I've finally given up on Arduino, not the tools and the platform, but the company. Why? After working with them for years, I've finally got to a point where I think they are playing too many games with customers and resellers, and they finally pushed me over the line. They do not offer resellers any real discounts and you cannot make enough of being a reseller to make it worth your time, and I really do not see any value in using the offical overpriced boards. I would rather buy 2, 3, or 4 compatible boards for the same price. Sure I get supporting the Arduino platform, which I have, many times when buying boards for $100 when a similar compatible board is $15. So I have paid for the tools many times over. But it was a discussion I had with them online in the forum that pushed me over the edge.
I wanted to understand why they decided to go open source and if they could have chosen not to. Meaning, if they don't own the microprocessor chip design, and they don't own the FTDI chip they use to program the board, what are they really opensourcing? The only thing they could really own is the board design, which I'm pretty sure is not something that can be patented. What I asked them was in regards to being an offical reseller and ordering $5K worth of products to resale. I wanted to understand the business motivation behind what they call the products opensource hardware. I have come to understand that it doesn't really mean much all. It just means they publish the board layout. It is not what I would consider opensource hardware, since the chips are not theirs, which is really the core of the Arduino boards. When I tried to understand their approach and asked about this, they kicked me off the forum. They said I was just arguing. Actually, I had a $4500+ order I was going to place with them and was trying to decide which direction I wanted to go.
Another thing I asked is if they supported the compatible community. They said they did, then followed it up with a number of rants about how I shouldn't use other companies because those companies do not support the platform. But actually, many do such as SparkFun. I pointed out to that while they say they support the community as a whole, they always follow up with a negative comment about them. Does that mean you support them but do not really want to support them? I said that I was just trying to understand, as a reseller I want to understand the companies position as best I can. Their only response was to kick me off the forum.
So needless to say, there is something odd going on here. I think it comes down to them liking to use the latest catchy buzzwords and opensource is certainly one of those. But they do not like the compatible market. Maybe that explains why they stopped using SparkFun to produce their boards distributed in the US. Sure they have to on the surface, claim they do, but they really don't. You see it in their tone, in their annoyance that you did not buy their board, that they are waisting time with you when you didn't buy their board. Which I totally get. I wouldn't want to have to support a community that doesn't support me. Then why opensource it?
My final conclusion is that I really do not like their approach and I have moved on. There are tons of cloned, derived, and compatable boards, and I will continue to use those going forward and I will sign up as a reseller for many of them. I have decided not to submit my application to become a reseller for Arduino. I have better things to do than mess with companies that are not honest and are playing games with resellers and their clients and that will block a new reseller because they asked too many questions. I have ran into and experianced way too many of these types of companies over the years and I don't care to play those games anymore.