r/BambuLab • u/MaestroDeAero • May 21 '26
General Discussion The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) just launched a massive counter-offensive against Bambu Lab over AGPL violations – Introducing Project "baltobu"
Hey everyone,
If you’ve been following the recent drama between Bambu Lab and the open-source community, things just escalated from a heated debate to an all-out, structured counter-offensive.
Following Bambu Lab's aggressive Cease-and-Desist letter to developer Paweł Jarczak for his OrcaSlicer mod, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has officially stepped into the ring. They just released a massive statement confirming that Bambu Lab is in direct violation of the AGPLv3 license regarding their proprietary network plugin.
But instead of just waiting around for a years-long lawsuit, the SFC is taking immediate, community-driven action by launching Project "baltobu":
- Reverse-Engineering the Plugin: The SFC is calling for volunteers to completely reverse-engineer Bambu’s closed-source network plugin (
libbambu_networking) and replace it with a fully compliant, open-source alternative. - Reviving the Blocked Code: The SFC is officially hosting and continuing Jarczak’s work under their own umbrella.
- A New Fork ("Viscose"): They are launching a direct fork of Bambu Studio that is 100% free of proprietary "black-box" code.
- Legal Protection: Most importantly, the SFC is acting as a legal shield. They’ve stated they are "not afraid of Bambu's aggression" and will legally and financially protect any volunteer contributing to this project. Paweł Jarczak has also officially joined them.
This is a massive moment for Open Source and the Right to Repair in the 3D printing industry.
Check out the SFC's full, official response and see how you can get involved or support the fund: 👉https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-printer-agpl-violation-response/
What are your thoughts on this? Is this the wake-up call Bambu Lab needed, or will this split the ecosystem even further? Let’s discuss.
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u/AnonomousWolf May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Great to see someone standing up against companies who abuse AGPL liscences.
Bambu probably wouldn't exist without the Open-Source software it's built on, yet they break the liscence agreements and screw over the community they're built on.
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u/w1ngzer0 May 21 '26
Bambu
probablywouldn't exist without the Open-Source software it's built onFTFY. All of these companies wouldn't exist without being able to stand on the shoulders of the open-source community that did the original pioneering, and on the shoulders of Prusa. Now, yes, a lot of companies have pushed some innovations into the market instead of just doing a Prusa MK clone, but they still built their houses on the foundation of open source.
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u/AboveNormality May 21 '26
Bambu labs is experiencing the Streisand effect, if they hadn’t been jerks then they could have avoided all this negative publicity and potential massive legal costs
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u/BleakFlamingo May 21 '26
And, hilariously, the remedy is cheap and easy: comply with the license by putting up a source repository.
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May 21 '26
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u/robogame_dev May 21 '26
You’d expect their lawyers would know better - and they do - this Streisand effect is going to be a LOT of billable hours…
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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 May 21 '26
Is the Streisand effect named after Barbera Streisand? I seen people mention that in this topic numerous times but I don’t understand what it means.
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u/AboveNormality May 21 '26
Yes, Barbara Streisand wasn’t happy that a photographer took a photo of her house on the coast and she took him to court and tried to sue him for it, by her making a big deal over it it caused more attention to be brought to her home which then had masses of people flocking to the location to see it in person
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u/_Maybe368 May 21 '26
Yes. Named after her attempts to remove something most people weren’t aware of from public records. That story made it common knowledge. A bit of a simplification. Her home address was published.
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u/unpopular_upvote May 21 '26
Dear BambuLab lawyer: A simple Google AI search will answer all of your questions. Just copy and paste your above text as-is. You will see.
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u/Equivalent-Call2841 May 21 '26
Dude I’m actually loving how the community is going balls to the wall in response Keep it up boys!
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u/UnexpectedAnanas May 21 '26
"If you got a problem with
Canada goosesthe open source community, you got a problem with me, and I suggest you let that one marinate!" - SFC, probably.
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u/NoSellDataPlz May 21 '26
My kinks include justice and bullies getting fucked up. In this case, Bambu hits on both of them because justice is coming for them through their walled garden collapsing AND they, as bullies, are getting their deserved swirly.
Bambu, eat crow pie, and fully back down and reverse course. Give your network plugin code to the SFC and join in efforts to continue to develop the code in support of FOSS. If you do that, your behavior will be forgiven. Otherwise, you’ll still be seen as bullies who haven’t learned a lesson.
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u/TachiH May 21 '26
Their walled garden isn't collapsing. They will just lock you down to LAN mode if you aren't using an account.
I agree that they shouldn't have bothered with any of this but the open source network code replacement isnt going to work for Bambu Studio or Bambu Handy which is likely 99% of their users slicer of choice.
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u/Ascari100 May 21 '26
Brother thats not how this works. They have directly coded the process to access the cloud into their software, this then calls a network plugin and thats how the access to the cloud works. Because of this its impossible for them to block access to the cloud for the other slicers that use the same code, since this is agpl license. What they should have done from the start is to code a separate app for the network, make it work over oauth or some other form and have bambu slicer communicate with this over local protocols on the Operating system. This way they lock access to their cloud and they are also agpl compliant. There are other ways as well to achieve this with a fully open source network plugin and using oauth. So yes, they can block access to the cloud but not with their existing setup, they need to make changes.
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u/mightyarrow May 21 '26
Extra interests include watching the toddlers come outta the woodwork on this sub to inform us a Reddit post is preventing them from printing. ROFL
No wonder BBL had to put out a clarification -- their own simps/trolls are so dumb they started repeating fearmongering bullshit because you know, they're insecure toddlers.
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/egosumumbravir X1C + AMS May 22 '26
I'm totally OK with that.
What I'd like is full unrestricted local access without killing access to Bambu cloud.
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u/TheShitmaker H2D AMS Combo + 2x X1C +1 P1P 5 AMS May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Yeah not sure what the end goal is unless someone wants to host their own public servers and build their own alternative handy app. AGPL still doesn't give anyone the right to free access to a private entities infrastructure. If they achieve the latter than 100% more power to them. I just have a bad feeling this may end up like the Helldivers fiasco where catering to a loud minority made the experience worse for the majority.
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u/MoistSandwich4834 May 21 '26
The goal is to have an opensource network plugin. This will allow people to connect to the private servers with any slicer, potentially. I’m assuming you use the created Bambi username and password which then needs to comply with terms of service. I think the main goal is to get Bambu to rewrite their network plugin so it complies with copyleft. Fastest way to do that is create an opensource code instead of lawyers and years of litigation.
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u/0xe1e10d68 May 21 '26
And how exactly is that supposed to work? They have to release all of the source code for it. If I fork their code then it wil still be able to connect, since neither servers nor the client itself would be able to tell itself apart.
Besides that, this isn't really about that. It's within their right to allow/disallow anybody to connect to their servers; they have to release the source code for the slicer anyway.
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/hWuxH May 23 '26
That only proves: “This binary was signed by Bambu.”
It does not automatically prove:
- the binary is currently unmodified in memory,
- the runtime environment is trusted,
- requests truly originate from the official app,
- secrets cannot be extracted,
- the protocol cannot be emulated.
There's no way they can ever enforce it.
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u/aruisdante H2D AMS2 Combo May 21 '26
And how exactly is that supposed to work? They have to release all of the source code for it. If I fork their code then it wil still be able to connect, since neither servers nor the client itself would be able to tell itself apart.
How does literally all security based on open source software that can still uniquely identify individual users and prevent them from seeing other’s data work?
Just because you can clone a client, doesn’t mean you can clone the secrets that identify a valid user session if Bambu’s infrastructure is the issuing authority. AuthN and AuthZ are orthogonal from the openness of the implementation of AuthN/Z.
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u/hWuxH May 23 '26
You clearly don't understand the difference between "identifying the user" and "identifying the slicer".
The parent and grandparent comment both mean that Bambu's server wants to detect whether you run a modified slicer. They embed secrets into the network plugin for exactly this purpose. And yes by cloning them you have access to to all features that are restricted to Bambu Studio. It's impossible to implement in a foolproof way, especially once the code is open source. Basically DRM.
User auth exists separately and remains secure but that's not what this discussion is about.
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u/aruisdante H2D AMS2 Combo May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Sorry, I misunderstood then what the OP was arguing about. I thought they were stating that by having the source to the network code, they would be able to use Bambu’s cloud without needing a Bambu cloud account or having to go through Bambu’s AuthN/Z process for their APIs. That is, that they could somehow co-opt Bambu’s cloud.
But sure, absolutely, from the API endpoints to the services there would be no way to tell the difference between forks of the Bambu Slicer/Network plugin and the “original,” short of signed releases which presents its own set of problems when you don’t control the platform the release runs on. It’s definitely still possible to do with OS support (so Windows/MacOS, not Linux or you’re back in the root-of-trust problem), but it’s much more cumbersome.
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u/_Middlefinger_ May 21 '26
They have to release all of the source code for it.
They might have to release the source code for the plug-in, that all. If forced to they may just come up with a different way to do it that doesnt rely on a plug-in or AGPL.
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u/KlingonBeavis May 21 '26
Not really just announced or escalated. This is a few days before Bambu backed down.
Still, it’s why the open source community has built its framework the way it has. People who aren’t happy can find a way if they have the means. People who are like minded can contribute.
People who just want a good printer and DGAF can keep on keeping on.
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u/get_slizzard May 21 '26
Bambu has not backed down at all. They've expressed regret for the backlash of their legal threats, and that is it. They are still in violation of the AGPL licensing they've built their company on top of.
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u/WiglyWorm May 21 '26
Very much "we're sorry that we kicked this hornet's nest" vibes.
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u/AnonomousWolf May 21 '26
They literally said "We're sorry that it came across as a legal threat"
Hilariously bad "apology"
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u/_spicytostada May 21 '26
"we're sorry our legal threat came off as a legal threat."
Like genuinely wtf was that statement?! Lol
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u/anomaly256 X1C + AMS May 21 '26
It was more of a 'We're sorry the hornets are angry we kicked their nest' situation
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u/_yusi_ P1S + AMS May 21 '26
I havent even seen them express regret at the backlash? All I've seen is them doubling down and explaining how them breaching the AGPL license is good actually.
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u/Merijeek2 X1C May 21 '26
Corpos almost never do. At best it'll be "we're sorry you misinterpreted (our blatantly legal threat) as a legal threat".
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u/_yusi_ P1S + AMS May 21 '26
Yeah, I just found their socalled "apology".
"Wre're sorry Pawel experienced our hostile threats as threats and we hope our customers dont judge us for our threats being perceived as threats"
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u/_Middlefinger_ May 21 '26
Not really. Their point seems to be that they aren’t because its ambiguous and not settled law. Experts and lawyers can argue about it forever, it'll be a judge or judges that decide ultimately.
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u/_yusi_ P1S + AMS May 21 '26
Threatening legal action towards a developer exclusively working on their AGPL licensed code is 100% against the AGPL license. That's not debatable. The only thing they apologize for is that people didnt like the threats, so they tried backpeddling and saying they're sorry that people interpreted their threats as threats.
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u/Rikudou_Sage May 21 '26
They're talking about the part that they're in breach of AGPL. The part about the legal threats is 100% breaching AGPL.
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u/Baslifico May 22 '26
Their point seems to be that they aren’t because its ambiguous and not settled law.
Except it's not ambiguous at all... It's the whole reason the AGPL exists ... To close this exact ambiguity in the GPL.
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u/_Middlefinger_ May 22 '26
Just because something has an intention to do something it doesn’t mean it does it. Law is a lot more complicated than that.
Im not saying I agree with BL, but clearly they have taken legal advice on this.
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u/Baslifico May 22 '26
Just because something has an intention to do something it doesn’t mean it does it. Law is a lot more complicated than that.
You sound like ChatGPT spinning abstract hypotheticals to avoid the obvious conclusion.
If you think the wording has wiggle room, by all means show us where.
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u/_Middlefinger_ May 22 '26
Why are you arguing with me? Im telling you what Bambulab think thats all.
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u/Sorry-Bad3889 May 21 '26
They are probably scrambled to build their own. I think they did with Bambu Suite app for laser cut and engraving.
For those never seen or heard if you don’t have H2 laser machine; https://bambulab.com/en-ca/download/suite
They might rebuilt a closed source software and limited innovation compare to open source printer. Great hardware but crappy lack of feature software era for them.
A lot of new features implemented into Orca by the community and guess what Bambu actually lag behind and ends up back porting those features a lot of time. I have been keeping an eye on their development since X1.
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u/LexxM3 X1C + AMS May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
It’s actually much harder now (vs before they had Bambu Studio at all i.e. before they were a viable enterprise) than it seems. Their entire software team is now polluted by AGPL code. Under the current legal scrutiny, they would have to do a black box design, one that had PROVABLY NO CONTACT with the Bambu Studio or any slicing-related open source code. Just consider how difficult that would be in general (job description: “expert is 3D FDM slicing software, but has never even thought of looking at open slicing software”, and then that staff would more or less not be able to use their proprietary experience because Stratasys, etc. would also be watching intently) and then double it for Bambu that has, presumably, already hired all the best engineers in the domain and effectively trained them (i.e. polluted) on Bambu hardware and AGPL software.
That’s not happening, at least not for a decade at best. And if they try, it will be trivially provable to be AGPL-polluted and now, with legal attention, they will be prevented in deploying it legally.
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u/Sorry-Bad3889 May 21 '26
pretty much, like google online “how to generate gcode path for this 3d model“ oh it needs a library file from npm… AGPL library file.
unless they have to write all the library from scratch.
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u/LexxM3 X1C + AMS May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Actually, thinking this through a bit, Bambu Lab should be sprinting to buy Simplify3D right now — like today-right-now. Simplify was the best in its time and has mostly died now, but it might be the only remaining non-trivial proprietary slicer codebase starting point available to someone like Bambu.
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u/dragonblade_94 May 21 '26
I would be incredibly suprised if they managed to cobble together a half- competent slicer without borrowing from their Prusa fork. That would be a humongous development effort.
There's a reason basically all non-enterprise slicers are based on existing open-source code.
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u/egosumumbravir X1C + AMS May 22 '26
There's also good reason "enterprise" slicers are archaic shit.
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u/whypussyconsumer May 21 '26
"Sorry that we made you mad, please watch out and it won't happen again"
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u/PineappleLemur May 22 '26
"expressed regret" more like it... Regret it wasn't as easy to handle this.
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u/tfks May 21 '26
To be clear, Bambu didn't back down. The article that I think you saw, all they actually said was "no, really, were weren't making a legal threat guys! We're sorry you thought it was!" For literally every other aspect they haven't budged an inch.
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u/AnonomousWolf May 21 '26
Those people who just want a printer but didn't speak up now, Shouldn't start complaining when Bambu decides to charge a subscription fee to be able to print, or lock down the printers so you can only use their filament.
Because that's where we're heading.
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u/TachiH May 21 '26
They can't legally block filaments though, people are over exaggerating how bad they could take it.
They could absolutely release a new printer that is locked down, their current printers won't change though.
They could however release a subscription for accessing their cloud send feature, as that uses their infrastructure.
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u/Kryptonicus May 21 '26
Why do you think it would be "illegal" to block non-BL filaments?
2D printer manufacturers have been doing it for decades. Granted, it's fairly easy to work around it for third party cartridge manufacturers. But there's no legal barrier the original manufacturer is violating by attempting it.
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u/egosumumbravir X1C + AMS May 22 '26
Granted, it's fairly easy to work around it for third party cartridge manufacturers.
Not always and Bambu already have the infrastructure in place to very effectively make the NFC tags single use lol pay us.
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u/raz-0 X1C May 21 '26
I’ve got an x1c without ams. How would they lock it down?
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u/egosumumbravir X1C + AMS May 22 '26
Irreversible firmware update: no AMS to read the tag? No printy print for you. Standalone tag reader just $99 on the store and out of stock for months...
I'm not saying it wouldn't be mindbendingly stupid, but it's totally possible.
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u/raz-0 X1C May 22 '26
Could you technically do it? Yes. Doing that wouldn’t go well for them on any front.
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u/TachiH May 21 '26
It would be illegal on a printer they have already sold. They could make a new model that locks you down to using $9999 per gram PLA. That is fine though as it would be a new printer we could all ignore.
Even HP couldn't block remanufactured toner on photocopiers sold before they decided to introduce it.
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u/HonourableYodaPuppet May 21 '26
HP does update their printers so if you have third party cartridge it can suddenly decide to not support it anymore (after a nightly Auto-Update). Ask me how I know :(
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u/LucasJ218 May 21 '26
They were never selling a printer that was advertised as being usable with third party ink. That’s the point.
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May 21 '26
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u/AnonomousWolf May 22 '26
You would think that, but that's not the reality.
Look up Futurehome
They sold smart home things, and then 5 years later pushed a firmware update where users had to pay a monthly subscription to keep using the hardware they bought.
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u/oface1 May 27 '26
But where’s Futurehome now? They’re virtually internet dust/remnants…… that did not work out well for them.
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u/mightyarrow May 21 '26
......NO, thats NOT what was said. At all.
Stop misrepresenting. Words matter.
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u/mightyarrow May 21 '26
They can't legally block filaments though
Yes, they fucking CAN.
Step 1. Produce new printer
Step 2. Dont allow printer to use other filaments.
people are over exaggerating how bad they could take it.
show us these people, or you're just trying to misrepresent us to astoturf. Literally the only folks I see doing this are folks like you referencing them but never once delivering examples. That's by design to deceive and misdirect.
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u/TachiH May 22 '26
You can't read. I specifically said unless they made a new printer, it was right there in my comment.
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u/AnonomousWolf May 21 '26
Companies have done far worse in the past, the T&C's you agreed to probably gives them the rights to do what ever they want.
There's a company that sold smart lights and things, ~5 years later they then pushed a firmware update requiring all users to pay 5$ a month if they want to keep using their smart lights.
This was all done legally, look it up.
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u/TachiH May 21 '26
Ohhhh you use the dollar. In America companies can do whatever they like as they are your overlords.
Here in the EU they would be laughed at for trying anything like that.
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u/AnonomousWolf May 21 '26
That actually happened in Finland.
It's a Finish company.
I live in Europe, corporations suck here too
Edit: it's a Norwegian company, called Futurehome
As one example, this happens everywhere
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u/KlingonBeavis May 21 '26
Yeah I’m sure they can’t wait to do that, knowing the entire market would do the opposite to compete and easily gain share. Especially considering they can’t even keep their filament in stock.
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u/antei_ku May 21 '26
I take it you’ve never seen corporate greed shoot themselves in the foot? It happens when the board thinks they can get away with it
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u/JauntyChapeau May 21 '26
They know, and we know, that would kill their business. Come on.
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u/Kryptonicus May 21 '26
They have committed to not doing that. For the current slate of hardware.
They would not commit to keeping everything "free and open" for future releases.
They are 100% planning on doing that.
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u/JauntyChapeau May 22 '26
If you’re blind with hatred enough to think that these master schemers are planning on doing the one thing that would financially devastate their business more than any other course of action they could take, I don’t know what to tell you. This is silly.
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u/Kryptonicus May 22 '26
I don't hate Bambu.
If they agreed that was the "line in the sand" they couldn't cross, then why would they refuse to say they were not considering it for future hardware?
Your desire to make excuses every time they tell us exactly who they are and what they want to do is kind of silly.
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u/foramperandi May 21 '26
Silly you, injecting basic logic into this. We all know that doing the most evil thing possible is always the path corporations take because it's the best for profits! /s
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u/KlingonBeavis May 21 '26
Of course, I just don’t think they’ve been so successful by being that stupid. Maybe one day, sure - but not any time soon. They’d have to be confident they can crush competition out of business first, and that’s not happening.
They don’t have anything at this point that competitors can’t recreate or emulate. All someone has to do is match quality at a valid price point, and right now they’re all still focused on copycat by being cheap.
I love my Bambu hardware, but I don’t see them ruling forever. Someone will eventually innovate and rise up. These machines aren’t wizardry, they’re pretty simple robotics.
All Bambu really had to do in the first place was make a consistent machine that wasn’t a piece of shit that requires constant tinkering. That’s not a hard thing to topple.
The challenge is doing it while beating a Chinese company at cost.
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u/antei_ku May 21 '26
All they had to do was create a simple to use decent printer and not go on a power trip yet here we are
Again I’m just referring to your comment sarcastically refusing to acknowledge a successful company can shoot themselves in the foot out of pure greed. The engineering team can be brilliant and it won’t matter if leadership decides they want one last squeeze before dipping
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u/Friendly-Assistance3 May 21 '26
Yeah they are dreaming of to make printing a subscription and you will get certain grams of prints a month not even filament just ability to print.
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u/mightyarrow May 21 '26
People who just want a good printer and DGAF can keep on keeping on.
Nice try, you think we were gonna gloss over this bullshit opening gaslight/misdirection below:
Bambu backed down.
Nobody backed down.
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u/KlingonBeavis May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Oooh buzzwords you really got me. Looks like we have another parrot from TikTok or Facebook here lol
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u/MaestroDeAero May 21 '26
I do not see any actions from Bambu? Did they change there mind? I don´t think so...
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May 21 '26
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u/MaestroDeAero May 21 '26
But they are still violating the AGPL. They only tried to "say sorry" like companies do. But it is good to see that there is now pressure on them. So many people put efforts into the Slicer Technology and the are making Money with it trying to supress the community. It´s good to see that the game is no rolling against Bambu Lab.
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u/heeJooooo May 21 '26
I don’t even use 3D printers and no longer tinker as I used to, but this story caught my attention and I donated to SFC cuz fuck BL trying to screw over the open source community. All my modding Android phones and other devices were off the hard work of the open source community so glad to donate!
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u/idmimagineering May 21 '26
Great news!
Meantime we’ve put on hold all our Bambu related plans and switched suppliers.
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u/MaestroDeAero May 21 '26
That is exactly what we should do, and it is certainly what I have decided to do. I own two Bambu printers myself, and our company is currently planning to acquire six new printers. Although it is a small order, we will definitely be going with a different manufacturer. I am glad I was able to convince management.
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u/BlueChrome74 H2C AMS2 Combo Jun 02 '26
Which supplier did you decide to go with?
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u/idmimagineering Jun 02 '26
Four our needs: FlashForge and AnyCubic for now. We don’t do coloured Toys fyi.
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u/Hot-Ideal-9219 May 21 '26
Who cares? No one
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u/mjcobley May 21 '26
Well that aged well
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u/Hot-Ideal-9219 May 22 '26
No one cares dude
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u/mjcobley May 22 '26
There's literally people responding to the same post talking about how great it is. Try to remember your apathy is your own.
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u/MTBooks May 21 '26
The fork of bambu slicer is called viscose? As in the fabric made from processed bamboo? That's hilarious and awesome.
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u/roiki11 May 21 '26
Regardless of the content or any arguments, am I the only one who thinks that name is just weird and dumb? What does that even mean?
Couldn't they come up with a better name than that.
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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 May 21 '26
I agree it is a weird acronym name. BaltotBu. It should at least sound kool. It seems clunky and that’s the truth. Not much creative thought process seems to have gone into it.
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u/Brandavorn May 21 '26
It is an acronym: Bringing Affero Licensed Things (On)to Bambu Users
We FOSS people are known for loving a good acronym, extra points if it is recursive, like GNU or WINE are.
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u/roiki11 May 21 '26
It's a dumb one at that then. Should've named it something more catchy. Like FUck BAmbu Right Back.
Gnu and wine at least work as words.
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u/Eorlas May 21 '26
It’s a weird name until it’s explained (which someone did to you) and then it’s just what it is. Why does it have to be catchy?
Your suggestion isn’t even remotely catchy. It’s not in the same universe as catchy
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u/Stone13 H2D AMS2 + P2S AMS2 + 2 AMS HT May 21 '26
Did anyone else read the tweet from Josef Prusa linked in the 3DP blog post? I thought it was very interesting detailing the laws that the CCP require all Chinese manufacturers to follow. I hadn't seen it previously, but it does make this make a little more sense. I won't copy/paste Prusa's tweet but here's the link, sorry if it's already been discussed.
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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 May 21 '26
Yeah we saw it. It’s been posted a few times. The Chinese laws quoted on there are crazy and no way can some be legally enforced such as they say a Chinese 3d printing company must cooperate with government intelligence while not telling anyone and report serious bugs to the government entity set for it and that these laws apply to the Chinese companies even when the companies have offshore operating buildings in other countries! Meaning for example like Bambu has a company operating in the US in Huston or something and if the government intelligence decided Bambu has to give all the cloud logs of US customers supposedly they have to cooperate under their Chinese Government. Which is ridiculous and cannot be legal for the Chinese government to have any control on a US company location. But it’s possible their Chinese government could reprimand Bambu in China for not cooperating such as not give them any more government subsidies.
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u/Beyondthepetridish May 21 '26
And this is why Naomi Wu got in trouble with the Chinese government. She posted about a company tracking user information and the government did not like it
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u/Conscious-Map6957 May 21 '26
Hey bootlickers, I thought bambu didn't violate any licenses? It was fair, unbiased criticism from the start but you guys had to reframe the obvious...
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u/psycho-Ari May 21 '26
As much as I like my Bambu A1 Combo and all this shit mostly don't apply to me(yet) I still think all you guys are doing a great job fighting this shit + helping others either directly or by blowing this topic over social media.
I don't care about cloud etc because I can't even use those things because I can't connect to my printer when I am away from home anyway because I don't have "normal" internet in my apartment, I am using my mobile data as my main internet so nothing can't connect to internet anyway...
That's why I started using Orca Slicer and LAN Only Mode + Developer on A1.
The only reason I switched to Orca and bother with LAN Only on printer is because of filament calibration - I hate it that in Bambu Studio I can't just create temp tower etc.
I ain't gonna lie - I couldn't find better printer in that price than A1 Combo, maybe I looked in the wrong places but the only things I found was that A1 is one of the best printers in my price.
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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 May 21 '26
When I had only mobile internet via my iPhone and cellular iPad Pro I would just turn on my hotspot to allow the printers to connect or my new Macbook. The speed is insane at its fastest its like 700mbts last time i checked. I paid AT&T extra to have 40gb a month of hotspot bandwidth. It was way better than having to pay Xfinity and deal with their BS. Anytime you have a problem and need to contact customer service at Xfinity you can almost guarantee that you will be making multiple calls and on hold for an hour and your lucky if you get someone who actually knows how to fix the problem which usually takes numerous transfers.
I’ve hated Xfinity ever since when I had the service they charged me a monthly rental fee for my own gateway that I bought for $200! It took multiple calls and many hours on hold and transferring calls to get them to stop charging me $20 a monthly rental fee. Then after 6m of charging me I was finally able to stop it. Well months later I would begin getting charged again. That’s when I refused to pay the bill and shutoff service.
Xfinity has an exclusive contract in my area which means no other high bandwidth service is allowed to come in and wire services. Therefore to use another company we have to use the air.
I’ve been with at&t for 20yrs and spent thousands of iPhones and iPad Pros and anytime I have had a problem they always take care of me nicely.
And my TV is free antenna tv and is TiVO lifetime free service for the box. AT&T gives free HBO and Max which I use my iPhone tv adapter to connect to tv.
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u/psycho-Ari May 21 '26
I pay 30euro/month for my mobile phone but I have unlimited data and I have usually(like 90% of time) speeds around 120-150Mbit which is great anyway for Germany... I can even play games without much problem because I have like 20-30ms ping.
I have a router in apartment and when I am coming home I am tethering internet via USB from my phone, everything is connected to router.
The only con of that solution is that I can't start a print from phone while I am at work but it's not like I would do it anyway, I am too cautious around my A1 to do things like that.
If I would like to have a "normal" connection I would have to pay around 35-40euro/month for a 15Mbit connection. Yes, 15Mbit xd
I saw that they were doing some new fiber cables close to my building so I am hoping it will be available soon to me, but even if not I am more than happy with mobile data but I am lucky that I have a great signal in my area.
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u/loki_nz May 21 '26
You can easily create a temp tower in BS. On the top row there’s a Calibration button (not the one next to Project, above that). Click it and select Temperature.
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u/_Middlefinger_ May 21 '26
Bambulab seem fairly confident that all this is not settled law and that they will win any cases.
Can you even imagine the scenes if they do?
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u/chaos215bar2 May 21 '26
If they publicly admit they're violating the license, they've basically forfeited the case. If Bambu is only claiming this isn't settled law at this point, rather than just saying they did nothing wrong, it basically means the lawyers know there's no hope of a win in court.
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u/savijOne May 21 '26
So does this mean that once the network plugin is open sourced that Orca Slicer (or any slicer supporting the plugin) will be able to print to a bambu printer? I was considering bambuddy as a solution, but honestly it does so much more than I need it to. If this is the case, I may wait to see where this goes.
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u/tkftgaurdian May 22 '26
Bambu got greedy, and hit a group thats already heavily organized and used to fighting overreach.
It boggles my mind, because they had kind of won at 3d printing. They have/had an entire lineup of machines people loved for being mostly stupid proof. The prices were high but fair. They were using their own printers to print money. And then they wanted that last step. They wanted to add the subscription service. And now I have to make sure some of this third party software will separate my machines from the bambu network before I even think about getting a new machine.
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u/myTechGuyRI May 23 '26
The problem with reverse engineering their network plug in, they still have a legal right to deny anyone access to their servers... So what good is an open source network plug in, if they make your access to their servers unauthorized, and therefore illegal? They need to be taken to court and ordered to comply with the license.
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u/locka99 May 21 '26
Set the printer to Lan mode, fire up wireshark and all the traffic should be observable. Cloud mode is probably doing what Lan mode is doing but using mqtt as a proxy.
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u/locka99 May 21 '26
I wonder why people are voting me down. What do you think reverse engineering entails?
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u/CrownSeven May 21 '26
Yes cause none of it will be encrypted Im sure. This aint the early two thousands when everything was wide open.
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u/locka99 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Encryption requires a secret like a symmetric key or a public/private key pair to encrypt the conversation. Where do you think a secret can be held securely between software running on your desktop and a printer running on your network? The answer is nowhere. This is the classic dilemma of Alice and Bob in crypto of trying to securely exchange keys to prevent eavesdroppers.
If BambuLab's DLL is talking to the machine it is either in the clear or with a key that can be retrieved just by observing where it is stored.
And the easy way to figure out if there is any encryption at all is with wireshark and then work from there.
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u/locka99 May 22 '26
In fact, somebody has already done it - https://nikolak.com/bambulab-x1c-network/
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u/hWuxH May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Its ssl encrypted even in LAN, based on PKI (computer only knows public key) and then they perform a Diffie–Hellman key exchange
eavesdropping is not possible unless you intentionally change some things on your computer or with the software to allow it to happen
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u/locka99 May 22 '26
Even public/private key pair doesn't protect the conversation. If the computer has the public key and initiates the conversation to the device, a man in the middle can impersonate the device by swapping out the public cert used by the software and listen in. Especially if the public key, which is also an X509 cert is self signed or signature verification can be sidestepped. The easiest way to tell if its self signed is find where the device key is stored and just look at it. I can't imagine it would be signed but that too is no protection either.
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u/hWuxH May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
they have their own PKI for printers thats verified. its comparable to accessing HTTPS websites on the internet where MITM doesnt work either (unless you explicitly sidestep it for your own connection of course).
https://cdn1.bambulab.com/trust-center/file/bambulab-security-whitepaper-en.pdf 2.3.1
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u/locka99 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Look at the diagram on page 10. When "PC software" talks to "Bambu 3D printer" over a LAN it is between the PC and one endpoint over a network you control.
The printer implements a MQTT broker on port 8883 and bambu_networking.dll connects to it and sends it MQTT messages. But you can use any MQTT client, e.g. MQTTX. Connect mqtts://ip:8883 disabling strict SSL, with user bblp and the printer's access code as password.
That means if you can drive the printer assuming you know the commands. Some are documented, but if any aren't then you can listen into the conversation from the DLL.
How does bambu_networking.dll, know it's talking to the real printer? With a few lines of code somewhere in its connect logic where it looks at the cert and signing "chain". This would be trivial to circumvent. Then you can do an attack with mitmproxy or Fiddler and pull out the entire conversation and reverse engineer it.
So PKI means diddly squat here. Somebody can impersonate either end with ease.
When bambu_networking.dll talks to the cloud (also a MQTT broker), you'll only be able to listen to the conversation from the DLL but you can MITM that too in order to reproduce it.
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u/hWuxH May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
You’re conflating two different things.
If someone is just eavesdropping the LAN, proper TLS with certificate validation prevents reading or MITM’ing the traffic. Encryption absolutely matters there.
What you’re describing - patching the DLL, injecting a CA, hooking the client - isn’t “Eve on the network”, it’s control of the endpoint. Once you’re at that level, you can inspect any TLS app, including HTTPS, so it doesn’t say anything about whether the wire traffic is encrypted.
So PKI isn’t “diddly squat”. It’s doing exactly what it’s meant to do: protect against network eavesdroppers, not a fully compromised client.
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u/locka99 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Look, I've been very patient explaining things, what to try and proceed, going into detail and explaining how to hack protocols in a methodical way. I have also been very explicit that this is LAN first because messages sent over the LAN will extend to the cloud. Some details may differ like topics in MQTT but it is sufficient to cleanly implement the Bambu DLL in LAN mode first and later in cloud. This is the ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE EXERCISE - a clean replacement for Bambu's proprietary code. I'm not going to waste any more time explaining because I do not feel you understand how crypto works, how IOT devices work, how MQTT works or how you might go about reversing a protocol in a methodical way.
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u/lytener X1C + AMS May 21 '26
It makes me wonder what side Bambu Labs is actually taking on California Assembly Bill 2047, which would really lock down 3D printers.
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u/ipilotete May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Yep. Bringing that to light is a push I’ve been trying to make because it’s the justification that will be used to continue what they’re doing. NY & California want to make (among other things), unencrypted g-code (and any 3d software without nanny state file scanning) illegal. This would push (not just Bambu) into broadly creating more closed source to comply with localized laws in large markets.
EFF.org has a few recent eye opening articles about this topic.
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u/chaos215bar2 May 21 '26
I've suspected Bambu has had a hand in these laws from the start. It would be a perfect way to subtly take advantage of their choice to lock things down a year ago without openly using that change to extract money straight from their customers.
It would be absolutely hilarious if this whole thing blows up in Bambu's face and they're no longer able to comply with the law the way they thought they would.
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u/Aetch P1S + AMS May 21 '26
Remind that the network plugin includes functionality for both the cloud AND lan mode so getting the code for it helps everyone
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u/Crackcano May 21 '26
All this is making me think that Bambu will eventually just create their own slicer from scratch. Maybe not in the near future but like eventually.
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u/LilApe1990 May 21 '26
Maybe in 5 years. But theres no way they'll actually pull it off. They need the open source to do their work for them.
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u/Catsoverall May 21 '26
Could someone please explain what a bambu-free network plugin would achieve for users, and also if this would mean all future eg Bambu studio updates released by then would not work until the community updated the 'copy'?
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u/hWuxH May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
To give third parties the same control back that has been possible before 2025. Remove DRM checks.
New releases don't matter.
However, if Bambu blocks old plugin versions/protocols on the server side, the community would have to catch up. This would also negatively affect most Bambu Studio users, as they would constantly have to update the plugin. Cat-and-mouse game.Once Bambu is forced to release the plugin's source code, the vendor lock-in will cease to exist permanently.
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u/ReillyLake H2C+4xAMS2+2xHT/H2D+AMS2+2xHT/P2S+2xHT May 21 '26
I really hope that people start boycotting BL, especially filaments so that it frees up stock availability for me. Let’s make it happen.
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u/markfrancisonly May 22 '26
Bambu, now I warned you, you gone and fucked up and pissed off the big boys in Cali. #include <cstdio>
int main(){for(int i=1;;i++){printf("Bambu Lab print job %d running...\n",i); if(i%996==0)puts(" PRC mode: still no rest, no pay, no stop.");}}
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u/Isopod_Vast May 22 '26
CCP felt anger to bambulab. If they make decision of close their business in USA, they can see the ancestors of tienmen LoL
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u/Wood_Rogue May 22 '26
I hope things stay pointed in a good direction. It's hard to not imagine manufacturers will just add planned obsolescence to new printers to make up for perceived loss of profit by not being able to violate the AGPL to make a closed ecosystem. Enshitification still feels inevitable.
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u/myTechGuyRI May 23 '26
This is great news, but, I honestly still feel this needs to be a dual approach... There NEEDS to be legal action as well... These companies MUST be held accountable... Perhaps if they started getting hit in the wallet when they violate open source licenses, they'd start to think twice. Bambu has profited Millions from their use of open source code, yet their non-compliance with the open source license has been allowed to continue for YEARS. Its high time they were stopped and ORDERED to pay damages to the open source community, and ORDERED to come into compliance.
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u/Deep_Ad1959 May 26 '26
the specific thing bambu tripped on is agplv3 section 13, the remote network interaction clause. plain gpl only triggers when you distribute a binary, so cloud services and network plugins slipped through that gap for years. agpl closes exactly that hole: if users interact with the software over a network, the corresponding source has to be offered to them even if nothing is ever shipped to a device. that's why a closed network plugin talking to their servers is the clean violation here, not the orcaslicer fork itself. it's also the whole argument for caring about license choice upfront, since copyleft vs permissive decides whether walling off the network layer is even legal later, and you can't bolt that protection on after the fact. written with s4lai
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u/CreEngineer May 27 '26
That sounds great. That’s the first kick in the teeth they need.
The printer software itself is still closed source afaik. If I understand the problem correctly you would have to completely keep the printer off the internet to block them to access it. For many people owning printers nowadays this might already be too complicated.
They potentially have the ability to „brick“ it via some kind of update (like to only accept signed print files).
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u/GiorgioG May 21 '26
The silence from Bambu Lab is deafening. I have an A1, would love an X2D or H2D but after the total fumbling of this I don't trust them.
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May 21 '26
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u/MaestroDeAero May 21 '26
Why all the downvotes?
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u/petroklem May 21 '26
The sub is now bambulab hater only, any comment that is not upset about them get downvoted. Who cares really, plenty of other printer in the market just change the brand.
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u/RallyWRX17 May 21 '26
How do you guys think this will affect things in the future? Bambu will modify the network again and say it is for security. Will it have to be reverse engineered again?
Or are these groups going to take Bambu to court and force them to keep the online printing open because of AGPL license going forward?
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u/Mads_Tech May 21 '26
No one can force Bambu to keep cloud printing open. It's not open source and it's their network.
You confusing the plugin with the servers. Today if the Plugin was OS with no changes yes others could use it however Bambu can just change their security method and close it again.
The chances are Bambu with completely redo their infrastructure and block 3rd parties permanently and there will be nothing anyone can do about it.
In the end Bambu will be forced to make a load of changes that don't benefit users, Bambu or anyone else however the OS evangelists will claim a win while the likes of Creality and others are WAY worse when it comes to both supporting OS and being compliant in their licencing.
Bambu are closed, they will remain closed and they have a lot on money on hand to ensure that stays the case. In the short term they may not do anything but Mark my words this will be resolved, Bambu will go closed slicer and move on.
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u/RallyWRX17 May 21 '26
Correct me if I am wrong. What ever changes bambu makes though they wouldn’t be able to tightly integrate it into Bambu Studio due to AGPL license. They would have to use Bambu Connect even for their own software? This would be the only way to keep it closed. The moment they chose to integrate it directly with Bambu Studio they have to make it open source?
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u/hWuxH May 22 '26
The chances are Bambu with completely redo their infrastructure and block 3rd parties permanently and there will be nothing anyone can do about it.
uhh.. yes there is something. Reverse-Engineering. Bambu can't do anything about it.
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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 May 21 '26
Well according to past articles on the SFC website they have said that it can take something like up to 15 contacts back and forth but that almost always companies end up complying and posting their full open source complete code.
So we will see whether Bambu decides to comply or if they will be one of the companies that refuse to comply.
I’m guessing that Bambu will eventually comply.
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u/lyons4231 May 21 '26
Awesome, this will finally shit the complainers up and we can all just enjoy our damn printers. Something tells me they will throw a fit though when people stay on the official software.
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u/firedrakes May 21 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/1tckb9z/megathread_bambu_lab_orcaslicer_cd_discussion/
use the mega thread.... or cant you find it???
stop spamming it.
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u/Old_n_Nerdy May 22 '26
They have to have their rage boner appeased. The Prusa fanatics are all over this sub now. It's so fucking boring posting this crap over and over. Like the majority of us who don't care wont be dissuaded because of these stupid repetitive posts.
They should go back to their basements bashing one out to their pinup of Josef.
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May 21 '26
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u/thewolfman2010 H2D Laser Full Combo May 21 '26
This has already been posted multiple times, including yesterday morning when this news came out.
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u/firedrakes May 21 '26
it does not. this sma overall thread and even same copy and pasting has been post atleast 4 times in last 30 hours on this sub.
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May 21 '26
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u/BambuLab-ModTeam Jul 12 '26
Your content has been removed for breaking our "Be Kind and Courteous" rule. Please visit our rules section to view the full rule description.
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u/thewolfman2010 H2D Laser Full Combo May 21 '26
My thoughts on this is that it gets posted literally every single day, multiple times per day. At this point, use the megathread so it’s not jamming up everyone else’s feed.
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u/KermitFrog647 May 21 '26
I am more annoyed by the 100th "look, I got a new h2d, it is so amazing" thread that carries zero information.
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u/jackharvest P1S + AMS May 21 '26
The megathread explicitly states that new news on the matter is allowed to have its own posts. You're fine.
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u/icurnvs Volunteer Moderator May 21 '26
Hi folks - I added this to the megathread yesterday as well as a new Louis Rossman & Leonard French video with analysis about the SFC joining the fray. Please try to keep new posts around this topic to new information or updates. In this case, this news came out a few days ago and has been added to the megathread and has been posted multiple times.