alt Hacker News>The logical thinking is: are they going to make me dependent on some cloud service to develop for Arduino?
The logic to me is "how can they do that?". You don't need a cloud service to program a microcontroller and they can't force that upon you even if they'd want to since the arduino board is not an iPhone.
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They could very much force it on you, for new units at least - depending on what micro is on the boards, they could potentially very easy start shipping them with locked bootloaders (and disabled JTAG/SWD porrts) that would only run binaries that are signed by them.
They could potentially have their software load a unexpectedly re-flash existing units with a locked bootloader too, it would just be harder to keep the key secret (because the tool flashing the new bootloader on the first time would need to know it)
> "how can they do that?"
License future important libraries only for use via their cloud toolchain?
Stop contributing support to non-cloud toolchain and/or intentionally break it?
Slip more restrictive licensing into new easy to use features (like a vision service) that taint combined products?
Never underestimate a company's ability to pay lawyers to restrict freedom.