Those that are just hand waiving that this is just “drama” either don’t understand what is going on or actively support harassment and bullying. According to what I’ve been able to understand, Sparkfun has been allowing its employees to make harassing and derogatory internal presentations targeting Adafruit employees for years. When this was brought to their attention Sparkfun did nothing. When Adafruit started probing Teensy customers for what they liked about the product Sparkfun decided to enforce a code of conduct violation and terminate supplying Teensy boards to Adafruit.

I didn’t read through all the public messaging but I have read enough to know it would have been easy for Sparkfun to do the right thing and discourage their employees from their harassing behavior, even if it remained internal. I don’t want to support that kind of business. It makes it clear to me that Sparkfun is a boys club that is threatened by competition and would rather throw insults than make a better product.

Adafruit has been inventive, inclusive, and added joy and whimsy in a field that is so often filled with toxicity.