An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
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Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#2Is it even possible to sue a China-based company from the US? Would you even be able to seek any remedy other than banning import/sale of its product?
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#3Is it even possible to sue a China-based company from the US? Would you even be able to seek any remedy other than banning import/sale of its product?
Sure block them.
Or they can pay statutory maximum copyright violations of $120000 per copy violated.
Per copy.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#4It's been pretty weird and disappointing to see the way Bambu has taken over with these practices.
If you go on social media where people are talking about 3D printing, a lot of folks are not developers and don't know anything about software licensing. It is hard to explain this problem to them, or why anyone should care. Meanwhile for many of these people, Bambu is totally synonymous with 3D printing.
Prusa has attracted its own valid criticisms, but I think they are closer to being right on these issues. They can't compete with Bambu on price.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#5We just purchased a brand new top of the line Bambu with all the accessories, only for it to be defective on arrival. Their front panel display uses such thin fonts, it makes it almost impossible to read without glasses, and their error codes just send you in infinite loops that make you want to pull your hair out. They really spin themselves as the end all and be all to turn key professional 3d printing, and the reality has been anything but. We are currently waiting on a new part from China that will show up when whomever knows and at best, and all they could offer us a minor credit towards spending more money that doesn't even equal an hours pay.
I wish I could talk better about them, but what a let down. I really hope someone really figures out how to put the screws to them over this GPL violation.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#6I think the Bambu case is a good one to litigate the AGPL but perhaps should start in the Court of International Trade. That court has the power to block imports as part of a TRO which would shut down a lot of their revenue from the US at least. Doing something similar in Europe would also help apply pressure. Takes lawyers and money though, of which there is certainly not enough of the latter.
Not to be too glib here, but its one of the paradoxes of "free software" which is there isn't any money generated by the licenses that keep it free. Where as "licensed" software has a revenue stream that is used to enforce the license against people who fail to honor it. The FSF can only do so much with their budget here.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#7It's been pretty weird and disappointing to see the way Bambu has taken over with these practices. If you go on social media where people are talking about 3D printing, a lot of folks are not developers and don't know anything about software licensing. It is hard to explain this problem to them, or why anyone should care. Meanwhile for many of these people, Bambu is totally synonymous with 3D printing. Prusa has attr…
It's a shame because the Bambu product line is genuinely first class. They don't need to play these games to compete, and could have won a lot of genuine good will by giving a little back to the community.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#8The Chinese tech industry is built upon a foundation of GPL violations.
There is no way to stop it beyond getting CBP to block imports, which effectively amounts to shunning.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#9Is it even possible to sue a China-based company from the US? Would you even be able to seek any remedy other than banning import/sale of its product?
They could sue amazon to get a list of Bambu buyers, then go after them.
Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
#10It's been pretty weird and disappointing to see the way Bambu has taken over with these practices. If you go on social media where people are talking about 3D printing, a lot of folks are not developers and don't know anything about software licensing. It is hard to explain this problem to them, or why anyone should care. Meanwhile for many of these people, Bambu is totally synonymous with 3D printing. Prusa has attr…
Haven't these (A)GPL violations been there for most of the company's history? It's the context around them that changed.
While the ecosystem was open few people cared about the network plugin, and apart from that plugin the Bambu Studio slicer is open source. Similarly there was little interest in calling out the suspected violation of their online slicer - it's probably just a headless variant of Bambu Studio. But when Bambu started closing their ecosystem and claiming that user agent headers are DRM everyone got justifiably upset, and this is a just outlet for that