Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 247 posts

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#141

Post by fn-mote »

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?

I am confident that my job cannot be outsourced to China, but I still worry a lot about outsourcing everything else in my life.

I recognize that my neighbors could easily lose their jobs to the same forces that are causing me to buy a Bambu printer.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#142

Post by nomel »

Palomides wrote: post #128
nomel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they did not. Calibrating flow and pressure advance was entirely manual. Vibration compensation/input shaping did not exist until 2023 [1], and was also entirely manual. The Pursa XL (only thing remotely comparable) was over double the price [2], with the Core One (Bambu competitor) not coming out until 2024 [2]. Their MMU was a clusterfuck of tinkering [4], so when Bambu released the AMS, people were trying to fi…

if you absolutely needed a huge multi color/material printer, sure, but a prusa i3 mkwhatever was entirely adequate for normal 3d printing out of the box

Nope. You will get absolute shite prints if you skip the manual, eyeballed, first layer cals [1]. Bambu manual effort is a few seconds [2] of navigating a menu, then print. But, these cal's are NOT equivalent, with Bambu doing linear advance cal and input shaping (completely manual on i3).

Prusa being "adequate" (and expensive) is partly why Bambu now has 41% of the market, while Prusa has [1] https://youtu.be/GE-lrRbU124&t=245 and https://youtu.be/GE-lrRbU124&t=524

[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XruRPpODE6Q.

[3] https://www.3dprintingjournal.com/p/consolidation-has-become...

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#143

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Palomides wrote: post #128
nomel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they did not. Calibrating flow and pressure advance was entirely manual. Vibration compensation/input shaping did not exist until 2023 [1], and was also entirely manual. The Pursa XL (only thing remotely comparable) was over double the price [2], with the Core One (Bambu competitor) not coming out until 2024 [2]. Their MMU was a clusterfuck of tinkering [4], so when Bambu released the AMS, people were trying to fi…

if you absolutely needed a huge multi color/material printer, sure, but a prusa i3 mkwhatever was entirely adequate for normal 3d printing out of the box

So is a bambuu for far less money.

I have a Prusa btw.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#145

Post by fn-mote »

chews wrote: post #99

It's an open mqtt server if you have creds..... 300 lines of python made by claude totally power mine over a raspberry pi zero.... yes, it sucks they stole, but their hardware is fantastic and if good artist's copy, great artist's steal.

> if good artists copy, great artists steal

This would be a lot more convincing if the stolen part were the great part, as happens in music.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#147

Post by NegativeK »

ChickeNES wrote: post #80
ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

What community? It's a tool.

You can't really spit in the hobby 3d printing world without hitting the community. I have coworkers who talk about their printers, filament choice, what they've printed recently, etc etc. I've been around hackerspaces with that behavior for over a decade, but it spontaneously showed up at work from a shared interest.

That community is where open source tech tends to come from.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#148

Post by toast0 »

bluGill wrote: post #32
sneak wrote: post #14

FWIW the AGPL (which is a nonfree EULA trying to masquerade as a copyright license) has never been tested in court, so the fact that it is nonsensical has yet to actually be adjudicated. Software and services aren’t the same, and the anticapitalist zealots at the FSF can’t square this circle no matter how hard they try.

Generally, when you ask people who have any understanding of law, they respond, well, of course not. No one with any sanity at all would try and test the GPL in court. They know what's going to hold up. I do believe that the GPL will eventually be broken. However, it won't be broken in ways such as happening now. It'll be broken when some company is able to show the court that they were doing a lot of things to ensur…

> And yet a rogue employee, unknown to the rest of the company, violated it despite being told not to. I don't know exactly what the courts will decide in this case. It's still going to come down to the copyright violation. However, it likely won't be a source code release.

I would expect a court to compell a defendant to either comply with the license or cease distribution and possibly pay damages for unauthorized distribution... But I don't know that there's a good way to figure the damages and US statuatory damages likely don't apply because who registers their copyrights for open source code (or deposits copies with the Library of Congress)?

Infringement by a rouge employee, acting against policy, may be reason to limit punitve damages and stick to actual damages... But if it's an actual rogue employee acting against policy, I would expect the company to cease infringement, begin compliance, or negotiate for an alternative solution once notified about the issue anyway.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#149

Post by Dylan16807 »

qiqitori wrote: post #136
RobotToaster wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prusa have their own ongoing GPL violation https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Prusa_Research

I think it's a bit iffy to argue that the bootloader code is covered by the GPLv3. In programs for standard computers running a big OS, the distinction lies in whether you are linking a library into your program. If the GPL code isn't a library but an external program, it isn't linking, and OK by the GPL. Now on to the bootloader code: in order to flash your device you have to put everything into a single image file.…

Even as far as linking goes... If you're not actually deriving from the code in a copyright sense then the GPL is limited in what it can demand. The advice from the FSF on linking is not exactly unbiased. The part about the intimacy of the communication between pieces of code seems a lot more solidly based in copyright law.
Post reply on HN