Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#321

Post by kayson » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:37 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #220

kayson wrote: post #185

I'm supportive of Jeff's general philosophy towards open source, but this feels a little disingenuous. Did Bambu mishandle the situation? Absolutely. But we need to stop vilifying companies for being cloud-first. The reality is that 99% of their users set up the printer and app using the cloud service. It's easy and convenient. The slicer is still open source, and you can still use their printers without the cloud. (…

> we need to stop vilifying companies for being cloud-first. No. Absolutely not. Cloud-first is privacy-second, and rental model with ever-changing fees and terms of use.

> Cloud-first is privacy-second

This is not necessarily true. There are technical solutions to preserve privacy, end to end encryption being a very common one. That being said, Bambu strikes me as a very competent 3D printer designer, but not so much a competent software designer.

> rental model

I don't think this really applies to a hardware company selling 3D printers. You can always still use SFTP or SD cards to print. A big selling point for them is the ecosystem and being able to, for example, find a model on the app while you're on the road, send it to your printer, and have it be done by the time you get home. If this weren't cloud enabled, most of their customers wouldn't be able to get it to work because things like VPN or tailscale are well beyond them.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#322

Post by kayson » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

abigail95 wrote: post #226

kayson wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license isn't the issue. It's the User Agreement. Bambu is claiming that the fork is allowing, enabling, (and/or promoting, encouraging, etc) users to violate the agreement with Bambu to not use their cloud with third party software. I'm fairly certain user agreements have been used for suing makers of game cheats and other similar things. Certainly in the industry I work in, there was a company making third part…

Even with a user agreement I think they need to gate their service behind that agreement, otherwise the agreement is optional and open ports are open for use. You still need to form a valid contract - no notice, no assent, no contract. If there's a gate that's being bypassed then this all changes but it doesn't seem like there is - and it doesn't seem like they can add one without breaking existing printers.

In this case, you're signing up for an account and entering into the user agreement to do so. There's a whole separate legal discussion to be had about the whole "scroll past it all and just click accept to make it to away" thing...

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#323

Post by kayson » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

RobotToaster wrote: post #213

kayson wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license isn't the issue. It's the User Agreement. Bambu is claiming that the fork is allowing, enabling, (and/or promoting, encouraging, etc) users to violate the agreement with Bambu to not use their cloud with third party software. I'm fairly certain user agreements have been used for suing makers of game cheats and other similar things. Certainly in the industry I work in, there was a company making third part…

From the AGPL: >When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid ci…

This doesn't apply because their cloud service, which has the "technological measure" is not the "covered work", as incompetent as the measure might be...

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#324

Post by sinker » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:42 PM UTC

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

Isn't this just a Bambu marketing point? I have a Prusa MK4S and a Centauri Carbon - they both print without any fuss and can be operated without any deep technical understanding.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#325

Post by Ancapistani » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

OK - so Bambu has harassed legitimate F/OSS projects.

Serious question: why not just release whatever you want but not tie it to your identity? Bambu demands OcraSlicer make changes under threat of litigation? OK, cool. Enjoy the 5,000 forks of OcraSlicer that implement that functionality in exactly the same way. Hell, post a notice that they were compelled to remove the feature, and that they're thereform removing the release x.y.z, with the sha256 hash of "...".

Now OrcaSlicer has complied, and the community has an semi-official way to make sure that the commits that were removed aren't modified when they get them from other sources.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#326

Post by Arch-TK » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

wolvoleo wrote: post #252

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

I don't think Prusa and Bambu compare well. Prusa printers aren't as cleanly designed as Bambu and they are more than twice the price. I consider them really poor value for money. And Bambu printers aren't clones. The AMS is something they came up with. Also, Prusa copy from Bambu too. Like their own material switcher (much less sophisticated than the AMS) and the new Core printer is really more a Bambu copy than the…

No idea about the filament swirchers, but calling core XY designs bambu clones is really funny.

The core XY design that all manufacturers are now centering around has been around long before Bambu existed as a company.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#327

Post by morphle » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

tossit444 wrote: post #317

morphle wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kill switch in DJI drones and other brands: https://npo.nl/start/serie/konvooi/afleveringen/seizoen-1 Documentairy in Dutch but the interview is in English

Geoblocked in USA. HTTP 451 in network requests.

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtt9eST5H80

the kill switch is discussed in part 2 https://youtu.be/za62IvbfzXE?t=1061 by the fire department who got the drone donated by the interviewer from "Protrct Ukraine"

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#328

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #53

kn100 wrote: post #30

Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type…

Prusa are pretty much plug and play these days, especially the Core One line-up. You're right that they're expensive but you get free human support 24x7, you get an open platform, lots of contributions to open source (even Bambu Studio is a fork of Prusa Slicer), and they pretty much go on forever. My Core One+ started its life as an original MK3 and went through each iteration of upgrades, and it works like new. I'm…

Wow, that’s a lot of money on upgrades. I also got the MK3 and upgraded it once.

Full upgrade to the core one will be AUD$2k

I can keep my current printer alive for a long time. But it’s hard to justify the cost.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#329

Post by Arch-TK » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #325

OK - so Bambu has harassed legitimate F/OSS projects. Serious question: why not just release whatever you want but not tie it to your identity? Bambu demands OcraSlicer make changes under threat of litigation? OK, cool. Enjoy the 5,000 forks of OcraSlicer that implement that functionality in exactly the same way. Hell, post a notice that they were compelled to remove the feature, and that they're thereform removing t…

Why should people be forced to distance themselves from their public service work in order to be safe from abuse?

Another aspect is that releasing something under copyleft without putting an identity behind it is toothless. Someone can copy it and now if you want to go after them, you need to out yourself anyway.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#330

Post by dd8601fn » Tue, May 12, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC

I learned this less the hard way (and probably for the tenth time) with Anker.

I love their 3d printer. It "just works" like none I had before it.

But now they've killed their 3d printer business and all their stuff is absolutely dependent on their web services. So that thing is up shit creek without a paddle whenever they flip that switch.

It really hurts to think about replacing an expensive, WORKING thing just because it became abandonware.