I would need to hear SparkFun's side of this, because I already know Adafruit is full of crap. They canceled an order I was depending on when I had the audacity to ask when it would ship, after they had missed the ship date by two weeks, leaving me scrambling for alternatives. They make a few ineresting items but dealing with them isn't worth the drama.
Maker fight! SparkFun cuts ties with Adafruit in harassment dispute
Retailer SparkFun Electronics last month said it would no longer do business with electronics kit-maker Adafruit Industries, citing violations of SparkFun's Code of Conduct during online interactions. Adafruit says it's being punished for demanding an end to online harassment attributed to SparkFun's founder and a former …
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Thursday 15th January 2026 05:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wow
Hey, hey, come on now.
Don't you know that if a company EVER messes up a SINGLE order that means the company is totally untrustworthy, only out to cause problems and stir up drama wherever it can?
Why, if they CANCELED this person's order then they are PROBABLY IN LEAGUE WITH SATAN and working to steal all the rice pudding and corrupt all our precious bodily fluids, let alone stirring up things with Sparkfun.
I bet you, by the end of the week, we will have heard AT LEAST three more examples of Adafruit RUINING somebody's life and then we'll HAVE to accept that as a statistically significant sample that proves Adafruit are the absolute pits. PROVES it!
So there! Nyaah!
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Thursday 15th January 2026 02:19 GMT Bebu sa Ware
The whole world …
appears to have become incredibly antsy and bellicose.
Probably time for everyone to take a deep breath … otherwise this won't end well … tears before bedtime the least of it.
The ghastly truth is that most of these tiffs are a real distraction from the contemporary truly horrid things that ought to be confronted and combatted.
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Thursday 15th January 2026 10:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
I just wanted to make sure I share my experience with Sparkfun and why I stopped using them a long time ago. I have had a handful of Sparkfun designs be duds and found them to have often non-existent support after the sale. Often pawning the support off on others.
On the other hand, Adafruit has supported their devices and owned up to errors even when they did not have to do so.
It’s up to every individual to do the work to figure out if the contents of a call-out are useful and genuine, it is way to easy for people to misuse them now a days.
What I do know is that Adafruit, Limor Fried and Phillip Torrone have always treated me with the utmost respect. I know this because their work and actions back that up.
It's my best guess that this was someone did not like the fact they got called out. Sparkfun having some "Calling-in" rule is BS because it allows for people to claim a problem is solved without actually solving it. So I would avoid anything that forbid public call-outs.
I think this is the right decision not to hide it all from the eyes of the public.
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Thursday 15th January 2026 16:21 GMT Andy 73
Soap opera
I've read the article twice, followed some of the threads on a number of forums and... still don't know what's going on.
Both companies are small-ish and very dependent on the passionate support of a niche hobbyist community. I've got every sympathy for them as I also sell kits (in a much smaller capacity) and know how precarious things are, and how challenging it is to be heard. Their dependency on each other appears to be a consequence of the difficulty in building sustainable businesses with a small customer base of very opinionated and demanding techies. No-one buys electronic project kits to impress their neighbours.
It seems that the Adafruit team are working hard to put their side of the argument out there, which doesn't speak to innocence or guilt, but does leave me somewhat confused. Neither company seems very well able to deal with criticism or challenges to their deeply held beliefs.
Before buying from either of them in future, I'll be looking carefully for alternatives that aren't likely to drag me into someone else's argument.
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Thursday 15th January 2026 23:39 GMT Tom66
Re: Soap opera
It's hard to read any of Pete (from Adafruit's) emails with any level of seriousness. No use of capitalisation, minimal and incorrect punctuation, and constantly interjecting personal matters into what shouldn't be personal things (like talking about their kid all the time).
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Friday 16th January 2026 22:27 GMT Ian Mason
Re: Soap opera
Now, based on past experience of watching Adafruit's rather fragile egoed founders get into spats with people, that has more of the ring of truth to it than how Adafruit seem to be trying to spin this.
I have no skin in this game, just my thoughts as a completely disinterested party.
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Monday 19th January 2026 19:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Soap opera
> Before buying from either of them in future, I'll be
looking at the articles on sale and whether they will satisfy my current requirements, particularly as the prime reason for buying items made by either of them is that they design and/or manufacture (have manufactured) their own particular spins on hardware. Like the bulk of the world, I'm not in the US so there is no point in using either of them as suppliers for more generic goods; indeed, don't actually deal directly with either company but via local retail.
As they are suppliers to the hobbyist, development and (extremely) small run manufacturing markets, I don't pay any attention to how long they are likely to keep that product alive - if the next project moves to different hardware (shrug); buy a couple of spares now but if necessary.
So this argument is interesting but so far pretty irrelevant in practice.
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Sunday 18th January 2026 21:37 GMT PRR
Re: Children children...
> Glad I buy from neither if that's how they conduct business.
Me too. I was considering a project using supplies from either or both fine firms, but am now glad that didn't go forward.
BTW: "Torrone and Fried are married." --- I am utterly baffled why the link is to a KIDS site. The fact being supported is also on the more adult Wikipedia site, so the kids link seems condescending. (Or why it matters, this day and age, that a partnership is church-blessed, or town-clerk certified, or bonded in solder.)
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Tuesday 20th January 2026 14:17 GMT imanidiot
A crap show indeed
After having read up on exactly what the background drama was that started this *hrrkk* on .. *Barf* social media.. I'm inclined to go with the view that: mr. Torrone needs to take a nap and possibly see a psychologist about untreated or badly treated mental health issues flaring up due to newborn child induced lack of sleep. It really looks like MAYBE someone (formerly?) associated with Sparkfun said a few bad things about him once, they had an internet tiff that died out years ago, then someone ELSE (unnamed) recently said something bad, he "internet sleuthed" the wrong person, concluded the first guy (formerly? associated with Sparkfun) was his target and then went on an internet crusade to dox and spew misinformation about this person. Sparkfun apparently got involved in the back-splatter from this due to the (former) association to this person and decided they didn't want to have to do business with someone acting in this manner.
Given that afaikt he's got a history of... less well adapted social behaviour shall we say, I'm not entirely surprised this happened.
