{"id":3112,"date":"2025-11-21T03:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=3112"},"modified":"2025-11-21T03:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:34:13","slug":"enshittification-of-arduino-begins-qualcomm-starts-clamping-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=3112","title":{"rendered":"Enshittification of Arduino Begins? Qualcomm Starts Clamping Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Enshittification<\/p>\n

When Qualcomm announced its acquisition of Arduino in October 2025<\/a>, the tinkerer and maker community watched nervously. Large corporate acquisitions rarely end well for open platforms after all, and enshittification<\/a> is something that often follows.<\/p>\n

And now, what’s followed is unsettling<\/strong>. Adafruit Industries<\/a>, makers of popular development boards and a respected voice in the open hardware space, have sounded the alarm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This Looks Concerning<\/h2>\n
\"Enshittification<\/figure>\n

Qualcomm has quietly made some massive changes to Arduino’s Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>, marking a clear departure from the platform’s founding principles.<\/p>\n

According to Adafruit, the new policies introduce sweeping user-license provisions<\/strong>, broaden data collection<\/strong> (particularly around AI usage<\/em>), and embed long-term account data retention<\/strong>, all while integrating user information into Qualcomm\u2019s broader data ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Section 7.1<\/a> grants Arduino a perpetual, irrevocable license over anything you upload<\/strong>. Your code, projects, forum posts, and comments all fall under this. This remains in effect even after you delete your account. Arduino retains rights to your content indefinitely.<\/p>\n

The license is also royalty-free and sublicensable. Arduino can use your content however they want, distribute it, modify it, and even sublicense it to others.<\/p>\n

\"Enshittification
This is not unfounded; <\/em><\/i>see for yourself<\/em><\/i><\/a>.<\/em><\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The terms further state<\/a> that users are not allowed to reverse engineer or attempt to understand how the platform works<\/strong> unless Arduino gives permission. Adafruit argues that this contradicts the values that made Arduino attractive to educators, researchers, and hobbyists.<\/p>\n

The Privacy Policy states Arduino is wholly owned by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. User data, including from minors, flows to other Qualcomm Group companies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While these policy changes have raised eyebrows, Qualcomm<\/a> and Arduino<\/a> maintain that the acquisition will not alter the core spirit of the platform. They also state that existing Arduino boards built on non-Qualcomm microcontrollers will continue to be supported.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, there are good reasons to take Adafruit’s concerns seriously<\/strong>. The updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy do contain sweeping language that feels out of place for a platform built on openness and transparency. The community is entitled to scrutinize these changes closely.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the hardware side of Arduino doesn’t seem to have changed too much as of now<\/strong>, so there’s that too. Going forward, how these two organizations respond to criticisms such as this should paint a more clear picture of Arduino’s future at its new home.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Qualcomm announced its acquisition of Arduino in October 2025, the tinkerer and maker community watched nervously. Large corporate acquisitions rarely end well for open platforms after all, and enshittification…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}