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An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

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Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#231

Post by LastTrain »

bonoboTP wrote: post #228
LastTrain wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some engineers do make that much. I say this as a fellow software engineer: why do so many of my colleagues think every other profession is worthless bullshit? BTW, statistically, SEs and Lawyers earn about the same...

The top of top frontier AI research talent maybe makes 2M and I'd guess you have at most a few hundred such people globally but maybe just a few dozen. Non "FAANG" (or whatever the new term is) software engineers often make sub-100k even in the US. And regular sw engineers won't break above 500k unless they are managers heading some large team or branch. Getting over 1M is almost superstar level as a sw engineer. If…

I said some, and pointed out that on average SE’s and lawyers get paid about the same. This conversation started on IP litigators, who generally have a BS degree in a related field and often times experience in the industry they practice, so yes they are amongst the best compensated.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#232

Post by inigyou »

tescreal wrote: post #224
inigyou wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project would have to be almost all AI to be uncopyrightable.

Sure by today's metric. I wonder if the (A)GPL could be weakened? I'm asking because I want to know the boundary line that could emerge. IANAL of course, but informed speculation welcome.

Judges are people with some degree of common sense, and they're not impressed by attempts at gotcha-ing.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#233

Post by bonoboTP »

LastTrain wrote: post #231
bonoboTP wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top of top frontier AI research talent maybe makes 2M and I'd guess you have at most a few hundred such people globally but maybe just a few dozen. Non "FAANG" (or whatever the new term is) software engineers often make sub-100k even in the US. And regular sw engineers won't break above 500k unless they are managers heading some large team or branch. Getting over 1M is almost superstar level as a sw engineer. If…

I said some, and pointed out that on average SE’s and lawyers get paid about the same. This conversation started on IP litigators, who generally have a BS degree in a related field and often times experience in the industry they practice, so yes they are amongst the best compensated.

Aside, but IP is a propaganda term. These laws are not property rights, their purposes are varied and usually have the wider public as the beneficiary in their reasoning for existing, it's not like ensuring right to actual property.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#234

Post by ChickeNES »

hWuxH wrote: post #227
ChickeNES wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the community well, I was challenging the assertion this hurts the community. On the contrary, better and cheaper printers help the community way more than the worries over software licensing. The average person doesn't care, they want a printer that works and doesn't cost much.

Its not only a licensing issue, but they abuse this closed source binary to lock away major features from other slicers (DRM, signature checks), hinder development, include anti-debugging, telemetry, encrypt logs and configs, etc. And the stock plugin ships an unaligned atomic that triggers the kernel's split_lock detector on every modern Intel CPU. Startup stalls for 25-60 seconds while the kernel walks each trap; e…

Again, the average person does not care about any of that. They will use the Bambu slicer (if even, I bet many only print from their phones with the app). They aren't aware of, nor do they care about, anti-debugging, telemetry, encrypted logs, or anything of that nature. Most who do use the slicer will probably be on Windows, not Linux, and on an x86_64 machine. Why is any of this a surprise? It's an appliance, not something to hack on. It would be one thing if it was presented that way, like the Prusas, but it is explicitly sold as a turnkey machine. If you don't like that, you can buy a printer from one of their many competitors, or build a printer yourself, Bambu is not stopping you.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#235

Post by Godsend69 »

ChickeNES wrote: post #234
hWuxH wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not only a licensing issue, but they abuse this closed source binary to lock away major features from other slicers (DRM, signature checks), hinder development, include anti-debugging, telemetry, encrypt logs and configs, etc. And the stock plugin ships an unaligned atomic that triggers the kernel's split_lock detector on every modern Intel CPU. Startup stalls for 25-60 seconds while the kernel walks each trap; e…

Again, the average person does not care about any of that. They will use the Bambu slicer (if even, I bet many only print from their phones with the app). They aren't aware of, nor do they care about, anti-debugging, telemetry, encrypted logs, or anything of that nature. Most who do use the slicer will probably be on Windows, not Linux, and on an x86_64 machine. Why is any of this a surprise? It's an appliance, not s…

[dead]

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#236

Post by bluGill »

toast0 wrote: post #148
bluGill wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I would expect that the defendant would already have stopped shipping anything that violates the license by the time it gets to court. However there is still the question of what the court will do about the part non compliance.

By contrast here the courts are likely to force bambu to open everything since they are knowingly not in compliance. Though China is what makes this hard- the courts can say open everything but if China resists there isn't much more they can do. (Blocking all sales is an option)

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#237

Post by _carbyau_ »

simiones wrote: post #210
_carbyau_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you mean physically modifying a printer you bought from Bambu, and selling that on? Potentially as a service, where you buy in bulk and re-sell with this modification? If so, I don't see how that would change anything about the software you're allowed to run on it. Or do you mean manufacturing your own printer that is a copy of theirs with 10mm extra build volume in each direction, and with your own software? That…

I was thinking more of a make your own copy of their printer and run free software on it rather than theirs.

It just seems like they don't have that much of a moat which is why they are guarding the software bit as much as they can.

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#238

Post by ChuckMcM »

jfindley wrote: post #215
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."

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 goi…

I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think you may have unintentionally made my point.

Try this: Change the context "Acme's Sunscreen which is made from killing an endangered fish, is significantly better than any other sunscreen out there, and because it is already on fish we know it doesn't hurt the ocean!" except the production of Acme Sunscreen is leading to the extinction of said fish in the future. Short term profits, long term loss, and perhaps a bet that at some point what ever it is about the fish that makes great sunscreen will be figured out.

Using FOSS requires (by license) that you give back your changes, which, when functional prevents a vendor from exploiting the work of a bunch of people they didn't pay, to make a product where they pay a few people to push it way past what the community offers. Whereas if they had been publishing their changes, then their product wouldn't be "significantly ahead" because everyone using the same slicer base code would be able to also use Bambu's improvements. But Bambu doesn't do that because why let the competitors take advantage of the work of people who they didn't compensate for that work. Hmmm?

See how that works?

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#239

Post by herbst »

xavdid wrote: post #168
m4rtink wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reason why you did not choose a PRusa 3D printer ? From my experience those work well, are mucxh more open & don't do any of the stupid shit Bambu is trying to pull off.

I traded a Prusa MK3S for a secondhand Bambu P1S and it was night and day. I believe the prusa could have gotten to a place where it printed well and consistently, but the P1S *just works*. It printed better out of the gate with 0 tinkering than the Prusa did after I had spent hours calibrating, testing, and re-calibrating it. I wanted the Prusa to be just as good, which is why I started with it. I wanted to support…

This is the exact thing I was afraid of to end up with again. I don't want a maintain hobby

Re: An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

#240

Post by PennRobotics »

I just knew this would be about Bambu.

It is nuts that they can be fairly transparent how anti-consumer they are while still succeeding. It's really a testament to the quality of their printers, marketing, and long-term strategy.

If you want to print multi-filament without an AMS, it's a massive hassle. You need to insert custom G-code. Even though you can export raw G-code, you can't reimport it. You can insert custom G-code on the layer preview, but they expicitly disable pasting in the entry dialog. Some of the variables from the main G-code aren't accessible to the filament G-code.

The "easiest" way to do this is to insert a G-code pause where you want a filament change (if you use the layer "Pause" you can't control the extruder anymore until the print resumes) and then manually moving the extruder gears (to unload and then again to purge) and then resuming the print manually.

"No non-AMS filament changes" has been a complaint on both GitHub and the Bambu forums. OrcaSlicer doesn't have these problems. Obviously Bambu has an economic disincentive to make easy filament changes without an AMS, but it would be nice to have a good printer as well as intuitive (or at least hackable) software.

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