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Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

jeffgeerling.com

91–100 of 452 posts

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#92
post #12

We have a Bambu Lab P2S at work. I was considering to buy one myself, because of the ease of use and relative affordability. What printers are similarly priced and have similar specs, for someone relatively new to 3D printing?

Check out the qidi q2 (or the q2c depending on what you plan to print) - it reviews well compared to the p2s or even the x1c, runs fully open firmware, and is a fair bit cheaper than the bambu comparables.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#93
post #32

"It pretended to be the official client" is not a security argument if the mechanism was client-supplied metadata. That’s not impersonation. That’s Bambu discovering that user agents are not authentication.

"You can't use any client you want because of security" is bullshit, as if hackers will care what client you'd like them to use or not when they're trying to hack your infrastructure. This is just Bambu alienating their customer base, again.

“But I checked the evil bit and it was off!!!” (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt)

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#94

Good article, but I'd like to ask about two small technical details (I've used Bambu before, but I'm not very familiar with the 3D printing ecosystem). 1. OrcaSlicer: so it's a fork of Bambu's official client, Bambu Studio - but it apparently still goes through Bambu's servers for printing? How exactly does that work? Does it also "impersonate" the User-Agent, and Bambu was okay with that? 2. OrcaSlicer-bambulab: if…

Orcas Slicer is a fork of Bambu Studio, which is a fork of PrusaSlicer, itself a descendant of Slic3r.

Orca Slicer was forked to improve usability and features, not to get around any cloud printing requirements, Bamboo added those later and removed the ability to print locally.

It has to impersonate to transfer a gcode file locally, which is another open standard.

Bamboo restricted LAN printing, that is the issue.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#95

I honestly don't get it. They have more to win by doing things right than with this crap they pull out . Never getting a Bambulab.

This feels like pressure from the state. I do not see why they would do this otherwise. If people use these printers at work, they may be willingly sending prototypes and designs to China. That would create a huge advantage, because the company could know who bought the printer, where they are located, and what they are working on. Since Chinese companies are required to comply with the government, corporate espionag…

[deleted]

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prusa is still the most 'open source-ish' choice, but they're no longer a polar opposite to Bambu, in 2023 they started making efforts to stop commercialization of their designs, stopped sharing source/design material for their PCBs, etc. Then in 2025 they changed their 'open community license' to say users may not: “Sell complete machines or remixes based on these files, unless you have a separate agreement…” and “T…

It’s not problematic to restrict people from selling the thing you designed, made and sell without permission. If I make an open source car, I don’t want someone else taking my design work, and then selling a cheaper version of my product, I want my consumers to build their own parts.

Then you shouldn’t make an open-source car.

Maybe you should make a source-available car, or a car with select portions of CAD available, or something else that fits your intended business model better than open-source.

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#98
post #11

> Some people are okay with using OrcaSlicer and printing through Bambu's cloud. It's convenient if you're on the road and want to start a print on your printer at home Do such people really exist? Are there actually people who are comfortable blindly starting a robot in their home, with a part that heats to 150 C, and then hope that everything will work out and when they get home the part will be waiting for them, i…

Does your house have an HVAC system? Water heater?

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#99
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 have an Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 and it “just works”. It’s a Bambu clone but with much less safeguards (for now) and is also 1/3 the price

Re: Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

#100
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…

Is there any guidance on improving the Core One chamber? I would like to add some thermal insulation around the chamber, but I'm not sure if the firmware will properly detect unexpected thermal insulation in problematic scenario's, if it blindly assumes its a stock Core One... the more you modify a printer, the more it operates in terra incognita.

Could too much thermal insulation cause the bed temperature to lower (to avoid overheating chamber temp) to the point the print no longer adheres? etc.

If you could recommend some articles on the subject I would highly appreciate it.

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