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Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#61

Post by harrall »

syntaxing wrote: post #50
xeromal wrote: post #38

I own a H2C and have been a huge fan of bambu for a few years, full disclosure. I don't really see why everyone is up in arms about this. You are able to print in LAN mode or directly through USB drives without going through bambus servers. Their slicer is open source but it downloads a plugin once you launch it if you choose to which is closed sourced that interacts with their APIs. Someone reverse engineered the pl…

You have LAN mode only because everyone was up in arms the first time. LAN mode was not part of the plan at first and Bambulab was forced to offer after “listening to their customer”.

But they complied?

Correction is much harder than starting off on the right side.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#62

Post by mytailorisrich »

CarVac wrote: post #36
danielrmay wrote: post #20

"It pretended to be the official client" is not a security argument if the mechanism was client-supplied metadata. That’s not impersonation. That’s Bambu discovering that user agents are not authentication.

And by using AGPL they grant you the license to use the code however you wish, they cannot say it's "unauthorized access".

Yes you can use the code however you want but equally they are free to bar anyone they wish from accessing their servers. These are completely orthogonal issues in a legal sense.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#63

Post by Jeremy1026 »

dalben wrote: post #12

We have a Bambu Lab P2S at work. I was considering to buy one myself, because of the ease of use and relative affordability. What printers are similarly priced and have similar specs, for someone relatively new to 3D printing?

Creality K2 Combo[1] is pretty much spec for spec a P2S. Add in OrcaSlicer (Bamboo Slicer fork), and you basically have a non-closed system P2S. I've printed 652 hours on it since December, about 4.7km worth of filament has been ran through it. Great upgrade over the Creality K1 that is sitting next to it.

[1] https://store.creality.com/products/k2-k2-combo-3d-printer-l...

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#64

Post by colechristensen »

xeromal wrote: post #38

I own a H2C and have been a huge fan of bambu for a few years, full disclosure. I don't really see why everyone is up in arms about this. You are able to print in LAN mode or directly through USB drives without going through bambus servers. Their slicer is open source but it downloads a plugin once you launch it if you choose to which is closed sourced that interacts with their APIs. Someone reverse engineered the pl…

Regardless of the license if they only want their own software interacting with their cloud API, I don't really care because USB and LAN are there. That is ample ability to interact with the machine.

Plenty of situations would make me feel differently, but I'm fine with their restrictions in this case.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#65

Post by arjie »

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

I have a P1S. Putting it together and running it was about IKEA level of difficulty. Very easy. If money weren’t a problem, which Prusa printer comes closest (assuming we’d want something like the Bambu AMS2)?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#66

Post by awakeasleep »

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

Prusa is still the most 'open source-ish' choice, but they're no longer a polar opposite to Bambu, in 2023 they started making efforts to stop commercialization of their designs, stopped sharing source/design material for their PCBs, etc.

Then in 2025 they changed their 'open community license' to say users may not:

“Sell complete machines or remixes based on these files, unless you have a separate agreement…” and “The Restriction: You cannot commercially exploit the design files…”

https://blog.prusa3d.com/core-one-cad-files-release-under-th...

Maybe this is more a comment on how open source has had to change in the face of commercial exploitation of the vulnerabilities traditional open source licenses create for the businesses doing the R&D.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#67

Post by Topfi »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #62
CarVac wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by using AGPL they grant you the license to use the code however you wish, they cannot say it's "unauthorized access".

Yes you can use the code however you want but equally they are free to bar anyone they wish from accessing their servers. These are completely orthogonal issues in a legal sense.

Any instance anywhere that a court has considered an UA sufficient for access control? Especially one published under a copyleft license?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#68

Post by Panda4 »

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

I have an Elegoo Centauri Carbon which is cheaper than Bambu Lab's and it has been plug and play so far. I have no experience with 3D Printing and I've been printing on it without any problems so far.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#69

Post by entropicdrifter »

p-e-w wrote: post #11

> Some people are okay with using OrcaSlicer and printing through Bambu's cloud. It's convenient if you're on the road and want to start a print on your printer at home Do such people really exist? Are there actually people who are comfortable blindly starting a robot in their home, with a part that heats to 150 C, and then hope that everything will work out and when they get home the part will be waiting for them, i…

My P1S has a camera built into it. If the print begins to fail, I can stop the printer and turn off the heat immediately before anything spirals. Very easy and convenient to remote control from my phone.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#70

Post by thrdbndndn »

Good article, but I'd like to ask about two small technical details (I've used Bambu before, but I'm not very familiar with the 3D printing ecosystem).

1. OrcaSlicer: so it's a fork of Bambu's official client, Bambu Studio - but it apparently still goes through Bambu's servers for printing? How exactly does that work? Does it also "impersonate" the User-Agent, and Bambu was okay with that?

2. OrcaSlicer-bambulab: if the goal of this fork-of-a-fork is to bypass Bambu's cloud servers, why would it still need to "impersonate" the UA and communicate with Bambu's servers (as Bambu claimed)? Wouldn't the whole point be to avoid doing that in the first place?

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