Arduino LLC and Arduino SRL Are United Again

October 1, in the official blog of Arduino LLC, an entry appeared stating that the organization is merging with Arduino SRL. Previously, Arduino LCC and Arduino SRL have already collaborated.

Arduino LLC was founded in 2008 and is the owner of the Arduino brand. The basis of the Arduino SRL is the Italian company Smart Projects SRL, which produced the original Arduino boards at the factory. For quite a long time, organizations collaborated with each other. Arduino LLC developed the boards and IDE, and Arduino SRL (Smart Projects SRL) was engaged in manufacturing, deducting royalties for using the trademark to an American developer.

The split came because of the money. As a developer, Arduino LLC did not care where and by whom the fees would be made. For example, China was considered as a platform for official production.

The owner of the Arduino SRL brand and the factory in Italy, Gianluco Martino, did not like it (since it would be difficult for him to compete with cheaper production from China) and at some point his company stopped deducting royalties for using the Arduino brand to Americans, and after and declared herself a "true Arduino developer." The domain arduino.org was registered, the site on which almost completely repeated the original arduino.cc. Quite expectedly, after all that happened, there were lawsuits from Arduino LLC.
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However, after a few years of trade wars and legal proceedings, the organization suddenly reached an amicable settlement and re-united to work on the Arduino.

Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino LLC, commented on the merger:

Today is one of the best days in Arduino history. This (merger) allows us to take a new course on constructive dialogue, innovations in the field of education and production. The Arduino Foundation will allow us to uphold the core values ​​of the community within the open source ecosystem and make our open source commitment stronger than ever. This is really a new beginning for Arduino!

In the future, this union may affect the prices of end devices, but it will relieve users from the forks of firmware for Arduino SRL and re-unite the community.