Yes you are right!
I’m a fan of your devices, and I’d get so many features and benefits that allow me to replace Arduino boards with your devices
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I agree with you.
the devices that interest me most are the TH modules because I can integrate them in my projects. I think it is difficult to enter the market maker with duino-style cards. I buy a device TH for more professional applications, for the characteristics that the Arduino boards have not.
We discontinue gadgeteer and you are still complaining 
what do we need to do to earn your blessing?
Just out of curiosity, why didn’t anyone do that? There have been a few modules and such here and there, but no serious attempt at the ecosystem beside what we did, why do you think that is? Anyone could have come along and created the cheapest Gadgeteer module ever to compete with our modules but it never happened on serious level and it got me wondering as to why?
Ah, I was thinking the opposite, putting the connector on a cheap sensor.
My opinion only, but the market has been driving in large part by the education and maker community. They latched on to the Arduino platform because of its simplicity and a platform agnostic development tool. The market followed the buzz. All the articles, blog posts and education projects center around Arduino. New users gravitated to where the information is.
Gadgeteer might technically be a better platform but it was tied to an IDE that was not cross platform and not “click-and-go” like Arduino.
While sad on some levels I agree with the transition away from Gadgeteer. If NetMF has any chance to grow it needs 100% of the resources.
If someone wants to be enterprising they could investigate making some .NETMF Grove devices as it seems the Grove ecosystem is gaining traction.
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@ skeller - this is what I’ve been saying for a few years now. Everyone that sees Gadgeteer loves it. However, its very hard to get makers invested in it because well…they’re makers! Most of them are more interested in spending extra time learning how to wire up a cheap module than they are in saving time. This is why I believe the niche that Gadgeteer fills best is that of the professional that has to regularly make rapid prototypes. Unfortunately, there just don’t seem to be enough of them out there that discovered Gadgeteer. And with the almost non-existent amount of marketing that went into Gadgeteer (from Microsoft or anyone else) that’s really no surprise.
Again, we’re in agreement. In fact, I went deep down this rabbit trail a year or so ago in pursuing the creation of a cheap ($1) adapter for Grove-to-Gadgeteer that would have made this feasible. This is when I came to realize one of the other big problems with Gadgeteer - the connector choice. The part I needed simply does not exist to make this possible. Had Gadgeteer used a more common part, this would have been possible to achieve.
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Getting them cheap to start with was a bit of work but the likes of DFRobot offer them for a good price. Compared to the Grove the tooling is considerably less for the Gadgeteer sockets and cables. You can make the cables at home with a small vice and even the proper crimp tool for IDC is only around $30. The crimp pins for the Grove are fiddly and you need proper tooling for them. Even with my regularly used Molex KK connectors, the crimp tool cost me $450 alone. Yes there are cheaper alternatives but I needed something that crimped the cable correctly. I’ve not yet found a proper crimp tool for the Grove but I bet a good one is expensive.
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@ Gary - I did: https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/jump/6208/87525
It was a simple adapter board that let you plug in a $2.50 eBay-sourced ENC28J60 module into a Gadgeteer mainboard. Remember, that was right about when you cut the price of your module from $34.99 to $24.99 or so :). I even sold a few (and I have several left, if anyone would like them).
Why weren’t any of these efforts particularly successful? Well, in my opinion, it’s because this community is so fiercely loyal to GHI, that they see it as their duty to pay GHI’s higher prices in order to support your efforts.
I agree 100%.
I have more then a couple of buckets of modules that I purchased from vendors other then GHI (I’ve got a couple of buckets of modules from Justin alone) and I can tell you the loyalty that GHI has built was very well earned. I ended up writing or having to maintain the drivers myself or in some cases tossing the module as I suspect the hardware (likely the connections) were just wrong, such that no amount of software could fix it, but that is part of the risk of buying hardware from smaller or independent vendors and clearly I’m OK with that, but if folks want the same level of loyalty that GHI has then they have to earn it just like GHI has, so don’t blame them for doing as good a job as they did. The level of quality and support that GHI offers is second to none and that is worth money to me, so I never minded whatever premium GHI charged (I’m not really convinced they did as whatever I got from them I considered an excellent value). To be honest most small vendors I dealt with often came up a tad short on their products on a number of fronts, be it marketing, drivers, support, etc and I think they will need to learn that IoT, Makers, Students, etc aren’t just another hardware dude, and hence need a better full meal deal so if they want to be successful, even on another platform they will need to step it up a bit.
Again I’m sorry that Gadgeteer has slid into history as I thought it was an excellent platform for hardware dudes to make and sell modules as modules could be a nice clean and complete product that consumers would love as they gave them a usable and useful experience right out of the box.
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How much for the bucket? 
After the “End of Gadgeteer announcement” NETMF on Github and my fellow MBN guys has come to live again, which is EXTREMELY great!
We are heading to world domination! :whistle:
@ Duke Nukem - What you said, Blake.
I didn’t buy as many 3rd party modules as you, but the likelihood of the ones I did buy just working out of the box was dramatically smaller than with GHI modules.
Gadgeteer was a very cool idea that unfortunately solved a problem that very few people realized they had until they had the opportunity to try it. That kind of model doesn’t scale very well, particularly when those who created it (talking MSFT, not GHI) don’t put any coordinated effort into evangelizing it. I did what I could, but even that wasn’t really “official” Microsoft marketing. It was just an evangelist who’d gotten the Gadgeteer bug, and tried to convince others to join in the fun. Wish I’d been more effective at that.
Niels, we did not die nor did we rest either 
But 4.4 firmware dev for different MCUs is quite time consuming (*). Add to this the design of the G400TH carrier board and Stephen overwhelmed with drivers, and you will understand that we do not have much opportunities to chat ???
And I am not talking obout the normal day job, of course 
That said, and to be on-topic, I am not sad that Gadgeteer is now history. This should imply more resources from GHI to plain NETMF. Hopefully.
(*) Even though I am wondering if it is worth the pain, right now.
@ Duke Nukem - thank you
Why would a Gadgeteer announcement have any direct correlation to NETMF GitHub activity or MBN? I doubt you guys worked so hard on that awesome board and then waited for a Gadgeteer announcement to bring it out, so just curious what you think the relation is.
@ Gary - I dont know, maybe I am wrong?
@ Bec a Fuel - I am impressed with your work, so keep moving!
You have a selective memory. GHI has left many half-supported or unsupported modules and other products behind in their drive for whatever is the new shiny of the day. Was it the bluetooth module that GHI only ever released a rudimentary driver for, and asked the community to produce a better one?
@ godefroi - I am lost but your posts always do that to me. One day you complain we do not accept community contributions and the other you complain we asked for contributions. We love the community but the commercial users dictate what we do. The lesson I learned is that GHI did best when we did not get involved with open source, before even netmf was open source. It is simply not for us.
I agree with the many posts, no gadgeteer, no open source, complete focus on netmf. Just like how GHI was before.
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