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Louis Rossmann taunts Bambu Lab by hosting banned 3D Printer firmware fork, dares $1 billion company to sue him — more creators pledge support and boycotts, Snapmaker donates equipment to embattled de (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 122 points 5 months ago (38 children)

It looks like Rossman is saying that anyone can post this code because it's an open source, GPL code. Rossman also posted the code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8&t=2s

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  • [–] 57 points 5 months ago*

    Right, there are many forks of the software, which is allowed under the AGPL licence.

    Slic3r by Alessandro Ranellucci established the original open-source foundation.

    Then PrusaSlicer forked from that -ok.

    Then Orcaslicer forked from that -ok.

    Then Bambu locked down it's fork - not ok, violation of the slic3r AGPL.

    It's like..can I borrow your car? puts a bumper sticker on it, changes the locks, my car now.

    Slic3r is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.

    The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) is a strong copyleft, free software license designed to ensure source code remains open, even when software is run over a network. Based on GPLv3, it closes the "ASP loophole" by requiring companies that modify and offer software as a service (SaaS) to make the source code available to users.

    https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

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  • [+] -127 points 5 months ago (36 children)

    not really what the gpl means, but good for him i guess?

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  • [–] 145 points 5 months ago (28 children)

    The GPL explicitly grants anyone the right to share, distribute, and even modify the source code. So yes, that is exactly what it means. They cannot claim they wrote it, but they can absolutely both share and distribute the source code, and are in fact required to if they do make modifications to it. It's literally the main thing the license is even about.

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  • [–] 56 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Small sidenote: distribution of modified source code of GPLv2/v3 covered projects is only mandatory to those who have access to a binary version of the modified sources.

    e.g. if you take a GPLv2 covered project that is a simple HTTP server, and you give the binary nobody, then you're not required to share the source (if the HTTP server is AGPL covered then you need to provide it to anyone who can access the HTTP service and requests the source).

    This is an important distinction, as you can't demand the source of a GPL project from someone who cloned it and made modifications to their own use without distributing a binary of those changes. If I fork Orca and make some changes, and showcase those as screenshots, you have absolutely no right to demand the source for it. If I were to send you a binary of Orca with my changes, then you'd have the right.

    I mean this distinction is obviously not applicable here but I wanted to make sure the GPL summary is fully correct. Which is the best kind of correct.

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Wait, i thought that technically correct was the best kind of correct ? i have been LIED TO.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    A fully correct statement is categorically a technically correct statement, therefore the two are not contradictory.

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  • [+] -13 points 5 months ago* (22 children)

    maybe my thinking is off then, but in my mind it's mainly for first and second parties? as in, orca and bambu both have to share the source when sharing the binary, not necessarily immediately but on request. anything built on top of gpl code can be closed unless it's agpl. as a third party to all this, can rossman share the code bambu has made on top of orca?

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  • [–] 33 points 5 months ago (11 children)

    Your thinking is off, the GPL and derived licenses like the AGPL are viral on purpose. They apply to everybody who uses, downloads, or accesses the software (in the case of the AGPL) and they are explicit about this:

    Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License.

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  • [+] -19 points 5 months ago* (10 children)

    what i'm reading from that is that both parties must agree that the work has been conveyed. with the risk of going all sovcit, if the conveyed item is a binary, and the producer does not send the source code to the consumer as instructed by the license, can the consumer really pull the source and distribute it? surely if the license is broken the work falls back on default permissions, e.g. all rights reserved?

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  • [–] 20 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    In the general case, the person or persons who distributed the binary would then have done so illegally. In order to distribute, you have to follow the terms of the license. So them attempting to go after anyone downstream of them at that point is sort of like calling the police because someone stole your drug stash. And if there's an upstream beyond the illegal distributors, they're practically waving a "Sue me now!" placard in their direction.

    The originator of the code, above whom there is no upstream, is allowed to offer it under more than one license (including a mixture of free and closed licenses), but the specific license in force has to be specified with each distributed copy.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Do you have an example of a project that has both free and commercial licenses? How does that work in practice?

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    The first one that comes to mind is Qt (the widget toolkit). While I'm not sure the current owners still do this, Trolltech offered the earlier versions under both the GPL and a commercial license that I think included paid support. I assume any sales under the commercial license were to companies who wanted to include it in their closed-source software.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Maybe read the GPL ;)

    But the language defines that if you distribute a binary, you must make the source available, and that source is allowed to be taken, modified, redistributed as binary and source, as long as the person doing the modifications attributes you and all other previous authors.

    It doesn’t matter if that binary comes as a firmware on a device the user purchased.

    The distributor does not have to distribute the source with the binary, they just have to make it available, for free, and they cannot stop anyone using it as defined above.

    Breaking the license does not change how the software is licensed, it just puts the entity doing the violations in violation of a license.

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  • [–] -4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    the fsf is off the opinion that you explicitly can paywall the sources separately from the product. that's why i find this interesting.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    lime

    That page doesn't say that at all. You can paywall the software and the source together for any price (but note that anyone who buys the software can now give out the source freely). Or you can charge for the source freely but only "for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source".

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  • [–] -3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    sounds like it says that to me. "we can't send you the source over the internet because of security reasons so you need to pay us for a plane ticket so one of our representatives can give you a cd directly" is evil and stupid but completely reasonable in a legal sense.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I think it would be very difficult to argue that that is reasonable but that would be up to the courts to decide.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago*

    i've had to deal with situations like that before, not specifically because of gpl but because of international regulations. one of my customers was a digital id provider, and they had one of those super-accurate timekeeping/cryptography servers they needed to move from lithuania to sweden. because of laws surrounding encryption of personal information, the server would count as compromised if there was ever a single second where it was left without supervision. so they had two of their people drive non-stop through poland, germany, denmark and half of sweden with the server on a ups in the back seat.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    AGPL can be closed too, the license bases the right to the source based on the access to the end product:

    • GPLv2/v3 - if you have the binary executable output of the GPLv2/3 covered source, you must be granted access to the exact source used to make the binary. This applies to legitimately sourced binaries only - if you were to hack into a company's servers and get a binary of a modified GPL product, this wouldn't apply. But extracting a binary from a device you own IS a legitimate access (so e.g. if your phone uses U-boot, the manufacturer must grant you access to their modified U-Boot sources used to build the bootloader)

    • AGPL - if you have (legitimate) access to a service you can request the source. This is so e.g. web services can be made into GPLed code where modifications must be released (negating the requirement of possession of a binary, since you can't possess a binary that runs on a remote server). e.g. let's say I run GTK app via browser using kasmVNC - if the app is GPL, I don't have to provide the source, if it's AGPL, I have to provide the source.

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  • [–] -3 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    are you sure about that first one? yes they have to give you the source, but what happens if they don't? i've genuinely not thought about that before.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago

    That's where legal actions come into place.

    I've managed to force multiple Chinese companies to release sources that were adamant they don't have to, just by threatening to report them to the FSF and SFC - both bodies have been wildly successful in prosecuting licence breaches.

    Also both the EU and the US have now precedents and laws in place that allow fast-tracking obvious licence violators' blocking from the market. For a small Chinese company whose main target market is the west, it's a major blow if their sales and export are blocked because they won't release the source.

    So they try to play hardball, but it's like modern lifts - the moment you press the right buttons suddenly they do exactly what you want them to.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    I remember this happening to Linksys with the WRT-54g routers. They shipped with firmware based on open software (I don’t remember the exact license) and they were brought to court and forced to release the source code.

    In the end it really helped the sales of that model because hobbyists wanted it for the freedom of running their own code on it.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    oh yeah i remember that. pretty sure that was gpl.

    this is sort of a predecessor to that situation thus far: bambu is obviously in the wrong with regards to not handing out gpl'ed source, but they are in their full right to refuse handing out stuff they've built on top. so the question then is, is rossman in the clear for having taken their source code? if he has bought one of their printers (most likely) it's pretty cut and dry, but if he took the code from somewhere else he has technically stolen it and the license does not apply. at least that's my read.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    You aren't understanding the GPL correctly.

    • The GPL applies to code built on top of GPL code, this is the viral nature of the GPL.
    • Anyone with a GPL license for the code can license anyone else, it does not have to come from the original creator. So Rossmann has a license granted by the creator of the fork. Also the source that Bambu Lab provide on GitHub provides a license as well.
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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    i'm using "on top" rather flippantly here, since orca is AGPL. but bambu may also have separate code running on the machines that is not agpl.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)
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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

    yeah, this is the interesting one. also this one and he ones below it.

    basically, bambu has the right to refuse handing out gpled code. that's part of their freedom to distribute as they see fit. however, they can only exercise that freedom on people they haven't given the binaries. so if you decompile or download all the sources, and you don't own one of their printers, you are also violating the license.

    now if rossman owns a bambu printer, and he has gotten the sources from that printer or directly from bambu, they can't do shit. otherwise there is wiggle room.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    Interesting read.

    I just found out that a company has a copy of a GPLed program, and it costs money to get it. Aren't they violating the GPL by not making it available on the Internet?

    No. The GPL does not require anyone to use the Internet for distribution. It also does not require anyone in particular to redistribute the program. And (outside of one special case), even if someone does decide to redistribute the program sometimes, the GPL doesn't say he has to distribute a copy to you in particular, or any other person in particular.

    What the GPL requires is that he must have the freedom to distribute a copy to you if he wishes to. Once the copyright holder does distribute a copy of the program to someone, that someone can then redistribute the program to you, or to anyone else, as he sees fit.

    Once the copyright holder does distribute a copy of the program to someone, that someone can then redistribute the program to you, or to anyone else, as he sees fit.

    Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?

    No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program nonfree. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.

    The GPL is a free software license, and therefore it permits people to use and even redistribute the software without being required to pay anyone a fee for doing so.

    You can charge people a fee to get a copy from you. You can't require people to pay you when they get a copy from someone else.

    Sounds like bambu is perfectly free to not give the code to anyone, but as soon as they give the code to someone, that someone can give it to whoever they want.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Sounds like bambu is perfectly free to not give the code to anyone, but as soon as they give the code to someone, that someone can give it to whoever they want.

    And that's why people redistributing and modifying an older snapshot of the code are 100% within their rights to do so.

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  • [+] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    yeah, a lot of times. i had software licencing responsibilities for a product for a while, and they really didn't want gpl stuff in there for the reasons stated in the thread.

    the interesting wrinkle in this situation is: if rossman is distributing all of bambu's code, including the account stuff that far as i can tell is another codebase, and he hasn't gotten it from his own printer (which wouldn't have the sources) then no "agreement" has taken place. if bambu is told to distribute sources and they say "no", they're in the wrong. but if they haven't said anything, then technically rossman is stealing the code. it would most likely get thrown out, but the case can be made.

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    • [–] 188 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (34 children)

    Great move by Snapmaker. In considering buying a new printer soon I am very annoyed by how difficult it is to know beforehand how much functionality of a printer is locked behind cloud connectivity that can be remotely disabled at any point. I know Bambu is to avoid absolutely thanks to the very public backlash they got but what about the others?

    I know Prusa is a shining example of letting their customers own their devices but they are pricy. I didn't know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.

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  • [–] 107 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    You might check out the Consumer Rights Wiki, also started by Rossman. It's crowd sourced, and lists anti-consumer BS like forced cloud subscriptions for a lot of companies.

    Just find a printer, look up the company there, and see how legit they are. There's even a browser plugin that pops up on any website that has an entry on the wiki.

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  • [–] 60 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    Knowing what I know now, I' trade my Bambu P1S for a Prusa. Buy once, cry once.

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  • [–] 40 points 5 months ago* (7 children)

    My Prusa was tucked in between the cushions of my couch for a cross country move, left in storage for one year, and moved again before I just blew the first off and smashed out a perfect print from an SD card. That's a solid enough performance I don't think I'd consider any other brand.

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  • [–] 26 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The worst thing about Prusa is the knowledge that no matter what you buy, there will be an upgrade available to an even better one WAY too quickly, and then you'll want that one too. It's a trap, I tell you!

    j/k I still love my Prusa MK3S+, though the relentless upgrade temptation is real.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    I pulled mine out of storage after four years. Same thing, blew the dust off, plugged it in, expecting the worst. Nope, it just lit up and ran through the setup procedure. Set the z and printed perfectly, just like I had it set up when I put it in storage. I didn't expect such a sensitive machine with such tight tolerances to just work.

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  • [–] -4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    any printer will do that.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Some require retentioning belts, readjusting the bed level, or other maintainance items before you can get a perfect print again.

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  • [–] 47 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Prusa is pricy because they make the de facto standards - including PrusaSlicer which is the base of OrcaSlicer/Bambu Studio.

    Bambu can sell cheaper for two reason:

    • limited research needed to make their own products - they're just copying open patents and software, tuning it a little, and selling the package at manufacturing cost + profit margins
    • the CCP pouring a shitton of money into companies to subsidise them and allow them to undercut western competition. Bambu makes a printer for $1000, CCP pays $600 of it, Bambu sells for $600 - $200 profit
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  • [–] 15 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Prusa is pricy because they make the de facto standards - including PrusaSlicer which is the base of OrcaSlicer/Bambu Studio.

    PrusaSlicer itself is just a fork of Slic3r, anyway.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    Open-source slicing has always been built on a tradition of collaboration and attribution. Slic3r, created by Alessandro Ranellucci and the RepRap community, laid the foundation. PrusaSlicer by Prusa Research built on Slic3r and acknowledged that heritage. Bambu Studio in turn forked from PrusaSlicer, and SuperSlicer by @supermerill extended PrusaSlicer with community-driven enhancements. Each project carried the work of its predecessors forward, crediting those who came before.

    OrcaSlicer began in that same spirit, drawing from BambuStudio, PrusaSlicer, and ideas inspired by CuraSlicer and SuperSlicer.

    Source

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    limited research needed to make their own products - they’re just copying open patents and software, tuning it a little, and selling the package at manufacturing cost + profit margins

    So you really have no idea about these printers. Bambu has a dozen patents for novel IP.

    "copying open patents" no such thing as an open patent, IP is either patent, or open domain. All printer companies exploit expired patents, including Prusa.

    Stratasys is suing Bambu over: Purge Towers, Force Detection, Networked Systems & Smart Spools, but Stratasys are cunts who try to sue anyone. How did they get a patent for purge towers.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Bambi's contributions are marginal compared to all the prior IP they use (and wasn't Prusa actually suing them for using a number of their patents without the rights?).

    as for open patents: any patent that is expired or where the owner isn't interested in enforcing uniqueness (many a things are patented yet in public domain!). by open I simply mean no licensing is required.

    And yes, that's precisely what Bambu does. Take open designs, public domain parts and bang them together until they got something working. Which is why I recommend people buy Prusa, not Bambu - reward with some extra spending the people who actually do the hard work, not the ones who swoop in at the end and try to undercut the actual innovators.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago*

    I didn’t know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.

    Smart move by Snapmaker, for the price of one hardware unit they get a lot of exposure to exactly the kind of people that they're marketing towards.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    As the owner of a Snapmaker2 A150 (that is, one of their second-gen multifunction devices, fairly old now), I can say that my experience with it has been decent enough. It speaks a lightly modified Marlin dialect and can be run completely offline. New firmware requires user permission. They did release the source for the firmware and for their custom slicer (not worth it), and some of the more adventurous owners did manage to flash it with modified firmware. There were a few complaints at the time about the hardware not being as open as people had hoped, mostly because of custom connectors and the like.

    Hardware-quality-wise, it was kneecapped by needing to be solid enough for CNC, so it's slower and heavier than a purpose-built printer would need to be, but the prints are of decent enough quality for a device of its age and type.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Could you please give your thoughts on its milling and laser capabilities? Do you own the 4th axis rotary?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The A150 is too small to mount the rotary—you need at least an A250, but there were no longer any of the midsize units available by the time I hit the kickstarter and I didn't have the space for the A350, so I opted for the smallest model.

    Embarassingly, I've used it mostly as a 3D printer. The blue diode laser originally shipped with the unit is a decent etcher but too weak to cut through anything very thick (best I've heard of anyone managing was 1/4" of wood, and that took a lot of passes and patience on their part), and it has some limitations on what materials it will handle (I'd have to scour the forum for details, because it's been a while). I didn't buy the more powerful laser that later became available as an add-on. Unless their software has improved a lot since the last version I downloaded, you'll need 3rd party software to make the most of it.

    I never actually tried milling with it because of potential dust removal issues, but according to reports it once again suffers here from being a compromise device with limited software. The frame isn't quite as rigid as a dedicated CNC, the bits are Dremel-sized and a bit fragile due to that, and the provided software I have won't, for instance, handle what should be simple tasks like drilling all-vertical holes or doing multiple passes with different-sized bits. Unlike the laser, I can't recall any reports of anyone using alternative CAM software for the CNC, but it's been a couple of years since I last looked.

    In the end it's kind of like a Swiss Army knife: great if you have limited space (my issue) and just want to try stuff out, but if you can manage it you're better off with dedicated machines for each function.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Thank you for the thorough response!

    It's unfortunate that the design compromises result in a tool with limited usability. I'm slightly interested in the desktop mills and lasers but haven't done much research on them. Your comment about printing being slow actually perked my ears up as that suggests increased rigidity needed for milling. It sounds like if I ever do decide to get a tiny mill or laser, I'm better off with a purpose built machine.

    As for software, G-code for a specific machine is all about the post at the professional level. Unfortunately, pro-grade CAM is around $20k a seat. A good post is often $4k or a lot of time painfully producing and testing it yourself. CAM/CAD is the only thing keeping me from Linux at work and on my primary home PC. I wasn't impressed with the 1.0 release of FreeCAD. The UI still seems to be designed by aliens.

    (Lemmy weirdness: I only received notification of your response last night.)

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I knew about the problems with Bambu long before I bought my new printer back in December. I ended up going with an Elegoo Centauri Carbon. It works out of the box without ever requiring you to set up an account, install an app on your phone, or connect to a cloud service. I just use mine with a USB stick.

    I wanted to go with Prusa but the cost difference was too great for me at that time (I'm sure it still is).

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    that was basically my chain of purchase as well. I knew way in advance of bambus shady history. Elegoo came in with a fairly affordable option that doesnt constantly shit itself as some of the printers of yesteryears (not saying its 0 though, you can find cases of it all the time)

    its under tollerate level because they dont mandate i have to use elegoo slicer (free to use orcaslicer), and so far at least allows for open source firmwares to exist.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I got the DIY kit Prusa MK3S+ a few years ago during covid, and it has been a workhorse. I love it, but I also don't have experience with many other 3d printers. I worked a bit with them in like the early 2010s but things have changed so much, so I don't know what to compare it to.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I really want the DIY kit. How was your experience actually building it?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I loved it, but there was one particular part that wasn't clear in the instructions so I had to do some research. There were tons of threads about that one step but I assume they've fixed it from 5 years ago.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago*

    Same, an ex and I were early Cupcake CNC adopters, but then I didn't touch a 3D printer for a decade. When I got back into it the Prusa MK3S+ was the obvious choice for DIY/FOSS lineage, that thing is not fancy but it sure is a tank.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Another reason to avoid Bambu is that they use their own proprietary printer code file type (.bgcode instead of .gcode). Blatant attempt at userlocking/walled garden ecosystem.

    I have an Anycubic and I never connected it to the internet. It calibrates offline and prints fine from a USB.

    I don't use their official apps, just OrcaSlicer which is open source (and "stealth mode" disables telemetry). The printer works great though.

    The only functionality that seems to require internet (besides printing from the app or networking with the slicer) is the camera which is supposed to detect misprints and pause/cancel a project to avoid waste or skip an object so the spaghetti doesn't ruin the rest.

    But I don't use that feature and it's fine, just watch your first few prints so you know what tends to fail and what needs extra support, and watch any projects that might be iffy until you get a good idea of what doesn't adhere well. But keeping your print plate clean goes a long way for good adhesion (avoid touching the center where projects print, and use dish soap to wash it when projects stop sticking).

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago*

    snapmaker has been really nice about that sort of thing. they sent out review units of the u1 early, got roasted, and fixed most of the things people didn't like. i've run mine without any sort of account from the start. you can take it completely offline or run it in "lan mode", and the only things that get more annoying are firmware updates and remote control. you can still do them, there's just a bit more setup.

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    • [–] 52 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Where fork?

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  • [–] 45 points 5 months ago (5 children)
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  • [–] 28 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Thank you. Forked.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    In case someone comes across this and doesn't know, "forking" a repo by just clicking that button on github won't preserve your copy if the upstream repo gets taken down. If you're trying to preserve it, make sure you have a copy independent of github's control. Like a local backup

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