Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#311

Post by alnwlsn » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #287

alnwlsn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you decide to get a Bambu anyway, let me heartily recommend against an H2D. It did "just work" for a while, but then the print cooling fan went bad. On my home Voron, this would be a 5 minute fix. On the H2D, it is this [0]. You basically have to take the entire toolhead apart, removing the mainboard inside it with no less than 11 very tiny and fragile custom ribbon cables that connect to it, plus 5 more connectio…

> On my home Voron, You're not the target market for Bambu customers. This is like complaining that on your dirt track racer it's a trivial process to swap the rear end spur and change final drive ratios. Someone who has their dealership do the oil changes on their leased BMW does not care. Maybe they should care a little, because the long-term repairability of their BMW or Bambu is going to put a real dent in their…

>Someone who has their dealership do the oil changes on their leased BMW does not care.

We wouldn't really care either, but alas, there is no 3D printer dealership service center (unless you count 1 month round trip to ship it back).

I'd argue that my workplace who bought the H2D is exactly Bambu's target market. Most of us have personal printers we tinker with, but for work projects we need something that is mostly hit print and wait. We aren't really running a print farm, but we do a lot of iterations and make prototypes constantly. This is what the H2D was purchased for (specifically, the heated enclosure to better print ASA parts). Being hard to repair isn't really a problem, it's that it broke at all. And after it does break, changing a fan or clearing a jam should not be overhaul grade maintenance.

We also have a couple of P1Ss that are very solid, the one H2D has all the problems.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#312

Post by brovonov » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:12 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #225

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…

Isn't Voron/Soval more open?

Voron isn't a company, nor are they after a profit, all designs are 100% opensource. Sovol runs on a profit and uses opensource designs to run their products.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#313

Post by FloatArtifact » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:14 PM UTC

bityard wrote: post #163

I'm an open-source advocate (some would say zealot?) but I ended up buying a Bambu P1S a few months back because my research indicated that there were ways use it normally without creating a Bambu account, or using their slicer, or having to send all of your prints through their servers. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I managed to do all of that with hardly any trouble at all. IIRC, you only had to change…

Can you freely download firmware and update the printer offline?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#314

Post by brovonov » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:19 PM UTC

daemonk wrote: post #103

I don't disagree with Bambu from an operational standpoint, but disagree with their handling of this. They are offering a cloud infrastructure that allows users to remote control the printer via their software. If they don't want users to use a non-approved software to access their cloud, they should just build auth around it and explicitly tell people that. The accessibility for users to utilize the printer without…

They had that chance to create proper auth and api for years and many developers and myself have been asking for it. Never happened, and I suspect will never happen.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#315

Post by InsideOutSanta » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:22 PM UTC

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…

Creality has printers that are straight-up clones of the Bambu printers and are just as easy to use, but they've historically been somewhat okay at working in the open source ecosystem, unlike Bambu.

Prusa is, of course, the gold standard, and their more recent printers are super easy to use, too.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#316

Post by brovonov » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:23 PM UTC

thrdbndndn wrote: post #70

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…

Bambu has the slicer (orca, bambu) download a plugin (owned and written by bambu, closed source.) which is what the controversy is about.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#317

Post by tossit444 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

morphle wrote: post #192

yard2010 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide sources to your claims.

Kill switch in DJI drones and other brands: https://npo.nl/start/serie/konvooi/afleveringen/seizoen-1 Documentairy in Dutch but the interview is in English

Geoblocked in USA. HTTP 451 in network requests.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#318

Post by dns_snek » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC

dperfect wrote: post #262

dns_snek wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't you kind of expect the existing access controls (which are probably at least in part tied to cloud services) to be removed No, and it's absurd that you would suggest that on a technical forum in 2026, and no, they're not tied to cloud services in any way. Do you also grant root access to anyone on your LAN, by default and without credentials? > If you want a completely open (hardware and software) 3D printer,…

I love my X1C. It's way ahead of any other 3D printer I've owned or built. I stuck it in a VLAN from day 1. Have had it in LAN-only mode for years. Works great. I haven't followed the company's PR statements, but seems a little strange that they would tell people not to get a Bambu Lab printer for any reason. I'm sorry your experience has been so terrible or that you thought you were buying an open-ecosystem printer.…

We've strayed so far off topic. Try to get a handle on your fanboyism and you might be able to see this discussion more rationally.

Why do you feel the need to justify your purchase in public and talk about how great the printer is? Bambu make good printers and nobody is disputing that.

And for the record, my own experience hasn't been terrible at all, it's been predominantly positive.

However that doesn't change the fact that their overall dishonest corporate behavior, pushing unjustified user-hostile changes after the sale, violating the AGPL license of Prusa slicer, and legally bullying independent developers is immoral, illegal, and generally indefensible. Nobody wants to live in a world where this sort of behavior is normalized.

Furthermore "LAN only mode" has been neglected and generally half-broken for years. It was a hobbled alternative before they broke it even further.

https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/issues/4512

> I prefer security at the network level

You do you, but the world has moved on since the 90s. Communication is expected to be end to end encrypted, credentials should be revocable, and you generally don't want to grant every process on your device unrestricted ability to set your house on fire.

Disgracefully, this is being done in the name of "security".

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#319

Post by kayson » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

airport_barfly wrote: post #275

kayson wrote: post #185

I'm supportive of Jeff's general philosophy towards open source, but this feels a little disingenuous. Did Bambu mishandle the situation? Absolutely. But we need to stop vilifying companies for being cloud-first. The reality is that 99% of their users set up the printer and app using the cloud service. It's easy and convenient. The slicer is still open source, and you can still use their printers without the cloud. (…

I think it's more disingenuous to call "trying to ruin a guy's life" "mishandling the situation". Also * user agent spoofing has been common practice on the web for decades * Bambu's customers were bait and switched here. They bought a printer that works locally, and Bambu wants to remove features from the product they paid for. And it's the _customer_ who's actually running this slicer and impersonating Bambu. Imagi…

> trying to ruin a guy's life

They asked him to remove it and threatened to send a cease and desist. They didnt even send the cease and desist, which they very well could have. Hardly an accurate characterization.

> They bought a printer that works locally, and Bambu wants to remove features from the product they paid for. And it's the _customer_ who's actually running this slicer and impersonating Bambu.

This just isn't true. You can still run it locally and still use third party slicers locally.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#320

Post by 7thpower » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

alnwlsn wrote: post #214

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…

If you decide to get a Bambu anyway, let me heartily recommend against an H2D. It did "just work" for a while, but then the print cooling fan went bad. On my home Voron, this would be a 5 minute fix. On the H2D, it is this [0]. You basically have to take the entire toolhead apart, removing the mainboard inside it with no less than 11 very tiny and fragile custom ribbon cables that connect to it, plus 5 more connectio…

I like my H2D, but it definitely hit a brick wall. I replaced it, and had the same issue with one of the nozzles not printing consistently.

This was after around 700 hours, which isn’t terrible, but working with their support is exhausting. I don’t think I’m going to touch it again until winter, unfortunately.