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Kickstarter, Trademarks and Lies

Massimo BanziNovember 26th, 2012

Update:

We had to disable comments because the discussion was turning into a flame war.

Just a few clarifications: Arduino is not suing anybody. We never intended to do that in the slightest. We love Kickstarter and , as I said in the post, we think they are important to Makers. We are now in contact with Kickstarter to make sure that in the future the communication between us are more direct and clear. Our manufacturing partner in Italy has issues with some statements made in the Kickstarter campaign and they are getting in touch directly with the project creator to clear the situation.

—- original post —–

Kickstarter has undoubtedly changed the world by helping makers turn into an  industry to be reckoned with.
As with every brilliant invention the first prototypes always have a few issues that get fixed over time by trial and error. Figuring out a way to respond to issues and criticism quickly and effectively is the essence of growth and Kickstarter definitiely had done a lot but there is still a number of issues that are hard to deal with.

I want to show you an example of something that is happening to us right now.

A few weeks ago somebody launched a kickstarter for a project called smARtDUINO (notice the choice of lowercase/uppercase letters) that is supposed to be a better Arduino and all the rest. There is one of them every week so nothing new there.

The first issue that struck me was that right in the project title they claim to be the “former ARDUINO’s manufacturer”

Since I’ve never heard of this person I’ve emailed immediately the factory asking if they knew him.
Nobody had ever heard of him, then a long search started that ended with the realisation that he hired two factory workers who used to work for one of the many suppliers that our manufacturing partner uses.

So according to them, if I hire two factory workers from Ford I can claim I used to manufacture Ford cars…

When we got an email from an important worldwide reseller asking us if our manufacturing partner was behind this kickstarter, we really got worried that the confusion was going to create serious damages to us and decided to act.

We asked our lawyer in Italy to get in touch with this person to have some statements rectified while I got in touch with Kickstarter to see if they could act as a mediator in the dispute.

Based on the current available information, it seems that the company that owns the domain (Aldi Technology) doesn’t exist and the person who launched the kickstarter, who claims to be living in Italy (Mr. Dimitri Albino), actually moved to china years ago.

Italian speakers will find some old forum messages linking this person to some dubious activity.

Every week there is a kicstarter where, in a a way or another, somebody claims to be us… Either they call their project “Arduino” straight away or they ride the Arduino name in more clever ways. We usually email them but not all respond etc etc.

I wrote to kickstarter throught their public feedback form and emailed directly to somebody in marketing I had contact with in the past.

My point was that Kickstarter have to provide some kind of assistance when there are trademark violations or when somebody makes false statements.
Like many important websites have a clear and direct way to raise issues of trademark violations, Kickstarter should also make it easy to raise issues with them.

I got no reply from the marketing person and the next day I get this :
“Hi Massimo,

Thanks for writing in and bringing this to our attention. This is a matter that must be taken up directly with the project creator. You can contact them by clicking “Contact me” on the project page.

Best,
Kickstarter”

Well I don’t think Kickstarter can remove themselves from the picture, they are not a charity, they make money out of what they do. They should protect their users by better vetting who wants to be funded and by making it easier to raise issues about individual kicstarters.

What does the community think?

m

Categories:Uncategorized

141 Responses to “Kickstarter, Trademarks and Lies”

  1. Dennis Brown Says:

    So far, it seems that Arduino does not have a leg to stand on for smartDuino — however you want to capitalize it. That means that the domain name is also not in violation. The use of “smARtHOST Arduino(TM)” for a board name likely steps over the boundary and should be changed to something like smartHOST “for” Arduino(TM).

    This is what it really boils down to. Obviously, if Arduino meant no underhanded or greedy intent to steal the funds of the Arduino community who backed this Kickstarter project, then they would not have timed their “revelation” of this slight at the point to cause the most harm, and after the Kickstarter campaign was ended — so Dimitri would have our funds for Arduino to steal. I doubt there would be much left for Dimitri after he fulfilled all the rewards — not worth going after, and before the Kickstarter ended, he did not have any money to go after either. SHAMEFUL GREED!!!

    It is pretty disgusting to me. If Arduino does not start acting like a responsible community citizen soon, I am afraid that they will loose 1000 members.

    What do I mean by responsible? Simple, when you see your brother making a mistake, do you inform him of it and ask him to change, or do you set a trap for him and hope he falls into it so you can beat him up and steal his money — or worse, someone else’s money.

  2. Dennis Brown Says:

    Just to add, from the Arduino FAQ:”

    Not okay:
    Arduino Xxxxxx
    Xxxxxx Arduino
    Arduino Compatible Xxxxxx – use “Xxxxxx (Arduino-Compatible)” instead

    Okay:
    Xxxxxx for Arduino – products that work with official Arduino boards (e.g. shields or kits)
    Xxxxxx (Arduino-Compatible) – variations and clones which are software and hardware compatible

    Note that while we don’t attempt to restrict uses of the “duino” suffix, its use causes the Italians on the team to cringe (apparently it sounds terrible); you might want to avoid it. (It’s also trademarked by a Hungarian company.)”

    This last sentence would indicate that a whole lot of boards might be infringing on some Hungarian TM. If true, there is going to be a whole lot of name changing going on.

  3. Dimitri Albino Says:

    There are few things that are coming out here, and not only here.

    Somebody is even starting to doubt our good faith and suppose that we are not going to make the products or ship them, on time or any time.

    This is the clear evidence of how much misleading ideas this post generated, stating the false.

    Here we are talking about someone, Massimo Banzi from Team Arduino, that wrote on the public blog of Arduino, here, which have for sure hundreds of thousands followers, if not more, that a company doesn’t exist and that another person, stated with first and last name, was claiming something that he didn’t, never.

    Reading the Kickstarter page, including the bio, the faqs, the comments and the huge quantity of updates, anyone can see very easily that this person always made very clear he’s living in China.

    The registration certificate went public so, the company exists and this is proven as well. Nobody heard about any apologize for the false statements.

    So, why publish something so unfaithful?

    When then it came out that the problem was on the table since October 29th, few hours after the launch of the Kickstarter project, the question become: why need to wait almost one month before complain?

    The only think Massimo Banzi tried to do, here and in other forums, was to try to change the topic and move it on Kickstarter. NO WAY! Here he wrote the false about one person and one company and made people believe they have been victim of a fraud! Change the topic is the worst bull**** ever!

    The question is: is it right that the owner of a so popular blog write false statements, but when become clear to everybody that he is wrong, he try to change topic, instead issue the owed apologize?

    This remember me when Steve Jobs (R.I.P.) is supposed he stated: “there is nothing wrong with iPhone 4, they are holding it not properly”.

    In a very “Apple” style, lawyers appeared.

    They are supported but an international law firm that has been founded in 1877, according to the legal document we received, and count over 50 associates. Is it possible that, as the documents show very clear, the “problem” was known since the first day of Kickstarter campaign but no one of these over 50 professionals with so long history suggested to ask us to stop the campaign, if something was wrong?

    Do anybody knows how far is the Italian office of Arduino from our Italian office? Less than 2.000 meters. You can walk there in less than half an hour. Walk! And someone in that office, that used to live next door to someone of our office, know very well more than one of our team. Everything happen in a small village. So, again, why not just take the car, drive two minutes, and go to ask: can you please stop that? We actually doesn’t like it that much.

    It was really necessary wait for one month and then write on the blog some false information, trow some dirt on others name?

    If we can’t claim that we have been involved in the manufacture of Arduino, why there are press news from Team Arduino that proudly show a production line, claimed to be owned by their Italian branch, where the persons working are in the picture published by us on Kickstarter? So, they work for us now, in that old pictures they were working for who?

    Massimo Banzi is for sure member of a group of very clever peoples that created such a good thing like Arduino, but he doesn’t have the right to attribute to others the false and pretend that nothing happen here.

    I’ve wrote it, already: no kudos.

  4. Dennis Brown Says:

    I just looked up the Hungarian TM information #005832662. It is for the mark: “DuinO”

    Not exactly the same thing.

  5. codylynx Says:

    I truly believe it is as simple as Dimitri’s English isn’t the best, meaning that the words he used to say what he was meaning should have been different. I was able to interpolate what he really meant, as do i also think all the kickstarter backers were able to also. As well as others from the, dare i say, Arduino community.

    Dimitri just simply made an open I/O to make it easy to connect all these open source hardwares. Such as Arduino, and all Arduino clones. They are all clones.

    It has only made my interest in Arduino and open source Hardware greater, and i have some items from sparkfun i am going to order soon, that is a couple of Arduino’s and other electronics.

  6. Raven Says:

    Why are reasonable observations being censored on this web site? It makes me wonder if Massimo regrets asking the community for its comments now.

    Wikipedia, “Arduin took revenge on those who had been unfaithful to him”

  7. Arduino admirer Says:

    So much heated discussion. Clear indication smartduino it is a good product indeed. Too bad I missed the deadline.

    Don’t give money to the lawyers. Spend the money doing product development!

  8. Kevin Fox Says:

    Massimo, you asked the Arduino for comments, so here’s mine.

    It’s obvious that Dimitri isn’t trying to do you or Arduino harm. Did he over-represent his team’s association with Arduino? Perhaps, though not to the degree that you claim, and your repeated accusations that he’s a liar go over the top.

    While you’ve made it very clear you don’t like the term ‘Smartduino’ this is a slope that Arduino has navigated before, trying to find the happy medium between building an open platform and community of developers and manufacturers and protecting your own intellectual property.

    Regardless of where Smartduino falls on that line it clearly doesn’t fall very far away from it. So again, whether Dimitri is right or wrong he certainly doesn’t deserve the lambasting bordering on libel that you’re dishing on him.

    For someone who has such a leadership role in the Arduino community, your actions today have done a very poor job of promoting it. At the heart of the Arduino movement is the idea that hardware development doesn’t have to be about huge companies that build walls around their IP with lawyers manning the battlements.

    This is how THEY solve their conflicts. This is not how WE solve our conflicts.

    Got issues with how the Smartduino project represents itself? Talk to them. Work with them. Don’t try to whip us into a frenzy of torches and pitchforks because every single person in this community is trying to expand it and move it forward, a sentiment I see throughout these comments, but not in your own words, where I would most expect to see them.

  9. codylynx Says:

    So, NOW i’m spending money for Arduino’s and Arduino compatible hardware due to all the kickstarter Adruino gadgets. Not 5 more years from now… Just sayin.

  10. n3m0 Says:

    Dimitri’s english sucks.
    Doesn’t matter if supporters can or cannot extrapolate what he meant. “What the author meant” is right in the highschool, not in the business field.
    Let’s make a company named smFAnCEBOOrK and take bets how much time it will take until the shit hits the fan.
    It is obvious (looking at the original post), that Team Massime was undertaking some actions to clarify the whole thing (lookin up manufacturer, looking up the person, contating companies worried about the false product, contatcting the Kickstarter). So now Mr. Dmitri instead of crying about ‘it was a conspiracy! they knew it from the beginning!’ should maybe try to settle the thing in civillized and decent manner.
    Cause you know, if I did that facebook thing and they contacted me after two months – my tears over ‘oh you knew it since the beginning’ would just be ridiculous and childish.
    So all in all – if you have a company and your english suxx, hire a translator, they ain’t expensive. If you want to name your product after some other product – obey the fucking guidelines to avoid being sued for IP infringmenet.
    Your faithful maDeIMIeTRI toAneLBIeNO.

  11. codylynx Says:

    @ Kevin Fox. Well said my friend, well said! Thank you

  12. Ekki Cau Says:

    I couldn’t have said it better @Kevin 🙂

  13. Frank Says:

    Dimitri,

    Simple question: Does the name on the board, “SmARtHOST Arduino(TM)”, violate the permitted trademark use of the term “Arduino(TM)”?

    See http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ for clarification. This clearly states that “Arduino Xxxxxx” is not okay for a product name and they consider this to be trademark infringment.

    If your answer is “Yes” (which it’s pretty clear that it is), then offer to change the name to avoid the trademark dispute and end this.

    If your answer is “No”, I’d be very interested in hearing your rationale about how “SmARtHOST Arduino(TM)” does not violate the permitted trademark use.

  14. codylynx Says:

    ok, so they just need to change the name, right? So, why not get together now, and save face, and save the Arduino Community, by Talking about what it should be named. Here are a few examples off the top of my head.

    Smartduino or MinduinO or Interduino or SmartKit or SmartIO or SmartMaker w/(Arduino-Compatable)

  15. Dimitri Albino Says:

    @n3m0

    No body is crying here! I’m the one that since the very beginning wrote that I was sure Massimo misunderstood the whole things just because he didn’t have the time to read properly the project and to get proper information.

    Then lawyers came out and their docs shown that all this thing started 28 days before. Such a long time, even for the busiest person, to check better before write something about others.

    Since Massimo wrote false information about my person, when the truth is in the pages that he printed about a month ago, then I think it’s clear that the purpose of this post is not the later claimed intent to discuss about Kickstarter but it is a free and useless attack to my very own person.

    My English it sucks, so what? It came from the same brain that created the smARtBUS Open I/O, that’s the only way you can find today in the world to make Arduino communicate with an half dozen of other development tools without touch a single wire or do any soldering.

    982 people understood it, without any problem, and happily supported it.

    @Frank the smARtHOST ARDUINO(TM) is simply wrong and it should be smARtHOST FOR ARDUINO(TM).

    I would like to make clear that we are talking about the picture of a prototype, this is not a product that has been delivered yet and is not in anybody’s hands.

    It’s just the picture of a prototype that can receive thousands of changes, before become a final product. Of course one of these changes will be the proper naming.

    Again, here we are making a huge amount of noise, and accusing us to unfaithful behavior and IP infringement, all based on the picture of a prototype that has never been released as final product, yet.

    This is just helping to forget that Massimo, in his post, wrote totally false information about me and my company.

    Dimitri

  16. Kickstarter Sued for Patent Infringement | Spyglass Legal Says:

    […] However, like Youtube, they should have a process for resolving IP conflicts. According to this post, currently Kickstarter does not. I predict this will […]

  17. ferux Says:

    @Vimes

    You didn’t spend much time gathering info, did you? You even got smartduino name wrong. I’ll just quote this pearl of wisdom out of your posts:

    “Arduino are one of the most trusted and popular names in alot of fields from Engineering to Art and from Heavy machinery to home automation. If Arduino say this ARtUINO is a fraudulent and illegal project then I believe them over some guy who doesn’t even seem to know where he lives and has been unable to back alot of his claims up so far.”

    So let’s believe them blindly because of who they are, whatever they may say. Let’s berate the guy despite the fact that he clearly stated where he lived, and that he has been able to back most of his claims so far. This is not the way a critical thinker should be approaching ANY issue, and I used to think the open hardware community to be better than the average on this matter. But apparently the “brand” weighs in more than ideas here as well.

    Then I look at the date in that document and I feel a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I didn’t know what to think after reading this blogpost, now I am with smartduino (or better, against your position, massimo) in this battle.

  18. codylynx Says:

    All that over a typo on an image…. Bet he wishes he’d have called first… lmao!

  19. Dimitri Albino Says:

    @ferux,

    this is not a battle. Not for us at least. As I’ve wrote many times, is just a misunderstanding.

    Of course, since it been clear that Team Arduino is monitoring this from the very first day, it sound strange that Massimo wrote so false things against me.

    They called the lawyers but we didn’t, and we will not do. When I’ve received the e-mail from the CEO of the Italian company part of the project Arduino, with the letter from the law firm in attachment, I’ve just wrote to them to cool down and calm the lawyers, because we will not spend one cent and one minute in a legal dispute with them.

    We are here to put our brains and hour hands to work for the benefit of the Open Source Community and not to let lawyers get fat. If what their are looking for is a cut of our Kickstarter funds, say it clearly and not spreading crap over my name.

    I’ve tried many times to make these things become just a funny joke to talk about but, it looks like we have to take it seriously, at least to get back the honor on our name.

    Beside this, we should think about the benefit of our project for the community and not the missing word “FOR” on a picture taken to a prototype.

    Dimitri

  20. n3m0 Says:

    >My English it sucks, so what? It came from the same brain that created the smARtBUS Open I/O, that’s the only way you can find today in the world to make Arduino communicate with an half dozen of other development tools without touch a single wire or do any soldering.
    982 people understood it, without any problem, and happily supported it.

    Great. Really. I am sure everyone who needs it will appreciate your input and your hard work. That does not mean however that you should be treated lightly when it comes to dubious (at best) practices or possbily malicious (at worst) intent.

    >No body is crying here! I’m the one that since the very beginning wrote that I was sure Massimo misunderstood the whole things just because he didn’t have the time to read properly the project and to get proper information.

    Yes, you are. About 28 days that are, let’s be honest, meaningless here.

    >Then lawyers came out and their docs shown that all this thing started 28 days before. Such a long time, even for the busiest person, to check better before write something about others.

    If I understood correctly (please correct me if I’m wrong), this started JUST AFTER you released your kicsktarter. Then it took 28 days for Mr. Massimo to write the blogpost. And again, if I’m understanding this correctly – during these 28 days Mr. Massimo was contacting Kickstarter, checking your dubious claims (those about “manufacturing”) and doing other things that were most probably supposed to be a background check in order NOT to throw a baseless accusations. And now you are complaining about those 28 days.

    Let’s be for a minute adults here. Even if it took one year from noticing the name thing to issuing the post, it doesn’t matter at all – no it does not. Mr. Massimo could have been busy, could have been fighting cancer or could have gone to Africa fight huner, whatever. It does not change A BIT the fact, that your actions are highly suspicious or dubious from both moral as well as legal point of view. Which is what you’re dealing with now.

    Trying to shift the center of weight from your actions to some meaningless delay of actions of Mr. Massimo is worth condemnation.

    >Since Massimo wrote false information about my person, when the truth is in the pages that he printed about a month ago, then I think it’s clear that the purpose of this post is not the later claimed intent to discuss about Kickstarter but it is a free and useless attack to my very own person.

    What false information? Here:
    http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/manufacturer?q=manufacturer
    If those 2 people were not a company – you don’t have the right to call it ‘manufacturing arduino’. It is misleading, and I’d call it a blatant lie.

    >For years we manufactured the ARDUINO in Italy. Now we created a new Open System: modular, scalable, the world’s cheapest and smallest!

    Apart from the manufacturing thing mentioned above, you imply that the whole thing is Italian based. And then Mr. Massimo writes, that ‘it seems’. So where are the lies?

    The only thing I cannot verify is the claim about dubious forum activity, so I guess if we wanted to know we’d have to ask some italian speaking person to get those for us.

    >My English it sucks, so what?

    So that if you’re trying to do business worldwide, you better make it not suck in order to avoid situations like this or any other involving incorrect statements.

    I guess 982 people appreciated the work you put into your project. But if you REALLY need such dubious practices to sell it, I guess they were wrong. After all if it was really good, you wouldn’t need to use such dirty tricks.

  21. Raven Says:

    N3M0, it does not matter what you believe or say. Dimitri says the final product will fix the TM naming issue and you can sleep tight knowing that you’ve contributed nothing but chaff to the actual problem. But I do hope you found your public dumps cathartic.

  22. Dimitri Albino Says:

    @ n3m0

    I copy and paste from Massimo’s blog post:

    ” the person who launched the kickstarter, who claims to be living in Italy (Mr. Dimitri Albino)”

    Then I report what you wrote:

    “And then Mr. Massimo writes, that ‘it seems’. So where are the lies?”

    He dind’t wriute that “id seems”, he wrote that I claim. And this is not true. If you spend your time reading all the materials on Kickstarter, including the project’s page, the updates, the comments, the bio and so on it is very clear what I always claim. So yes, it is a lie what Massimo wrote and, unfortunately, is not the fruit of the rush but he had a month of time to think about this.

    When I say that our company did the work for the factory that made the Arduino and we have the invoices for this, I’m talking about companies and so your link to the dictionary is just the confirmation of this.

    Again, you talk about “dubious practices” but there is nothing dubious in all what we did, doing and will do. The doubts came from the misleading false information that Massimo posted.

    I can understand that, like many others, you are trying to move the topic far away from the original problem, to protect the one you like.

    We knew since the beginning that the common people will think we are the bad, after read a post full of false information.

    I just hope that you read all the materials, with attention, before express your opinions.

    Dimitri

  23. n3m0 Says:

    I’ve contributed certainly more than you, so why don’t you make yourself something to drink?

  24. Raven Says:

    The l33t n3m0 is too busy sending crapola links which I wouldn’t bother going to just based on his rants. But I am sure he’s having a hardy, lonely, laugh. Good for you n3m0.

  25. Ekki Cau Says:

    n3m0… sorry to say this but you’re full of crap and not helping at all…

  26. thorbear Says:

    Wow, what a charming little Appleduino fanboi you are, n3m0.
    Or are you in reality one of the actual Appleduino guys, here to keep up the lies and slander?

  27. n3m0 Says:

    >When I say that our company did the work for the factory that made the Arduino and we have the invoices for this, I’m talking about companies and so your link to the dictionary is just the confirmation of this.

    Cleaning lady that was cleaning the factory has also invoices, so she also was a manufacturer of Arduino. Now I know your intent is malicious.

    So NO, the link is NOT a confirmation of this. If you are a subcontractor for manufacturer that does not make you a manufacturer. Out of curiosity: are those invoices issued by Team Arduino?

    >He dind’t wriute that “id seems”, he wrote that I claim. And this is not true. If you spend your time reading all the materials on Kickstarter, including the project’s page, the updates, the comments, the bio and so on it is very clear what I always claim. So yes, it is a lie what Massimo wrote and, unfortunately, is not the fruit of the rush but he had a month of time to think about this.

    Oh yes he did:

    >Based on the current available information, it seems that the company that owns the domain (Aldi Technology) doesn’t exist and the person who launched the kickstarter, who claims to be living in Italy (Mr. Dimitri Albino), actually moved to china years ago.

    Keywords here: “based on current available information”
    and “it seems”.
    Info about the project: “A project in Romano Canavese, Italy by Dimitri Albino”

    Yes, it **seems** you’re in Italy. And he never stated that as a fact.

    Granted, you never said anywhere “I live in Italy”. But from what you wrote it seemd you claimed so.

    >Again, you talk about “dubious practices” but there is nothing dubious in all what we did, doing and will do. The doubts came from the misleading false information that Massimo posted.

    That is your opinion and you have the right to be wrong. Team Arduino and their lawyers have different opinion, based also on the trademark guidelines that you obviously neglected. And yes, it is dubious – one can doubt whether you infringe their trademark rights or not, hence it is dubious.

    >I can understand that, like many others, you are trying to move the topic far away from the original problem, to protect the one you like.

    I don’t particularly like any of you. I happen to notice, that both the name of the product, and trying to ride on somebyd’s else back is not nice. Lightly speaking.

    >We knew since the beginning that the common people will think we are the bad, after read a post full of false information.

    Again – I don’t see ‘false’ information there. It says you say you manufactured arduino and surprise surprise, you say you manufactured arduino. It says you named your product against their guidelines and surprise surprise – you did. Mr. Massimo never stated it as a fact that you claim, he stated that by his current knowledge it seems you claim so. Other than that we have no confirmation of those supposed dubious actions of yours so that is in suspension.

    That is one of the reasons for which a good English skills are a must. So that you don’t try to accuse somebody of something he didn’t do.

    >I just hope that you read all the materials, with attention, before express your opinions.

    I read, saw your kickstarter page, homepage and even googled a bit. Enough to know that Mr. Massimo is right about suspicious naming of your product and claims about manufacturing parts.

  28. n3m0 Says:

    Poor little raven got a butthurt after being treated as deserved – as a troll? LOL, have some of that drink again.

    @Ekki cau: maybe if you had anything substantial to say then somebody might have taken what you say as something more than farts of Raven. Oh, sorry to say that.

  29. Ekki Cau Says:

    Whoa, not even I got that moody in the whole day of posting , guess I’ll go back to my popcorn again XD

  30. John Says:

    Who cares what you did. You have high ego don’t you? And why should kickstart be beld accountble? If you bave trademark issue let the court know. No company should modify or remove content unless proper authority steps in.

  31. n3m0 Says:

    You could’ve get that idea before you opened your mouth… XD

  32. Philosofuino Says:

    Go create great products that we all love and please stop this!

  33. Ekki Cau Says:

    Ummm n3m0, I been posting my thoughs all day, if you scroll up you will see, but basically I have already said all that I needed to say, but you’re just flamming up the post again with your comments, it would had been more helpfull if you just readed all the comments and throw our your opinions, because most of what you posted was already vented thru out the day

  34. n3m0 Says:

    >I been posting my thoughs all day, if you scroll up you will see, but basically I have already said all that I needed to say, but you’re just flamming up the post again with your comments, it would had been more helpfull if you just readed all the comments and throw our your opinions, because most of what you posted was already vented thru out the day

    I did read the thread, I did read your comments and I didn’t agree with them.
    I didn’t refuse you your right to comment as you are trying to do now with me now.
    And certainly I didn’t come out like a dick and said “you’re full of shit”. Which you did.
    I commented on something that was not underlined proprerly – 28 days do not matter. As far as I know this is internet so I have the right to do so and you are in no position to decide whether I should/can or not. So having in mind your dickish attitude – just like Raven, have some drink as well. EOT with such a vulgar outskirt if intellect as you.

  35. Ekki Cau Says:

    Congratulations, you just won the internetz

    And correct you have the right to say your thoughts, but the way you said them pissed me off, you where the dick first so I think you deserved that

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    […] attention of Arduino founder Massimo Banzi, who had never heard of Albino, and caused him to pen a vitriolic blog post calling out both the creator of the campaign and Kickstarter […]

  39. smARtDUINO has PR Problems | Hacker Bee Says:

    […] the original Arduino team, and this exploded over the last couple of days.  Mossimo at Arduino.cc posted on his blog that the smARtDUINO team had never manufactured Arduinos as their Kickstarter strongly implied, […]

  40. Links 29/11/2012: Dell Sells GNU/Linux Gear at Lower Cost Than Windows, Fedora 18 Reaches Beta | Techrights Says:

    […] Kickstarter, Trademarks and Lies Just a few clarifications: Arduino is not suing anybody. We never intended to do that in the slightest. We love Kickstarter and , as I said in the post, we think they are important to Makers. We are now in contact with Kickstarter to make sure that in the future the communication between us are more direct and clear. Our manufacturing partner in Italy has issues with some statements made in the Kickstarter campaign and they are getting in touch directly with the project creator to clear the situation. […]

  41. The Geek’s Reading List – Week of November 30th, 2012 | thegeeksreadinglist Says:

    […] http://arduino.cc/blog/2012/11/26/kickstarter-trademarks-and-lies/ […]