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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

#81

Post by panzagl »

morphle wrote: post #71

I am an outsider on the details of the Bambu software requiring users to go through their servers in China and the closing of their software. Still I suspect it is about spying in wartime, Bambu printers are at the core of the Ukrainian war effort, the main reason even Ukraine is winning since januari 2026. First China prevented Ukraine from using any of the drones that they sold in millions to Russia while exercisin…

Bambu had its requirement to go through their servers since before the Ukraine war, though it has gotten progressively harder to work around.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#82

Post by KingOfCoders »

epcoa wrote: post #58
KingOfCoders wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm guessing an iPhone. Internet influencers - nothing against this one, I like his videos, I think I got JetKVM because of one video - are a persona which is different from their person. They sell something in their videos and do things in videos that are different from their true self. Videos are primarily done to drive more subscribers. I don't dispute that he might be an exception but he has >1M subscribers w…

I use Linux as a daily driver, write and modify kernel (mainline and out of tree) and userspace drivers, have reverse engineered various things. ie beyond most of the HN peanut gallery. That said I use an iPhone because I have a day job and nothing “open” is worth dealing with.

I use Linux as a daily driver, using it on servers since 1991 (or 92 whenever boot.tgz/root.tgz was released), have been coding for 45 years, started several successful open source projects, wrote a full text search engine in Java in the 90s before there was Lucene, wrote the core Wiki markup engine that powered Atlassian Confluence for quite some time, because Mike asked me. That said I use a Google Pixel because - after decades of using Apple (from first iBook G3, first MacBook, first iPhone, first iPod, iPod nano, first iPad, Xserve, Xsan, iMac Pro and on and on an on) I left the Apple ecosystem when Steve died - to me Apple feels too constraining.

Not sure what that exchange was for, but I like it!

PS: Not a native speaker, don't know what "HN peanut gallery" means. But I like peanuts, though I think Peanuts are overrated. Though sometimes our dog looks like Snoopy, when her ears are flying.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#83

Post by Panda4 »

scottbez1 wrote: post #41
silveira wrote: post #13

What about Elegoo Centauri Carbon? I've had my eye on this for some time.

I have the original CC. It’s a fine budget machine for single color - plenty fast and good quality prints. They rubbed people the wrong way launching the CC2 with multi-color support before they developed the multi-color add-on that was promised for the original CC. I didn’t plan on multi-color with the CC, so that didn’t personally bother me too much. I recently got a Snapmaker U1 for multi-toolhead prints and love…

> for single color

They released the multi color system for $55. I've ordered and waiting for it but the printer itself has been pretty nice.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#84

Post by colechristensen »

wongarsu wrote: post #55
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…

Closer to 200C. But the gantry constraints movement, the 200C nozzle can only really touch its holder, the print bed, the filament and some metal or silicon cleaning surfaces. None of those are flamable at those temps. Maybe if it knocks itself down to the ground? But I worry much more about faulty wiring or stuff like that. And that's more a function of the brand and model

All of the fires I've heard about 3d printing involved sketchy power supplies in some of the printers or DIY builds out there. Thermal runaway protection is really easy code to write and very common in firmware and the thermal design of the heated parts makes it hard to get there.

Not saying fires don't happen that way but let's say it's a failure mode that is a challenge to achieve intentionally much less accidentally.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#85

Post by ticulatedspline »

I got a P1P a few years ago and haven't regretted it. A the time BL's price/performance/reliability was peerless. It really was a turn-key printer.

That said none of this is surprising. Bambu Labs have been very candid about their playbook which is following Apple's lead. They want to be the Apple of printers, a very walled garden with high integration good UX and not a lot of freedom because they want to tightly control the full experience.

And that is going to alienate a lot of people and endear a lot of others. The only reason they've even paid lip-service to open source or open hardware is simply to get a foothold in an industry that had strong roots in that area. Now that they're a more established brand we should expect them to start bricking in the garden and adding controls.

Fortunately I think they've been a net-good for the printer landscape, they shook things up pretty hard and I think there's now more competitive models from other brands.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#86

Post by hans-l »

syntaxing wrote: post #54

Funny how fast people forget. LAN mode was NOT part of their original plan until outrage like this happened last time. They shifted their course and changed their blog post after. Putting pressure as a customer is how you steer company’s direction.

That’s good in theory but there are also plenty of counter examples of companies forcing features and still making it by just sheer brand reputation or market share (HP still has DRM’d ink, Keurig is still going after “hacks”) or just money (OpenAI promised to open source their model).

I’m not saying we shouldn’t shame those companies for not abiding to their words, but there is more to it than outrage. Suing them (or the threat of) might also work here if they really went against the license.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#87

Post by awakeasleep »

newsclues wrote: post #73
awakeasleep wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “T…

It’s not problematic to restrict people from selling the thing you designed, made and sell without permission. If I make an open source car, I don’t want someone else taking my design work, and then selling a cheaper version of my product, I want my consumers to build their own parts.

Sure, but you're comparing morality to the legal definitions in software licenses.

Different licenses are build around different philosophies, and the common open source definitions allow commercialization as long as the source & modifications you make are freely available to others. Prusa is breaking from that tradition.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#88

Post by dperfect »

Bambu Lab has made plenty of mistakes, but I don't think this is one of them. And I'm a big supporter of open-source software.

Their cloud infrastructure obviously has real costs associate with running it, and I don't understand why any software other than their own should be entitled to use those resources.

If you buy something and then significantly modify it, you generally tend to void the warranty - and that's not because companies are just greedy; there are real limitations when it comes to a company's ability to support the endless ways a product could be modified.

Publishing something as open-source does not imply that you must operate an optional-but-complementary service at a loss for charity.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#90

Post by dawnerd »

I installed the third party X1C firmware and locked it down last year. Their whole excuse about security was nonsense then and it’s nonsense now. Every step they take pushes them closer to fully locking their printers down to be either subscription based or use their (always out of stock) filament.
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