BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork • Hacker News Board

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#111

Post by Joel_Mckay » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:31 PM UTC

le-mark wrote: post #45

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the PRC government will install local politically connected members into advisor roles in almost all large companies. It is something a lot of businesses simply have no control over in that country, or in the US for that matter. The locked ecosystem posture is simply because with a billion people a firm of any size always has irrational competitors/cloners. Sometimes the governments national policy aligns…

> It is something a lot of businesses simply have no control over in that country, or in the US for that matter. Can you expand on instances where the US government has installed overseers in large US companies? This sounds preposterous.

Some agencies literally had their own room 641A at telecom companies.

People need to accept folks as they are, and not as we would like them to be. =3

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#112

Post by homarp » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:38 PM UTC

himata4113 wrote: post #90

jonas_jensen wrote: post #47

Can I just say: thank you for posting an xcancel link and not linking to X directly! I forgot Xcancel was a thing, I might actually start using it occasionally now.

I noticed that xcancel links are rewritten to x.com more often than not, probably due to the fact that xcancel will not last like xitter, nitter and all the ones before it. I hope that archive services implement preserving twitter content.

nitter recovered, it works now

e.g. https://nitter.net/josefprusa/status/2054602354851254330

Nitter instances status pages: https://status.d420.de/

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#113

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #103

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point. Someone made the software and assigned it a license. Bambulabs decided they wanted to build their product on top of that. No one forced them. It was a business decision. So it's first and foremost a dick move to not adhere to it. They could have created their complete custom, closed source, commercially licensed slicer. They didn't. It was probably a lot cheaper to take some else's…

Believe me the point is not lost on me. But it's certainly not a universal dick move. It's an opportunity in a society that does not care for the laws on the other side of the world. If it's such a universal dick move, then why do Chinese companies keep doing it? Do you imagine they realize they are being unethical? Perhaps your morals and ethics are less universal than you believe. Do you think that perhaps it is th…

I have been to China, I know a lot of Chinese people and I am pretty sure that this is a dick move in China as well.

Problem is that companies don't care if they are dicks as long as the money is right.

And you call it shaming, I call it warning others. Sometimes bad publicity is actually bad for the company. Sometimes people will reconsider buying things if they find out that companies are being dicks. Not always. But sometimes.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#114

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #108

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me the point is not lost on me. But it's certainly not a universal dick move. It's an opportunity in a society that does not care for the laws on the other side of the world. If it's such a universal dick move, then why do Chinese companies keep doing it? Do you imagine they realize they are being unethical? Perhaps your morals and ethics are less universal than you believe. Do you think that perhaps it is th…

What you’re espousing here is just basic moral relativism. Except what you’re getting wrong is that US companies break IP law constantly. It turns out companies aren’t moral actors, they’ll do whatever. The GPL is a business opportunity here too. It’s just that in the US/canada/eu the legal side is more enforceable. Don’t give a f about the GPL in china -> successful biz. Don’t give an f about the GPL in the US -> su…

Fundamentally I agree with you.

I'd love to see stats showing a material impact to their sales but I'm not optimistic. If I were to guess I'd reckon their sales are still climbing.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#115

Post by ndiddy » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

pabs3 wrote: post #56

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am annoyed that they just claim that "reverse engineering" will take care of this, instead of really trying to fight back legally. This is a social problem, and reverse engineering can only help up to a point.

They are likely pretty busy with their lawsuit against Vizio, which is going to trial in August and would set a very interesting precedent if won. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

I think the Vizio lawsuit will set a more narrow precedent than the SFC wants. The tentative ruling the judge in that case made in December (not binding, but represents the judge's current understanding of the case going into the trial) is that Vizio has a contractual obligation to provide the GPL source code for the TV the SFC bought because the TV has an offer to provide source code upon request buried in one of the menus. The tentative ruling doesn't cover what happens if a company doesn't offer to provide source code. In the future, a company that uses GPL code without a source code offer could argue that third-party GPL beneficiaries have no grounds to sue because there's no contract being violated, and this would take another lawsuit to resolve.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#116

Post by obscurette » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

Renaud wrote: post #24

dsign wrote: post #15

I can't help but wonder how could, Bambulabs or the Chinese government, actually mine that data? In my mind, 3D models fail into two categories: artistic and utilitarian, though there's a continuum between those two. With the artistic side, the Chinese government could find itself in possession of tons and tons of Western miniatures. With the utilitarian side, they will find themselves in possession of lots and lots…

Not everything that a Chinese company does is for nefarious reason or under the hidden agenda of the Chinese government. The reality is much more mundane: many Chinese companies do not understand the expectations around open source. There isn’t anything really equivalent in China. The closest mindset is that things that are available to use, are available to take. The notion of copyright -while not inexistent- is not…

Sorry, but this is just horse shit. I grew up in Soviet Union and we "didn't understand" open source, IP etc either. It wasn't because of some cultural or whatever reasons, it was purely by economical and political reasons. We didn't have money to buy any software. When I got my first ZX Spectrum clone in 1990, any game would cost me my monthly salary, university I worked for ran stolen SCO because it was illegal even to have in Soviet Union etc etc. And of course everyone was used to steal anyway and it was even more acceptable to steal from them. But it took only a decade and all this stuff was left behind.

And Chinese government and companies clearly understand Open Source. They support open licenses, standardsm, software and hardware wherever it benefits them – mostly by making western competitors relying on IP and licensing weaker.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#117

Post by kayson » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

> The standard defense for something like this is "the plugin is a separate work, so it's not subject to copyleft." That argument falls apart on contact with the actual software. BS cannot do its primary job without the plugin. The plugin cannot do anything without BS.

But that's just not true? You can connect a printer in LAN/dev mode and print directly from slicer to printer. There are apparently some issues with more complex network setups but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

I think the concerns he has generally are valid, but I have yet to see something from a legal perspective (e.g. precedent) that convinces me this constitutes a license violation. Would love to see one.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#118

Post by Tomte » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #115

pabs3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are likely pretty busy with their lawsuit against Vizio, which is going to trial in August and would set a very interesting precedent if won. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

I think the Vizio lawsuit will set a more narrow precedent than the SFC wants. The tentative ruling the judge in that case made in December (not binding, but represents the judge's current understanding of the case going into the trial) is that Vizio has a contractual obligation to provide the GPL source code for the TV the SFC bought because the TV has an offer to provide source code upon request buried in one of th…

That was my impression, as well, but I recently met SFC people and they assured me that the judge is taking the third party beneficiary doctrine very seriously, it‘s not off the table. Funnily, because Vizio objected to the tentative ruling, it has little meaning now.

The trial in August will handle the TPB stuff, as well. It will be streamed, btw.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#119

Post by iwontberude » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

flaunf221 wrote: post #49

Renaud wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything that a Chinese company does is for nefarious reason or under the hidden agenda of the Chinese government. The reality is much more mundane: many Chinese companies do not understand the expectations around open source. There isn’t anything really equivalent in China. The closest mindset is that things that are available to use, are available to take. The notion of copyright -while not inexistent- is not…

> They are not idiots, but not everyone at that company will actually understand the duties that come with these licenses. Copyright is not some kind of spiritual nonsense. It's law. You don't need to understand how, you just need to follow it. There can be legal questions on what exactly you can do, but those can arise for any kind of law. Of course you could also ignore copyright law - but that's the same with any…

Customary law eats positive law for breakfast. It’s like trying to herd sovereign citizens.

Re: BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork

#120

Post by nik282000 » Sat, May 23, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #77

nik282000 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is much more mundane: many Chinese companies do not understand the expectations around open source. Except that Bambu is not a small player in the game, and they made threats of using the DMCA which shows they are fully aware of "western" IP law and the nature of licenses, Open or otherwise.

Aren't you saying the same thing as parent? The expectation is usually NOT to send DMCA notices, so if they do, doesn't that also allude to what parent said, that they don't understand the expectations around open source?

They understood enough to know that they could not claim a license violation but invoking the DCMA, specifically the part about bypassing digital locks, they could intimidate a developer.

American lawmakers and politicians are technologically ignorant, and Americans in general see programmers as existing on a spectrum with boring nerds on one end and hackers on the other. Bambu was betting on easy support by painting the developer as a hacker who was "reverse engineering" their "safety features". What Bambu failed to understand is that the people who make and use Open software are not average Americans, they are tech savvy, interested, and loud.