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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

#111

Post by SR2Z »

panzagl wrote: post #81
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.

There is still no hard requirement that you go through their servers. The printers support a mode where they can only be accessed from the local network.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#112

Post by bredren »

Larrikin wrote: post #51
capitangolo wrote: post #2

I honestly don't get it. They have more to win by doing things right than with this crap they pull out . Never getting a Bambulab.

Some managers are fine screwing power users when they feel they are big enough. I will never buy a Chamberlain garage door opener for their similar stance against the Home Assistant community

Which garage door opener brands / models would you recommend?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#113

Post by dperfect »

dns_snek wrote: post #102
dperfect wrote: post #88

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 no…

> I don't understand why any software other than their own should be entitled to use those resources That's not a genuine argument, nobody "feels entitled" to anything. Bambu made a deliberate choice to architect the product this way, deliberately placed themselves in this gatekeeping position, and they're deliberately working towards removing any other form of access to our hardware.

> they're deliberately working towards removing any other form of access to our hardware

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think that's what is happening. They aren't doing anything to block OrcaSlicer or any fork from working with the printer using LAN-only mode. It's only if you want to use Bambu Lab's servers for essentially a remote-access solution (which, by the way, kind of defeats the privacy-oriented purpose of running some of these forks) that they're saying you should use their own software.

Thought experiment: the core of macOS (Darwin) is open source. Does that mean everyone running Darwin or a fork of it should be able to use iCloud services for free?

All this outrage essentially sounds like "since Bambu Lab's slicer is open-source, the open-source community should be able to point any slicer at Bambu Lab's servers to get free remote monitoring services". And I don't think that's right.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#114

Post by epcoa »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #82
epcoa wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

So, this wasn’t a dick sizing contest about who contributes to open source. The point is there is a certain extent I will go to maintain my ideals of using certain systems and it is more than average even for here (the peanut gallery), and on par with the influencer in question, ie I can relate regardless of their “inauthentic” persona. Most people, even those that consider themselves “enthusiasts”, simply won’t go to the effort of reverse engineering or writing drivers - if it were the case there would be a much larger ecosystem of high quality drivers and a larger pool of contributors. I am in that minority and still use an iPhone, and I don’t have a subscriber count.

2. A google pixel isn’t meaningfully more open than an iPhone (I depend on functionality that would be unavailable if rooted). This wasn’t meant to be an iPhone vs android debate. For the purposes of this discussion they are equivalent.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#115

Post by echelon »

arjie wrote: post #59
capitangolo wrote: post #2

I honestly don't get it. They have more to win by doing things right than with this crap they pull out . Never getting a Bambulab.

I am sufficiently paranoid that I think this is drone part detection from the Chinese government.

This is the second comment that has mentioned this. I tried googling, and I found YouTube videos of Ukrainians using Bambu to make drone parts.

Is there any more to read about this angle? China blocking Ukraine's access to the tech?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#116

Post by scottbez1 »

awakeasleep wrote: post #66
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 “T…

It’s rough but I understand it.

You can be entirely in favor of the open source ethos, even as a commercial entity, but then certain actors can take advantage of that ethos and just directly commercialize your R&D investment and take all the proceeds of your investment, whether or not they comply with attribution or share-alike requirements.

It’s tough seeing an open source project you’ve poured tons of care and effort into (and WANT people to share and remix and build cool things) get more or less “extracted” for profit without contributing back (code or money).

At the end of the day, none of it really matters unless you’ve got money and time to actually try to enforce your licenses, or have enough customer mindshare to effectively change the behavior of bad actors without needing legal action.

I’ll probably use licenses like Prusas in the future for similar reasons, even though I generally prefer to use less restrictive ones. Bad actors, or even just non-benevolent actors, can really sour the open source ethos, and it sucks but there’s no way to legally enforce “don’t be a jerk” without restricting a legal document in slightly unpalatable ways.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#117

Post by kayson »

Topfi wrote: post #60

A User Agent not being suitable for any kind of authorisation aside, given this was published under AGPL, is any kind of legal action even possible? Or is this like DMCA abuse, technically not grounded in any legal basis (and in the case of knowingly filing an improper DMCA claim, clearly illegal but never prosecuted) and solely a scare/might makes right tactic?

The license isn't the issue. It's the User Agreement. Bambu is claiming that the fork is allowing, enabling, (and/or promoting, encouraging, etc) users to violate the agreement with Bambu to not use their cloud with third party software.

I'm fairly certain user agreements have been used for suing makers of game cheats and other similar things. Certainly in the industry I work in, there was a company making third party software and integrating it with the industry standard tool without going through the official channels, which caused people to violate the user agreement when used. They got sued and settled.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#118

Post by bredren »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #37
capitangolo wrote: post #2

I honestly don't get it. They have more to win by doing things right than with this crap they pull out . Never getting a Bambulab.

This feels like pressure from the state. I do not see why they would do this otherwise. If people use these printers at work, they may be willingly sending prototypes and designs to China. That would create a huge advantage, because the company could know who bought the printer, where they are located, and what they are working on. Since Chinese companies are required to comply with the government, corporate espionag…

It also enables a similar model to Facebook's insight into third party mobile app growth. The state could look for early growth trends in a given category or model type.

Then their org has the option to burnish or bury models that align with their goals.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#119

Post by xp84 »

Topfi wrote: post #67
mytailorisrich wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think courts basically ever settle narrow technical questions like that. Any court decision would carry with it particular baggage based on the rest of the specifics, so I don't think it would have established a clear precedent either way.

The funny part here is it seems Bambu is more exposed to a libel suit than the developer is for... checks notes clicking 'Fork' on Bambu's github. Since the moment he did that, his software was supposedly in breach of Bambu's...expectations.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#120

Post by petcat »

Topfi wrote: post #67
mytailorisrich wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Spoofing a User-Agent by itself is not illegal. Browsers, curl, bots, monitoring tools, and privacy tools do this constantly for legitimate reasons.

The legal risk comes from why you are doing it and what protections you are bypassing.

If you are doing it specifically to bypass Bambu's authorized access, then it is very likely to fall afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The mechanism (spoofing the UA) is entirely incidental to the motivation (bypass authorized access), which is what the law cares about.

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