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An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

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Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#111

Post by ChickeNES »

gilfaethwy wrote: post #106
ChickeNES wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a worse printer too. Not to mention overpriced since it's built in the EU

> overpriced since it's built in the EU Externalized costs are real. "Overpriced because it's built in the EU" implicitly argues that there are no fundamental differences between the labor conditions, environmental controls, and societal impact of the production process.

Yes, those do not concern me. I already buy plenty of stuff from China, so a 3D printer is no different, why would I make an exception?

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#112

Post by ThouYS »

copyright etc has been dead the moment the personal computer arrived. we are still living through the chaos of the new world being born, but I think it has been over for a while already.

I would be very surprised if any kind of license like the GPL (or any license for published code) is left in 100 years or so.

DRM is another face of the same struggle, and this too shall pass. Ironically, DRM coming from the same source as the GPL (wanting to force rules onto something freely copyable), is viewed very harshly, since it supposedly interferes with your "freedom". But in the end they are the same.

Both GPL and DRM come from the idealistic fantasy that non-scarce digital goods have any (market) value at all. AI is just the latest nail in this coffin.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#113

Post by ChickeNES »

dofm wrote: post #110
ChickeNES wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, would rather fix the 3D printer after every print than to deal with the level of bulshit common on 2D printers - and ot seems to me that Bambu is trying to achieve exactly that! This is why hobby printers continue to be a time sink, while my Bambu just works. It's a tool, I shouldn't have to fix it after each use.

But it's a machine tool and you should be able to modify and improve it . Bambu don't want you to have that flexibility. And when they do break in unusual ways (and they still do), their customer service is not good enough to match their consumer market. My current machine is a bit of a weirdo. A formerly basic Creality Ender 2 Pro (the cheapest possible small bed model) that I have had for more than four years, whic…

See, my thing is that I am a electronics and hardware tinkerer, and the printer(s) were taking up time I could have been actually tinkering with projects instead of my tools. My X1C still behaves the same as when I bought it, and Bambu continues to sell all the replacement parts needed.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#114

Post by bonoboTP »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #75
bonoboTP wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers earn 250k per 6 weeks? More than 2M per year?

Yes. Well they certainly bill at that rate, it goes some to the lawyer, some to rent, etc.

Outrageous cartel then. For such amounts there would be plenty who would have intellectual chops to do the job, driving the price down. Legal costs are nowhere close to this outside the US.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#115

Post by legastenigga »

ChickeNES wrote: post #111
gilfaethwy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overpriced since it's built in the EU Externalized costs are real. "Overpriced because it's built in the EU" implicitly argues that there are no fundamental differences between the labor conditions, environmental controls, and societal impact of the production process.

Yes, those do not concern me. I already buy plenty of stuff from China, so a 3D printer is no different, why would I make an exception?

[dead]

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#116

Post by trinsic2 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45
ramblurr wrote: post #28

Bamboo has been sketch and proprietary since the beginning. It's such a shame to see the maker community get sucked in (though I guess there is precedence wrt Fusion et.al.)

It was really depressing when I realized that people will buy a sketchy product which is hurting the community and makers of non-sketchy products because "its cheaper and its not like my purchase is gonna change things one way or another." It is selfish and short sighted, and it leaves their future impoverished, but in the moment they "got a good deal."

This is exactly what people engaged in surveillance capitalism is trying to achieve. Sell hardware/software at a loss, push out the competition that does things legitimately and then continue there engagement in profiling everyone for profit.

I did a presentation[0] on this about a month back. If we want these situations to stop we need to work to inform the public and work towards getting people that care in positions of power.

[0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/presentations/overcoming-survei...

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#117

Post by dwaite »

dspillett wrote: post #84
hrpnk wrote: post #42

What would the company need to do to comply with licensing? Release the studio, shared library, and server-side components as AGPL?

Perhaps not the server-side components, unless they directly link AGPL covered code there too. No one that I've seen seems to be asking for the server side parts, just the client parts so they can use the printers locally they way they want without hacking around. Studio is fully release IIRC, it is that "external" part which is the issue. The linkage between that and the client should be soft enough otherwise for th…

They also put in anti-reverse-engineering code in Studio, which I believe is also an AGPL violation.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#119

Post by dofm »

ChickeNES wrote: post #113
dofm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's a machine tool and you should be able to modify and improve it . Bambu don't want you to have that flexibility. And when they do break in unusual ways (and they still do), their customer service is not good enough to match their consumer market. My current machine is a bit of a weirdo. A formerly basic Creality Ender 2 Pro (the cheapest possible small bed model) that I have had for more than four years, whic…

See, my thing is that I am a electronics and hardware tinkerer, and the printer(s) were taking up time I could have been actually tinkering with projects instead of my tools. My X1C still behaves the same as when I bought it, and Bambu continues to sell all the replacement parts needed.

Interesting.

I come at this from the other direction. I was your stereotypical guitar-playing, photographer, software nerd; I would never have tried making physical things until I realised I wanted to make photography accessories.

(Also some of my experience with expensive machines has been very spendy inkjet printers.)

But I also want to teach (adults) and I have therefore developed a tendency to teach myself anything I am interested in at enough of a level that I could teach someone newer to it.

There are just too many sketchy things around Bambu for me to take them seriously.

I will concede I am using a budget Creality, and that almost none of the alternative players have the strongest reputation for open source ethics, so it is a narrowed field.

But I can see myself buying a Snapmaker, a Prusa, or a Sovol, on the budget fringes the newer Flashforge printers are shockingly good, and for the entry level I don't massively mind what Anycubic are doing with the Kobra X; it's not heavy duty but potentially has some applications.

I don't think I'd buy a Creality again. But it's in no way because of my experience with them or with the machine I bought or its upgrades; this experience has been in very significant ways a life-changing one.

I just don't think they appear to be better at doing the more closed products than they were at the dirt cheap stuff (industry-changing machines for which they catch undue shit), and they turn over new products too fast.

Where I am more challenged is CNC.

I definitely don't know how I feel here, because on the one hand I'd like a large-ish MPCNC or scrappy eBay CNC to rough out lap steel guitars and conversion necks; big coarse-ish-but-accurate woodcutting I am bad at by hand. And on the other hand, for the photography stuff in particular, I have definite applications for a Carvera Z1.

I guess the answer may be to do both. But the same process of assessment will be involved in this case.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#120

Post by CamperBob2 »

dofm wrote: post #37
asveikau wrote: post #4

It'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…

Bambu and Prusa are both engaged in harm. But Prusa is only engaged in self -harm.

What's Prusa doing wrong?
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