, insofar as anybody should be able to force anybody to do anything.

[goldenkey]

Well, thanks, I think I speak for all of us in that last paragraph. :-)

[justaaron]

it doesn't really matter what one prefers. Rights are rights. One cannot just appropriate others work because some website community feels it's in their interest to do so...