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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

#61

Post by JKCalhoun »

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…

Trying to parse as I am not in the know. Nate is Nate Seidle, CEO of SparkFun Electronics?

I know SparkFun recently took over Paul Stoffregen and Robin Coon's Teensy production (I reached out at the time and Paul said it was cool).

I'm guessing Adafruit got a special deal in purchasing Teensy's from SparkFun but because of an allegation made by you against Nate, they are responding by dropping your entire product line?

Anyway, good luck to everyone involved. It's a small community of companies that provide for makers.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#62

Post by aftbit »

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…

Oh boy, just what we need. Drama between open hardware vendors. Neither of these responses feels like the complete story to me. I hope there's a path forward to heal this rift in one way or another. Both SparkFun and Adafruit are doing amazing things for the community and I would love to see both continue to thrive.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#63

Post by napkinartist »

cloudfudge wrote: post #44
smeeagain2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

smeeagain2 says: > Maybe the AdaFruit founder said something unacceptable like "it's OK to be white" or "a man can't become an actual woman just by pretending that he is." That might explain the conflict. Why would you just invent identity politics issues to be mad about?

[dead]

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#64

Post by timmmmmmay »

reactordev wrote: post #19
palmotea wrote: post #13

Ok, so what's the drama? Because it's obvious that there was some drama there: "inappropriately involving a SparkFun customer with a private matter," "Responding and forwarding offensive, antagonistic, and derogatory emails and material." My guess is someone was trying to hit on someone and got mad when they were rejected.

[flagged]

if they didn't want people to speculate on the details, they could have released a more professional message instead of what they have here.

seriously the level of unprofessionalism at this scale of the market is shocking. you can't imagine e.g. Nvidia putting out a press release like this when they drop a vendor

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#65

Post by gedy »

reactordev wrote: post #19
palmotea wrote: post #13

Ok, so what's the drama? Because it's obvious that there was some drama there: "inappropriately involving a SparkFun customer with a private matter," "Responding and forwarding offensive, antagonistic, and derogatory emails and material." My guess is someone was trying to hit on someone and got mad when they were rejected.

[flagged]

I'm not involved with this specific case, but in general it's annoying when people blast some vague passive aggressive accusation publicly, but then retreat behind "it's a private matter! Respect our privacy!" when people are then naturally are interested in what happened. It's frequently cover for a weak argument.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#66

Post by SpikedCola »

csande17 wrote: post #18
progbits wrote: post #6

> Sending and forwarding offensive, antagonistic, and derogatory emails and material to SparkFun employees, former employees and customers > Inappropriately involving a SparkFun customer with a private matter Well those are fun accusations. Looking forward to adafruit response. Anyone has any context? Keep in mind adafruit and sparkfun are business competitors. Not saying either is lying but statements need to be exa…

Adafruit's response seems to be here: https://forum.pjrc.com/index.php?threads/open-source-teensy-... (via https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/01/12/discontinuing-the-teens... ) > in july, we [Adafruit] told sparkfun they needed to get their house in order. for years, sparkfun's leadership ignored specific behavior from leadership (and employees, now former... they had created and promoted hate sites, photoshopped images,…

That certainly doesn't come off well for SparkFun.

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#67

Post by behringer »

buellerbueller wrote: post #50
reactordev wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sparkfun is publicizing the enforcement of their code of conduct, making it a public issue, which is a bizarre position to take. Usually, when there are violations of things like this, you don't discuss it outside a need-to-know basis. They are inviting us to ask for the tea.

Also it implies that the other side has already made public accusations that sparkfun wants to set straight. What's that info, if any?

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#68

Post by stego-tech »

Gotta love corporate skub fights. Honestly neither side is coming out looking good here.

If you’re not doing business with someone anymore, just drop their products. You don’t owe folks an explanation other than “unfortunately we do not carry that product anymore.”

Re: SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation

#69

Post by csande17 »

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…

Appreciate the transparency! The one thing that doesn't quite add up for me is SparkFun accusing you of "involving a SparkFun customer" in the dispute. Can you comment on what that might be referring to?
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