Reverse engineering, a.k.a. looking at something. Now illegal, brought to you by capitalism
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Without reverse engineering, there is no security. No way to find new bugs and vulnerabilities or confirm it's backdoor free. Just blind trust only.
It offers protection from crackers and cybergangs too, because they always follow laws. /s
Reverse engineering prohibitions are the dumbest things.
Let's say I do this. Arduino sues me. Okay. Now what? What money are they going to take?
Hell, this would be a perfect time for everyone to form an LLC and purchase Arduinos as the LLC and then release your research under your corporate name as CC0. If your LLC has no revenue, you as an individual are legally protected.
Arduino can try to put the genie back in the bottle but good luck.
Better companies than Arduino have tried to prevent hardware reverse engineering and have failed. Apple being the biggest company I can think of that have tried to sue people for releasing schematics of their motherboards.
They can't take your money but they can bury you into the ground and use you as an example so that no one ever tries to do the same thing. Ever heard of Aaron Schwartz?
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Maybe it's just what I've been noticing, but I feel like Arduino was already losing its share of the hobbyist market. The plethora of small, cheap esp32 devices have already been taking Arduino's place.
Same with raspberrypi really.
companies just can't seem to know how to grow without line go up mentality.
That's just it, you don't need to grow. Just sell a useful product at a reasonable price.
In capitalism, the consumer isn't the target audience. A business exists to make money. The more money you make, the more shareholders you gain, the more the shareholders demand BLOOD!
Not for capitalism though
They seem to forget that "line go up" isn't the primary objective. If you make a good product and give half a shit about your customers, the line goes up as a natural consequence.
Yes, but line go up fast enough?
Line go brrrr?
companies just can't seem to know how to grow without line go up mentality.
That's like saying "people just can't seem to harness the advantages of cancer without dying"
If you never take money and get hooked by outside sources, you can just slowly grow, with no debt, beholden to no one
If you take the money with any strings attached at all, you basically have to grow like cancer or your company will be sold for parts. It's inevitable at that point
Don't take the money kids. If you have to take a business loan in the beginning - fine,
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Also rp2040 devices.
Odd that the newer RP2350 has a lower clock speed, while being improved in most other respects. Is that why the RP2040 is still seemingly the community preference?
| Feature | RP2040 | RP2350 |
|---|---|---|
| Package | QFN-56EP | QFN-60EP or QFN-80EP |
| CPU Cores | 2 × ARM Cortex-M0+ | 2 × ARM Cortex-M33 (w/FPU), 2 × Hazard3 RISC-V |
| CPU Clock | 200 MHz[5] | 150 MHz |
| SRAM | 264 KB, 6 banks | 520 KB, 10 banks |
| Flash | None | None (RP2350), 2 MB (RP2354) |
| OTP | None | 8 KB |
| DMA | 12 chan, 2 IRQ | 16 chan, 4 IRQ |
| PIO | 2 (8 state machines) | 3 (12 state machines) |
| PWM | 16 | 24 |
| ADC | 4-chan 12-bit ADC | 4-chan 12-bit (QFN-60EP), 8-chan 12-bit (QFN-80EP) |
| DAC | None | None |
| HSTX | None | One |
| Engines | ? | RNG, SHA-256 |
Personally, I never really counted the RP2350 as a successor. It's a different animal completely. A 2040 successor would be something like 4x cortex-m0's or a faster clock with more ram or whatever, the 2350 has completed different capabilities and components and can live along side the 2040.
I feel like the preferred one is the 2040 simply because it's cheaper, and capable enough for the vast majority of use cases at this point.
Edit: yes I know RPI called their board using the 2350 the pico 2, but the 2040 chip itself is used in more places than just the pico and not every one used the 2350 as a v2.
Cheap. Also, a large part of the tinkering community never moves past soldering or perf board + lack of cheap 2354 boards. 2040 is already good enough for keebs and most projects. 2350 had eratta E9 published (gpio lockup) which killed its initial adoption rate for more advanced projects PicoLogicAnalyzer, protocol emulation, etc.
I'm getting into meshtastic and learned how those esp32 devices are everywhere! They seem pretty neat
There are clones now more open than arduino that we can buy. In addition esp32 and other small boards are awesome.
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Arduino is dogshit, I will not elaborate.
Arduino has its place for self-taught hobbyists. For a lot of projects, a simple code is more than enough, so there is no point of going into the more advanced mcu like esp32 or stm32.
Not since the pi pico came out.
It's cheaper, more capable, and you can still use arduino code if you want.
I can find an arduino nano clone for 3$. There are use case for ultra cheap electronics like that.
I can find the official Pi Pico for $3.50, I'm sure clones are cheaper than that.
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You are not wrong. Took a trip down that path for a friend, helping him create some items, which was frustratingly limited.
It is, however, super easy if you don't want/need much.
I hate to see options disappear, even if we have other reasonable options available.
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Arduino has been irrelevant for a while. There are better alternatives for everything they offer. For a start, take a look at Raspberry Pi’s microcontrollers.
Up next: Raspberry foundation enshitification.
There are already several places chomping at the bit to unseat them as the SBC default.
ST looming in the background, NXP desperately trying to smash their own kneecaps with a hammer and failing. ESP getting hit with a lightning bolt every time they try to read documentation they printed out but not when its digital...
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I stay away from all the micro tech drama and I feel like two years ago, that community was bitching that raspberry pi sold out and everyone should switch to arduino.
I don't have a side. I just pick whatever is easiest to make a emulation station.
RbP created a publicly traded company for their hardware, which is almost-wholly-held by Raspberry Pi Foundation, which is a charity.
That sort of thing ought not be allowed, ever. It’s similar to the path Arduino took to get here. There are still other competitors, but for the time being I’m happy enough with RbPi’s dirt-cheap microcontrollers. Their mini-PCs are a different story. We’re already seeing enshittification and price gouging there. It’s just a matter of time.
I agree that it shouldn’t be allowed. But for what it’s worth, a lot of non-profits that have a product do this. Mozilla for instance.
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You can also use the Arduino hardware without their IDE or libraries. You just need avr-gcc, avr-libc and a makefile. The AVR microcontrollers are very easy to program. The Arduino libraries really just get in the way once you need to do anything with timers.
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capitalism.
If you buy one of the knock-offs, will the terms still apply? Cause I think I'm seeing an out here.
Qualcomm doing Qualcomm things
I remember watching a video where they talked about the changes. Apparently most of the language people are really upset about applies specificly to their website and forums. I can't find the video, probably because I am sick and have barely slept in the last 4 days. I miss sleep ... and not coughing.
Edit: changed "can" to "can't"
I hope that you get over it soon. Coughing is the worst. I'd rather have hallucination levels of fever than have a bad cough.
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