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A Reply to Josef Průša

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Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#91

Post by nullc »

eschaton wrote: post #84
sircastor wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m astonished by this opinion. They released their designs under a permissive licence. Should people be mind readers and figure out that they actually meant that you should not make 1:1 clones? Anyone who's been in the 3D Printing community for a while understands the expectation. It used to be that designs and concepts were shared and expanded on. Hotend and nozzle designs were shared. Techniques for assembling h…

But that’s not what the license says. The license says that it’s perfectly fine to make 1:1 clones and sell them or even give them away. If the community expectation is otherwise then either pick a different license or disabuse the community members of the idea that everyone will have the same interpretation of the license they do.

The license is the limit, the worst you are allow to behave before you are breaking the law. You're not necessarily good actor just because you're within the bounds of the license.

It's important that licenses permit broadly rather than trying to set a tight boundary because if you get wrapped up in litigation over the boundary it can result in life destroying expenses. Prudent people should stay well away from the harry edge to avoid unnecessary risk.

Whining about behavior you consider anti-social is a perfectly valid mechanism to push for change in the world and compared to tight licenses and litigation much less costly and less likely to cause collateral damage.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#92

Post by kadoban »

groby_b wrote: post #89
kadoban wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will change from that if they don't publish their designs? Knockoff producers will figure it out anyway, that's their entire business and they're good at it. The only people hurt are the actual customers, who probably don't have as much experience reverse-engineering.

You know what - tough for the actual customers. Who largely keep buying knockoffs. You want the cheapest shit without any innovation, you'll sooner or later get your wish.

You're punishing the wrong people. The people most affected are the ones that _gave you money_, not the ones that don't.

If your goal is just to collectively punish all consumers, maybe just get out of the business of selling stuff, because that's pretty toxic.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#94

Post by 1letterunixname »

lnsru wrote: post #15

I started open sourcing hardware and then in the middle I realized, that I am digging my own grave. While any optimization in software can be done in a weekend, this takes weeks in hardware (5-7 days printed circuit manufacturing and couple days assembly). Plus my final hardware will be optimized to pass EC/FCC testing which also costs money. So investing time and money for open source hardware design… I don’t know,…

Or, you're helping customers repair electronics.

Reverse engineers overseas don't need schematics, but hobbyist users do.

IBM used to include complete schematics and BIOS assembly code in their manuals.

Apple has a history of making it very difficult to repair their devices due to locking up schematics and parts.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#95

Post by yencabulator »

sircastor wrote: post #79
krisoft wrote: post #33

> This includes activities that are intentionally exploitative such producing 1:1 clones of open hardware with minimal changes I’m astonished by this opinion. They released their designs under a permissive licence. Should people be mind readers and figure out that they actually meant that you should not make 1:1 clones? Would you call it “intentionally exploitative” if I build the linux kernel on my computer? They wi…

> I’m astonished by this opinion. They released their designs under a permissive licence. Should people be mind readers and figure out that they actually meant that you should not make 1:1 clones? Anyone who's been in the 3D Printing community for a while understands the expectation. It used to be that designs and concepts were shared and expanded on. Hotend and nozzle designs were shared. Techniques for assembling h…

It sounds like you're contradicting yourself, and not seeing it because "old days were better".

> The first Prusa printers (before it was a company) were literally the RepRap standard design for a long time. We would do group orders for RAMPS boards. Someone would have a local machine shop make 50 nozzles.

These all sound like examples of

> someone who just takes the design and sells it for a thin margin

What's being added sounds like just manufacturing ability, which comes with scale from increased demand.

If you don't want that to be possible, please stop saying "open source". Ideally, please stop saying "open" too.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#96

Post by 1letterunixname »

lamontcg wrote: post #83

I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would open source anything commercially viable these days. The whole situation seems toxic and abusive all around.

AGPL is also a failure. Google and many other Fortune XX won't touch it because it's radioactive.

Open source or don't. Not half way, and don't go from open to closed unless you want to footgun your business. Sphinx search, CFEngine, and several others did this just before entering the dustbin of history.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#97

Post by 1letterunixname »

I buy Prusa for the support and documentation. I would never buy a clone of the entire printer or MMU because it's completely devoid of, and doesn't fund, continued support and development. Open source hardware and software allows me to repair and tinker it. To change the bargain because of knock-offs is a reactive failure that harms customers while doesn't do much except delay knock-offs slightly (there are many, many more talented hardware engineers overseas who don't need schematics, more than in Europe or America). Going closed-source harms the legitimate customer and right to repair.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#98

Post by gpt5 »

Some background the author is missing in his post, which I believe is the real reason Prusa is concerned about open source hardware.

Up until a year ago, Prusa was the clear leading 3d printer at their price point, giving them strong sales number at healthy margins.

Last year, a Chinese company founded by ex DJI employees (Bambi Lab) has created an innovative printer that matched/surpassed the Prusa lineup and at a very competitive price.

Prusa, struggling with delays at his own company, likely saw a significant drop in demand for his aging flagship product (Mk3S+). This, combined with the poor current economic state has likely put an actual existential risk for his company. He is actually referring to that in his post by creating an analogy to the solar market, where he claims that the entire market is Chinese due to “unfair”subsidies.

Bambu Lab was clearly building on top of Prusa’s innovations, such as cloning their slicer software. However, they were slow to comply by the GPL license. Prusa also seems to suspect that they have also leveraged other things that are harder to prove like their firmware and/or hardware.

Luckily, Prusa has just release two printers that seem very good on paper (the MK4 and XL), which should give them a healthy runway. However, Prusa is definitely at a point where he sees his differentiating feature melt away quickly by a motivated and highly capable competitor, and feels that he is not playing a fair game.

In my opinion, the solution is not what the author proposed. Prusa should arm themselves with stronger legal protections that allows them to better encourage reciprocal behavior. Fine idea I had is to have them be more aggressive at patenting their printers, but allow anyone to have a license to these patents as long as the licensee also poor idea their own patent portfolio at the same terms. This might not stop the exact clones, but those were never the real issue, as the author aptly point out. Other solutions such as what Prusa suggests are also reasonable, although I’m not sure how effective they will be.

At the end of the day, keeping Prusa completely open could definitely be an existential risk to the Prusa company, which would be an even worse blow to the 3d printing community.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#99

Post by TaylorAlexander »

nullc wrote: post #91
eschaton wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s not what the license says. The license says that it’s perfectly fine to make 1:1 clones and sell them or even give them away. If the community expectation is otherwise then either pick a different license or disabuse the community members of the idea that everyone will have the same interpretation of the license they do.

The license is the limit, the worst you are allow to behave before you are breaking the law. You're not necessarily good actor just because you're within the bounds of the license. It's important that licenses permit broadly rather than trying to set a tight boundary because if you get wrapped up in litigation over the boundary it can result in life destroying expenses. Prudent people should stay well away from the h…

This is fine but what I’ve heard about China is that they operate as a low-trust society where the norm is to get away with as much as possible, even going beyond the legal limits if you don’t think the consequences will matter. So this idea that we have licenses and then on top of that we have social norms falls apart when you have a somewhat insular country with their own more permissive norms.

Now I am a huge proponent of open source and I think it’s important to make it work. But I wanted to point out that this idea of additional expectations is going to be difficult to find traction with in China.

Re: A Reply to Josef Průša

#100

Post by 1letterunixname »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #59

I make OSHW, and can see why Prusa would do this. Black when he was a nobody, these clones were, if anything, free advertising for a product nobody would have otherwise heard of. But now he's well known, the clones just make it harder to profit off of his work. Sucks that it's like that, but not at all surprising.

Metallica vs. Napster. https://youtu.be/fS6udST6lbE

Beastie Boys had DRM-free .mp3s of Hot Sauce Committee on their website for a while.

Depends if you want to be cool or be a sell-out corporate band.

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