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SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

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Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#261

Post by MallocVoidstar »

torginus wrote: post #100
skybrian wrote: post #45

I don’t know what’s going on, but I checked what Teensy is up to these days and it seems that last March they decided to outsource manufacturing and direct sales to SparkFun: https://forum.pjrc.com/index.php?threads/sparkfun-to-manufac...

Drama aside, why would someone prefer Adafruit or Sparkfun products over much cheaper whitelabel alternatives from China? A lot of those come with very good support and communities as well.

Adafruit dev boards are way more expensive than Chinese alternatives but I've never used an Adafruit board where I went "why in the world did they do X", where X is some design choice (except having a bright LED light up while the board had power). On the other hand I've had Chinese boards that have a battery jack but an always-powered component on the board uses like 10+mA at all times when alternative choices for the same component use literally hundreds/thousands of times less power (but cost 1 cent more).

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#262

Post by iancmceachern »

ptorrone wrote: post #21

hi, phil here — post on adafruit here: https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/01/12/discontinuing-the-teens... i’ll stop back and answer anything (sparkfun will not?). sparkfun is the exclusive maker and distributor of the closed-source teensy and informed us we will not be able to purchase the teensy. this happened after i sent an email reporting the founder, nate, for multiple harassing actions directed at limor, including…

I am a lifelong Sparkfun and Adafruit customer, I grew up and went to engineering school just down the street from Sparkfun.

This event will cause me to no longer be a Sparkfun customer.

There is no one that I have more respect for in this world than limor. She has done more for this industry, education and open source than anyone alive.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#263

Post by parsimo2010 »

torginus wrote: post #100
skybrian wrote: post #45

I don’t know what’s going on, but I checked what Teensy is up to these days and it seems that last March they decided to outsource manufacturing and direct sales to SparkFun: https://forum.pjrc.com/index.php?threads/sparkfun-to-manufac...

Drama aside, why would someone prefer Adafruit or Sparkfun products over much cheaper whitelabel alternatives from China? A lot of those come with very good support and communities as well.

Both Adafruit and Sparkfun manufacturing quality is higher than generic manufacturing from China. I suspect that most of the Chinese alternatives meet their price point by using parts that are out of spec and were purchased at a discount by the chip manufacturer (or just scrounged for free from the reject pile).

My primary example is this clock generator breakout: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2045

The board is open source and there are tons of options made in China, often on a purple PCB. I've had terrible experiences with them, over 50% of the purple boardss I've purchased fail to achieve PLL lock because of multiple reasons- sometimes replacing the crystal can get it locked, but sometimes the chip is just out of spec and can't get a lock. Occasionally I'll get a lock on one PLL and the board is partly useable. I've given up dealing with the hassle and now I just spend the extra few dollars to get a breakout that uses parts sourced from authorized distributors that meet quality control standards. Plus this gives the profits to the people who designed the board and released it as open hardware.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#264

Post by daemonk »

I am unsure of the impact of this to the regular consumer as this seems like a pretty niche area. But it's kinda shitty that interpersonal relationships of two companies are impacting their customers negatively.

The onus is not up to public opinion or customer politics to resolve your schoolyard differences. We just want to buy your products and not get loaded with baggage. We don't owe you loyalty on top of the price we paid you for the product.

It's a bad look for the parties involved.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#265

Post by ptorrone »

hamburglar wrote: post #257
ptorrone wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sparkfun will continue to use limor’s open source code, libraries, and designs. that is how open source works, and we are fine with that, and that is awesome! what is not speculation is - paul (teensy creator) told us directly that sparkfun’s decision to block us from purchasing teensy was final. that was not a heat of the moment thing, and it was not handled through normal purchasing channels. i do not even purchase…

> the termination letter was addressed broadly to “adafruit leadership,” not to any specific operational contact. that alone tells you this was not a routine business dispute That really doesn’t tell me anything. I would like to humbly suggest you’re very close to this issue, in an already stressful personal situation, and you’re reading things between the lines kind of aggressively and overreacting. I’m not saying y…

it seems like if i do not reply, it's worse? i totally get what you are saying, however i think we're part of this hackernews community too, and not here to litigate past issues, and i will probably always get a little too worked up when it comes to what i believe is a long history of a "competitor" doing things outside of "it's just business, get thicker skin" ...

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#266

Post by mikkupikku »

Quite frankly, whenever I see people going the public CoC accusation route instead of talking things out man-to-man or simply parting ways politely, I see man children who never learned to resolve problems in a mature manner without running off to get Mom.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#267

Post by KaiserPro »

MaKey wrote: post #185
seanhunter wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall I wish we lived in a world where they are not needed. But in every community, some people are assholes so they are often needed.

Communities were doing just fine without a CoC up until they became a trend. People got banned too but the moderators couldn't hide behind a CoC to justify questionable decisions.

> Communities were doing just fine without a CoC

I mean kinda, but also not. CoCs just codify what the moderators think.

Even Hacker news has a CoC: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html its just called a guide.

A community has to have a set of rules which most people agree on. One of the most common attacks in a moderated forum is "Oh but X did Y" and "thats not fair X can do it"

A CoC can be a simple way to "tap the sign" when someone is being a dick.

It also allows communities to set expectations at the start, not after someone has transgressed and pissed in the well.

In an ideal world, you'd just have a thing that says "don't be a dick" but that doesn't work for many and hilarious reasons. Engineers who who either have a god complex, parsing issues or empathy gaps (either learnt or inherent ) are notoriously difficult as a community to keep from getting into frothy arguments that colour everything and give off a bad smell.

CoCs are a tool, that can sometimes help.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#268

Post by KaiserPro »

15155 wrote: post #194
MaKey wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall I think Code of Conducts are a net negative. Alleged violations of them seem to be used to lend credibility to actions that otherwise would be hard(er) to justify.

They're a weapon of "social justice" - 90% of CoC rules are common-sense stuff that doesn't have to be said, combined with one or two "progressive" ideas shoehorned in.

Mate, thats just rules. rules you don't agree with.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#269

Post by bityard »

aobdev wrote: post #165
ptorrone wrote: post #21

hi, phil here — post on adafruit here: https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/01/12/discontinuing-the-teens... i’ll stop back and answer anything (sparkfun will not?). sparkfun is the exclusive maker and distributor of the closed-source teensy and informed us we will not be able to purchase the teensy. this happened after i sent an email reporting the founder, nate, for multiple harassing actions directed at limor, including…

I understand selling the Teensy line is out of your control, but what does “support” mean exactly in this context? Will related materials stay on your site? I really hope this doesn’t lead to “boycott” of Teensy per se. I completely sympathize with tensions running high but please reconsider for the good of the community.

Documentation yes, but also Adafruit has very active support forums where customers can ask questions which get answered either by the community, or Adafruit employees, or both.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#270

Post by KaiserPro »

danesparza wrote: post #107
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no right to privacy, but they may have an NDA. Also, if they get too specific, they could open themselves up to a libel lawsuit. Though, if they were consulting a lawyer I don't think there would be any release. Simply cut business ties, and move on, it happens all the time, and would leave room to patch things up later.

"they could open themselves up to a libel lawsuit." They already have.

I think in this case it would be Defamation. But the claim is generic enough to be provable (ie private matter, private emails, CoC violation)
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