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An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

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Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#211

Post by aners_xyz »

NegativeK wrote: post #147
ChickeNES wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even folks in the industrial space are part of the community I tend to find. Most people my age found their way in through the open source community.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#212

Post by simiones »

RobotToaster wrote: post #123
throwaway219450 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not worth engaging in the debate. People have complained that Prusa printers are expensive since forever, even when the MK3 was objectively superior to the alternative models. They would rather buy a $200 Ender and spend a lifetime tinkering with it.

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

> This allegedly violates the GPLv3 clause that requires the release of the source code for the entire work if they are combined to form a larger program in or on a storage or distribution medium, such as the flash memory of the STM32F407 micro-controller on the board, and more recently in the update images Prusa supplies

This makes 0 sense as presented here. The GPL explicitly distinguishes mere aggregation from combining in a way that makes it a larger program. Putting both the proprietary bootloader and the GPL OS on the same disk / in the same system makes 0 difference to whether the bootloader is covered by the GPL or not.

If this were true, then any phone, any PS5, any Linux laptop, and almost all consumer hardware would be in violation of the GPL (note that the wording quoted there is also part of the GPLv2, it's not GPLv3 specific).

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#214

Post by krupan »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #129
ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

I 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 her…

The article mentions reverse engineering the code. But is there anything to stop reverse engineering the physical printer itself, improving on it by 10mm build volume in each direction, and releasing that? It won't be a copy of the Bambu printer AND it can run the same software, truly freely.

As long as nothing in the printer's design is patented or trademarked then yes, you can reverse engineer it and sell your own version of it

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#215

Post by jfindley »

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."

Unfortunately this comment entirely misses the mark.

The reason this is such a big deal is precisely because it's not a sketchy product. For people who are using their FDM printers for more than just minifigs from thingiverse there's no proper alternative to Bambu. Their hardware and software is significantly ahead of the competition.

If you want to print engineering-grade plastics reliably and accurately you are going to need a Bambu device, or drop 5 figures on a commercial machine. Those are the alternatives. Very few other firms offer consistent, accurate, high temperature printing - and the few that do, don't have the software to manage vibrations, flow control and thousands of other parameters well enough to get consistent hiqh quality results.

Some examples: Prusa have the One+, and good software management. But the "heated chamber" is actually just a fan attached to the underside of the bed, which means that the chamber temperature is not consistent across the volume, leading to poor quality products. There's a few niche devices from people like Qidi, but they don't have the build and software quality to get reliable, repeatable results.

Overall if you're trying to solve actual problems with your FDM device, rather than messing around as a hobby you need a tool that just works, and that can handle materials like PA12, PET and PC. Bambu are really the only sensible choice for this. Yes, I'd be far far happier if the software was really FOSS (the encrypted non-user-readable logs enrage me!), but overall it's a tool not a hobby. I don't have a sensible alternative.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#216

Post by CDRdude »

john01dav wrote: post #180
Ancapistani wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine how litigious we'd be if legal services were cheaper?

This just means that there's pent up demand for litigation that is currently left unfulfilled because it's too expensive. Or, equivalently, many people think that they have been wronged and must simply take it, due to litigation being the only option to enforce that issue while litigation is too expensive to be affordable to them, or more expensive than the cost of the dispute (so, in effect, scamming people out of s…

> 2: another proposal is to remove law school/JD requirements to obtain a law license, but keeping a rigorous test in place […]

This does exist, but has become less common over time instead of more common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#217

Post by criddell »

sailfast wrote: post #202
Aurornis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says the SFC had a fundraiser and raised over $250,000 to hire a lawyer. There's a confusing part of the article where he says that what he believes is a violation is something that a judge isn't going to care about. I don't know if he's implying that the judges aren't capable of interpreting the AGPL properly, or if he's admitting that the legal argument isn't as solid as they thought it was when they st…

I would imagine any settlement dollars would be enough of a carrot to get a lawyer involved. Has anyone actually sued over this yet?

It's really difficult to collect any judgement in China.

https://www.internationaldisputeresolutionlaw.com/2025/06/en...

I can't find the source right now, but I believe punitive damages are excluded. So all you could collect would be actual damages. What are the actual damages Bambu owners have suffered?

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#218

Post by Aurornis »

dwaite wrote: post #117
dspillett wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bambu Studio is open source and on GitHub.
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