[HN Gopher] Arduino Terms of Service and Privacy Policy update: ...
___________________________________________________________________
Arduino Terms of Service and Privacy Policy update: setting the
record straight
Author : manchoz
Score : 94 points
Date : 2025-11-21 21:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.arduino.cc)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.arduino.cc)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Sorry, you got bought by Qualcomm and that was suicide.
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| "We are Arduino. We are open. We're not going anywhere."
|
| -- statement from Qualcomm without a single human being's name on
| it
| anonymousiam wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_Is_Futile
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > We are open.
|
| Except that half their boards and the entire cloud platform
| aren't open source at all.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Yeah. This can also be the intro: "and so it begins".
|
| E. g. qualcom stepwise swallowing the infrastructure and
| pulling the chair under the hobbyists community.
| camkego wrote:
| If you walk into the head office of Qualcomm (in Sorrento
| Vally, San Diego, CA) and you see the the "Patent Wall" in the
| entrance covered with almost 1400 patents, it's kind of hard to
| wonder just how open Arduino will be.
| shevy-java wrote:
| You are right - the whole blog entry has zero names mentioned.
| An anonymous opinion piece indeed.
|
| Could have almost been written by AI, but the content seemed so
| angry that I think it must have been a corporate spokesperson
| who just woke up, read people being concerned and angrily
| hacked away at the keys at the keyboard.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| This allays my suspicions. I appreciate the response to this
| community's concerns.
| shevy-java wrote:
| But ... how?
| ykonstant wrote:
| It does?!
| fn-mote wrote:
| If you put the /s more people would understand.
| kvakvs wrote:
| I don't get it, do we keep the pitchforks out, or do we stash the
| pitchforks?
| beefnugs wrote:
| "we collect data for your privacy" they have no idea what words
| or actions mean anymore.
|
| There is no such thing as being purchased by a large company
| while retaining anything non-evil. If anything this is the
| remaining employees who were lied to their face about remaining
| whatever they were
| shevy-java wrote:
| It may be over already. I mean, the pitchforks will change what
| exactly? Looks like qualcom pwns I mean owns the arduino
| ecosystem now. Just like a killed-by-Google meme, qualcom may
| soon start its own killed-by-qualcom trend.
| bsder wrote:
| You can keep the pitchforks out, but you sadly need to assume
| Arduino is dead.
|
| Of course, if you weren't already making that assumption when
| Qualcomm bought them, I don't know what to tell you ...
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Keep sharpening the pitchforks.
|
| The license change isn't a dealbreaker, but Qualcomm still
| consists of 900000 insectoid lawyers pretending to be humans,
| and their hivemind thinks "open source" is some kind of
| disease.
|
| The "best case scenario" was that Arduino would get Qualcomm as
| a whole to be more open to small devs. The "worst case
| scenario" was that Qualcomm would get Arduino to be as bad as
| Qualcomm, and you'd have to "talk to sales" to get an SDK for
| your development board.
|
| So far, we're not getting the "best case scenario". So keep the
| pitchforks at hand.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You can stash them.
|
| Show me a time anyone has ever remained themselves after being
| purchased by Qualcomm.
|
| It's over for Arduino.
| typpilol wrote:
| If the only restriction on reverse engineering is their cloud
| SaaS, why was everyone up in arms?
|
| Or is this Arduino trying to save face?
| healsdata wrote:
| Their definition of "the platform" in the TOS is verbose and
| has weird grammar. I can see how people came away with a
| different understanding.
|
| > User shall not translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the
| Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify
| the algorithms and logic of the Platform's operation, unless
| expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license
| agreements;
|
| > The Site is part of the platform developed and managed by
| Arduino, which allows users to take part in the discussions on
| the Arduino forum, the Arduino blog, the Arduino User Group,
| the Arduino Discord channel, and the Arduino Project Hub, and
| to access the Arduino main website, subsites, Arduino Cloud,
| Arduino Courses, Arduino Certifications, Arduino Docs, the
| Arduino EDU kit sites to release works within the Contributor
| License Agreement program, and to further develop the Arduino
| open source ecosystem (collectively, the "Platform").
| baobun wrote:
| I can only read this as the entirety of "Arduino open source
| ecosystem" being part of "the Platform".
| consp wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that is the point. Legal ambiguity to say
| whatever they can vaguely in public but in court they will
| make it encompass the entire world.
| unmole wrote:
| > why was everyone up in arms?
|
| Engagement farming, clout chasing etc.
| Karliss wrote:
| Large companies have repeatedly demonstrated that they will
| pick whichever interpretation is most convenient at the time.
| When there are pitchforks they will claim that you are confused
| and misinterpreted the writing but when you get poisoned by
| food in their restaurant and try to sue them they will point at
| terms of service on their online video streaming service that
| your spouse agreed 5 years ago as if that's relevant (not a
| joke Disney tried that one). These things are supposed to be
| written by proffesionals, I dont think Hanlon's razor
| sufficiently explains it, terms of service are at least
| partially intentionally written as vague and unclear as
| possible for benefit of one side.
| praptak wrote:
| That's called motte and bailey.
| shevy-java wrote:
| u/healsdata already gave a good answer to that. I may only add
| that this could be the first step of increasing restrictions
| made by qualcom. The future will show. If it happens, some who
| warned about that may wisely nod their heads then, whereas
| others will be very confused about "this sudden change" ...
| arjie wrote:
| Seems reasonable. I have a Duemilanove and an Uno R2 that I
| haven't used in ages but Arduino stuff has always been open as
| far as I remember. I really can't bring myself to pull out the
| pitchforks here. They've earned the trust from me. It's been over
| a decade now.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Did you miss the bit where they got bought by Qualcomm??
| shevy-java wrote:
| Does not really make a whole lot of sense to me.
|
| You are basically saying that "past experience means future
| trust". How does this relate? I mean, a company xyz can have
| been doing great in the past, but may go extinct lateron for
| any reason. See Sun and then who owns Java nowadays. I much
| preferred Sun over Oracle really.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I feel the parent. I assume what they refer to is good will
| accumulated over the years. But that by itself does not last
| forever and eventually disappears ( faster in some than
| others ). I personally learned to not get too comfy. Stuff
| changes, which means we have need to adjust as well. It is
| just hard sometimes.
| neilv wrote:
| They say "privacy" a lot on that blog page, but that very page
| runs surveillance capitalism trackers from Facebook, Twitter,
| Google, and others.
| rasz wrote:
| They mean privacy for the author of that blog post - he is
| anonymous after all.
| baobun wrote:
| Whoa there, you're in reverse-engineering territory of their
| website already!
| healsdata wrote:
| Adafruit acted a bit shady here. Their original post includes:
|
| "Military weird things"
|
| Reading the ToS, the two mentions of military are "don't use our
| AI product for military use" and in the export and trade controls
| section.
|
| How are either of those weird?
| rockskon wrote:
| Given the ambiguity of the phrase "military use" when the
| military does, in-fact, use it for things the military does - I
| am not confident in the slightest with Arduino's use of
| language here.
| healsdata wrote:
| How would you want to see this further clarified?
|
| > Military Use: Use by or for any military organization or
| for any military purpose, including but not limited to
| projects sponsored or paid for by military organizations, or
| use by the U.S. Department of Defense (except for DARPA),
| U.S. Armed Forces, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S.
| intelligence agencies, or any foreign counterparts of the
| foregoing.
| rockskon wrote:
| Gee, I dunno, how about by not limiting its scope
| exclusively to AI usage by the military?
|
| Also - given how many tech companies involved in AI have
| done an about-face on military usage of it, I'm
| increasingly seeing it as an empty promise.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Indeed. Also because any big organisation or corporation can
| both do evil and good. Often research projects with
| guarantees to release knowledge or some other improvements
| such as to software projects under a permissive licence.
| snvzz wrote:
| Free Software's Freedom #0: Freedom of use.
| monegator wrote:
| >Adafruit acted a bit shady here
|
| what is new here?
| ptorrone wrote:
| i wrote the article, just go ahead and call me shady and
| leave out other people at the company. limor will be back
| online next week after recovering (just had a kid) and you
| can call her shady too.
| shevy-java wrote:
| But you did not sign the article? I don't understand this.
|
| IMO it would have just been easier to simply sign it. (With
| signing I mean mentioning who specifically wrote a blog
| entry; and also ideally the time as well.)
| relaxing wrote:
| ? All the adafruit blog posts have author and date
| listed.
| ptorrone wrote:
| i am here now, phillip torrone, and i am holding my 7 day
| old doing speech to text :)
|
| on linkedin, i think it just says "adafruit" i will learn
| more and see if i can go in and add it post-post..
|
| how is that shady for ya.
| kotaKat wrote:
| nah, rest of the company gets the shady label too, always
| has, always will.
|
| remember when y'all both started blocking people on twitter
| for calling out data breaches? hrm, lmao.
| ptorrone wrote:
| those were previous blocks and a couple of banned people
| assumed it was that, it was not, and since then we mute
| and document blocks with our social team. regardless, a
| block from what, 4 years ago, hurt someone that bad,
| twitter really did hurt people.
| ptorrone wrote:
| the carve out is weird and usually open-source does not say, no
| to the navy using it BUT, it's OK for DARPA ...
|
| > Military Use: Use by or for any military organization or for
| any military purpose, including but not limited to projects
| sponsored or paid for by military organizations, or use by the
| U.S. Department of Defense (except for DARPA), U.S. Armed
| Forces, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. intelligence
| agencies, or any foreign counterparts of the foregoing.
| villgax wrote:
| Faceless corpo speak at best
| exasperaited wrote:
| " we have been open-source long before it was fashionable."
|
| That is a weird, weird claim for a firm that was founded off the
| back of a project that started in 2005.
|
| It's, what, over five years after the VA Linux IPO, two years
| after Microsoft arguably used Caldera as a weapon in a proxy war
| against IBM, seven years after one of the most famous software
| products of all time, Netscape Navigator, went open source.
|
| Just a strange, facially implausible bit of appeal to tradition.
| speedgoose wrote:
| > The Qualcomm acquisition doesn't modify how user data is
| handled or how we apply our open-source principles.
|
| That's a lie. Perhaps they lie to themselves. I don't know. I can
| only guess.
| cornonthecobra wrote:
| "we have been open-source long before it was fashionable"
|
| An abridged timeline:
|
| 1960s to 1980s: hobbyist and academic/research computing create
| thriving public domain software ecosystems (literally the birth
| of FOSS)
|
| 1983: The GNU Project begins
|
| 1989: The World Wide Web is created
|
| 1991: Linus Torvalds posts the first Linux kernel to USENET
|
| 1992: 386BSD is released; Slackware is created
|
| 1993: NetBSD is forked; Debian is created
|
| 1994: FreeBSD 2 is released
|
| 1995: Red Hat is created
|
| [a decade of FOSS and the internet changing computing and
| research forever]
|
| 2005: A collection of low-cost microcontroller education tools,
| benefiting from half a century of FOSS, is formalized into
| something called "Arduino"
| shevy-java wrote:
| > 1989: Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web
|
| I think ideas etc... existed before that, e. g. DARPA and what
| Alan Kay said.
|
| Tim mostly pushed forward a simple protocol that worked. Would
| be interesting to see how much Tim really generated de-novo,
| but in general I disagree that he "invented" the world wide web
| as such. That would seem unfair to many other people - just
| like Alan Kay once said, you see further by standing on the
| shoulders of giants (translation: you benefitted from earlier
| inventions and ideas, made by other people).
| cornonthecobra wrote:
| As I was writing it out, I knew someone was going to
| complain.
|
| It's an _abridged_ timeline. Brevity because the point is the
| date, not the fine detail.
|
| But since I don't care to argue on the internet... edited.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > Would be interesting to see how much Tim really generated
| de-novo, but in general I disagree that he "invented" the
| world wide web as such.
|
| Eh? What do you mean it would be _interesting to see_? It 's
| well-documented. Not controversial or hidden.
|
| The HTTP protocol yes. But also the browser/editor app,
| WorldWideWeb, a web server for it, and the URL scheme, are
| literal Berners-Lee inventions. HTML may be an SGML language
| but it's _his_ SGML language.
|
| He's not claiming and nobody is claiming he invented
| hypertext (he would say Ted Nelson and Alan Kay).
|
| He absolutely invented the fundamentals of the end-to-end web
| technology as we use it. There was no functioning internet
| open-hypermedia system before 1990. It's just not in question
| and it's kind of disingenuous to imply he didn't do much.
|
| (Defining down "invent" in this way is also disingenuous to
| all inventors, who all do their work in the context of prior
| art)
| talkingtab wrote:
| Complained about and already modified. However, what is
| "wrong" is that some "person" invented the internet. We live
| in a time of "followers" and in that paradigm we need some
| singular person to follow. But it was actually a bunch of
| original thinkers of whom TBL was one. But it was not a
| person. I suspect a closer answer is the IETF, but that is
| also a leaky abstraction.
|
| The point is that if you want to do something, you are
| probably more likely to do it well with lots of other doers.
| Not followers.
| cornonthecobra wrote:
| The World Wide Web is not the Internet.
| kees99 wrote:
| Also, didn't early Arduino heavily borrow from another open-
| source project, "Processing"?
|
| Processing was/is graphics-centered, so that's where Arduino's
| term "sketch" come from, if you ever wondered.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Processing_screen_shot.pn...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arduino_IDE_-_Blink.png
| drzaiusx11 wrote:
| "Wiring", which constitutes Arduino's primary API surface,
| was taken wholesale from Hernando Barragan's 2003 master's
| thesis project. It was a fork of processing for
| microcontrollers and was not written by the Arduino team:
| Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, David Mellis, Gianluca
| Martino, and Tom Igo.
| jimbooonooo wrote:
| I have to dig around, I think I still have one of the
| original wiring boards from around 2006 (maybe)?
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yeah, the software side is basically only an IDE, a build
| system and a package manager an another system API (basically
| an alternative to libc). Which is useful for C++, but far
| from being non-replaceable.
| Johanx64 wrote:
| Arduino doesn't directly benefit from pretty much any of legacy
| unix barf-bag stuff.
|
| It's just a HAL and an IDE, with a truckload of user/third
| party supplied libraries for various modules, sensors, etc.
|
| Plus, every sizable MCU/dev-board vendor supplies a Arduino HAL
| implementation (so called Core) for their board/mcu/module (or
| it's done by enthusiastic community).
| fn-mote wrote:
| They derive a massive benefit from GCC even if they use
| nothing else at all.
|
| The point of the GP was to refute the claim that they were
| started "before open source was cool".
| Johanx64 wrote:
| This isn't entirely true.
|
| It's Atmel that derives massive benefit from GCC, or
| whoever implemented AVR backend for GCC.
|
| Arduino doesn't - strictly speaking - depend on GCC, it
| could (and does) use any toolchain that is supplied by MCU
| vendor.
|
| And it just happens so that many MCU vendors do often use
| GCC as part of their toolchain. Arduino just bundles that
| with vendor supplied tools for flashing, etc, like avrdude.
|
| Which is to say - it's the MCU vendors that derive the main
| benefit from GCC.
|
| Arduino will just happily use whatever toolchain MCU
| vendors provide.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Embedded in particular was mired in closed source vendor lock
| in toolchains and SDKs for decades.
|
| And some industry players still are. Looking at you, Broadcom
| and Qualcomm.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I recall AVR-GCC not only working just fine in 2005 but being
| the official method for compiling code for those chips. I
| used it before Arduino came out to target the same chips.
|
| Arduino was a nice beginner friendly IDE for sure that
| eliminated the need for make files or reading documentation
| for GCC, but the existing ecosystem was definitely not closed
| source.
| boriskourt wrote:
| By the mid 2000s open-source hardware again became a hub of
| activity due to the emergence of several major open-source
| hardware projects and companies, such as OpenCores, RepRap (3D
| printing), Arduino, Adafruit, SparkFun, and Open Source
| Ecology. In 2007, Perens reactivated the openhardware.org
| website, but it is currently (February 2025) inactive. [0]
|
| I think they should have worded this better, but what they are
| known for, more specifically, is pushing open source hardware
| forward and sticking with it on principle even though it caused
| many business challenges.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware
| latexr wrote:
| This is so full of vapid corporate speak, it's ripe for one of
| those joke "translation" posts:
|
| > We've heard some questions and concerns following our recent
| Terms of Service and Privacy Policy updates.
|
| Translation: Y'all are angry about us changing what we stood for.
|
| > We are thankful our community cares enough to engage with us
| and we believe transparency and open dialogue are foundational to
| Arduino.
|
| Translation: You fuckers are loud and this is blowing up in our
| faces, so we need to do damage control fast or the acquisition
| will be worthless.
| shevy-java wrote:
| "Let us be absolutely clear: we have been open-source long before
| it was fashionable"
|
| This is a VERY bad attempt at self-promo, sorry.
|
| Many other open source projects are much older, so "fashionable"
| is a very emotionally laden word. But, even aside from this: what
| matters is the now and future. You can not refer to a "glorious
| past" if the future just looks bleak and bad.
|
| "The Qualcomm acquisition doesn't modify how user data is handled
| or how we apply our open-source principles."
|
| Everyone already sees that the Qualcomm take-over changed the
| project. There is no way to deny it. Now, perhaps it COULD lead
| to an improvement - who knows. But it can also lead to a
| stagnation or decline. We saw that with many other projects that
| suddenly became progressively starved down. Even without a
| corporate overlord that may happen, when users, hobbyists, devs,
| are no longer as interested. They may write fewer blog entries
| and so forth - decline happens.
|
| "We periodically update our legal documents to reflect new
| features, evolving regulations, and best practices."
|
| As does Mozilla - yet firefox keeps on dying and dwindling.
|
| Sorry, but this just reads like a post mortem to me.
|
| "Restrictions on reverse-engineering apply specifically to our
| Software-as-a-Service cloud applications"
|
| Which open source licence typically were to include that? And, by
| the way - I am increasingly noticing how the "legal terms" try to
| provide provisions that aren't part of a licence. I noticed this
| some time ago with regard to RubyCentral slapping down meta-
| corporate rules on rubygems.org (see here
| https://blog.rubygems.org/2025/07/08/policies-live.html). So this
| is what corporations want to do. I don't see how this benefits
| the hobbyists or solo devs in any way, shape or form. And I don't
| agree that this "sets the record straight" either.
|
| To me it reads like a corporate take-over of arduino. That's bad.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| Anyone have any advice for Arduino replacement? I recently
| (unknowingly) bought a R4 for some LED projects but knowing now
| the background, I'm wondering if there's any other alternative
| for hobby (noob level) micro controller project
| petre wrote:
| Any ESP32, RP2040 or RP2350 board. The last two use external
| QSPI flash, so hobby projects only. There are no fuses to set
| to read protect the firmware.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Just to be clear, some micros (STM32s come to mind) have what
| they call "on the fly decryption" for external flash.
| Basically, if the micros wanted to, they would. I think
| ESP32s are also using qspi flashes but they're integrated in
| package? Maybe that's changed but that's how I vaguely
| remember it
| petre wrote:
| I believe only the ESP32 modules with 16M have QSPI flash,
| the 4M standard flash is on chip. For on the fly decryption
| you need on chip enclaves to store the keys. Anyway, it
| doesn't really matter for hobby projects and the ESP32 can
| also be used for commercial projects.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Indeed, the number of "non commercial" projects using
| these chips that are set up much less securely than even
| modest "hobbyist" projects boggles the mind.
| 34679 wrote:
| I use a RP2040 in a commercial product, but it's for a niche
| portion of a niche industry and it's not intended to ever
| communicate with another device. Disabling USB mass storage
| and not adding a bootloader button is good enough for me.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| The RP2354 has the flash stacked inside the chip;
| https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/rp2350-a4-rp2354-and-a-
| new-...
|
| Still can be reflashed if you have access to the right pins,
| but I believe there are more security features built into the
| later generations of these chips (plus some security fixed
| from the original 2350 design).
| majso wrote:
| nrF52
| analog31 wrote:
| I've played with a lot of boards, including Teensy, Seeed XIAO
| family, some boards from Adafruit and SparkFun, and one Chinese
| copy of a Chinese ESP32 board.
|
| For my work projects, I use Teensy because it's the screaming-
| est processor, and I use its computing power. The cost isn't
| exorbitant since it's typically re-usable unless you want to
| turn something into a permanent installation.
|
| I suggest play with what you've got until you get sick of it,
| or run into a hardware need that would be better served by
| another processor or board. Or choose a new board when your R4
| goes into something that you want to keep.
|
| I've tried to maintain a "platform agnostic" approach, where I
| stick with the general Arduino API and processor-independent
| libraries as much as possible, and only drop down into the
| vendor-specific libraries when there's a real performance
| reason. This makes it easier to switch boards if needed -- a
| lifesaver during the chip shortage, and possibly important
| under present day supply chain uncertainty.
|
| Doing it this way will give you the benefits of drawing from a
| broader range of tutorials and docs, while also providing a
| gentler learning curve on working with the low level chip-
| specific stuff.
| ptorrone wrote:
| (one of the best comments and advice so far)
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Pine64 has products that are far more open than Raspberry Pi
| products, and still have good community support. They also have
| several RISC V products, which are quickly overtaking AVR, PIC,
| and ARM Cortex M0 microcontrollers.
| gorthmog wrote:
| Depending upon your project, perhaps the new MakerPort might be
| a good fit? https://makerport.fun The basic kit comes with a
| built-in speaker, a bunch of LEDs, a servo, an LED matrix, and
| other goodies. The default firmware works with Scratch, Snap,
| and MicroBlocks, but I believe you can also use your own custom
| firmware.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| What I don't get is how what they do is even legally possible,
| since the libraries have all F/OSS licenses (MIT, LGPL, GPL,
| APL), and they don't even own the sole copyright to most things.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45978802
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45985663
| sc68cal wrote:
| You'd have to sue them to enforce it. Good luck bringing a case
| against Qualcomm, perhaps one of the worst companies known for
| its intellectual property management
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Why do _I_ need to sue them, when it 's me, who does things I
| think are granted in their licenses, that they try to forbid?
| Isn't that the other way around?
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(page generated 2025-11-22 23:01 UTC)