The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is Just to Love, and Be Loved in Return

To say there has been some confusion around the Arduino brand over the last few years would be an understatement. While both parties shared similar logos, graphics, websites and boards, Arduino LLC (aka .cc) and Arduino Srl (aka .org) functioned as two entirely separate parties, thereby dividing the Maker community.

At World Maker Faire 2016, Massimo Banzi took the New York Hall of Science stage for his highly-anticipated State of Arduino address. During his standing room-only talk, he discussed the Arduino Create platform, name-dropped Hackster.io twice (not that we were counting), and introduced the new ESLOV IoT Kit. However, it was the last five minutes that will forever go down in Maker Movement history.

Around 1:50pm ET, Banzi called Federico Musto of Arduino.org to join him up on stage, announcing that the two groups have settled their differences and signed a settlement agreement to reunite the two divisions.

A blog post on the Arduino.cc and Arduino.org sites explain that by the end of this year, the newly-created ‘Arduino Holding’ will become the single point of contact for the wholesale distribution of all current and future products.

In addition, a not-for-profit “Arduino Foundation” will be formed, which will be responsible for maintaining the open-source Arduino desktop IDE. It will also offer a variety of scholarships, and help promote community and developer initiatives.

Today is one of the best days in Arduino history. This allows us to start a new course for Arduino made of constructive dialogue and disruptive innovation in the education, Makers and IoT fields. The Arduino Foundation will allow us to champion the core values of the Arduino Community within the open-source ecosystem and to make our commitment to open-source stronger than ever. This is really a new beginning for Arduino! - Massimo Banzi

Of course, we are thrilled to resolve the issues that have taken place over the past couple of years, and the team is working together to continue to offer the best open hardware and software. We know how passionate our partners and developers are about Arduino, and the growth and loyalty has been astonishing. Arduino developers will continue to see amazing technical developments including NFC, BLE, voice controls, and more, to fuel the IoT growth and other innovations. — Federico Musto

Those who were not lucky enough to have experienced in person, Adafruit captured the amazing moment on camera. You can see the presentation in its entirety below! (Pay close attention to the 3:00 mark!)