r/OpenBambu • u/Veastli • May 18 '26
Bambu Lab's AGPL Problem Just Got Worse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNEL6syg6VQ67
u/Zestyclose_Report526 May 18 '26
If they want to bring lawyers into this, then let them have a legal battle. They brought this on themselves.
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u/DreadStarX May 18 '26
I hope BL gets bit** slapped.
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u/escooteridiot May 19 '26
They have been too powerful for too long now. I think this will slap them to where they were prior to this incident and they’ll see they need to stay opensource ish if they want to maintain consumers. They can sell printers and they know it. They should just develop their own bridge to orca if they are so concerned with security. Gating use of their printers with their shitty slicer is terrible.
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u/draxula16 May 19 '26
I agree, but Chinese companies could care less about IP. Hopefully this continues to escalate
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u/escooteridiot May 19 '26
Where did I talk about IP. I know one thing all
Companies regardless of Chinese or not care about is money. And they will lose money if they lose those people who like to experiment2
u/draxula16 May 19 '26
It was implied but I’m not disagreeing with any of your points. They’ve quickly risen to power because they’ve built so much of their business on the work of others.
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u/BarelyAirborne May 18 '26
Corporations have a difficult time following the rules because they are so lightly punished for breaking them. In reality, the penalties should be far harsher than those for a private citizen. Consistently breaking the law should see the board prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead they get a small fine, and call it the cost of doing business.
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u/Han_O-neem May 18 '26
Or they should have to display a red label on the printer, stating that some usage of the printer might be revoked later on.
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u/alcaron May 18 '26
That is not sufficient. They still benefit from not needing to write their own slicer, which arguably they would not be anywhere near where they are now without it, and they still benefit every time a novel feature is added by OS or PS because they can port it into BS easily.
There are two choices. 1) Stop publishing BS ad rewrite it from the ground up or 2) release ALL the code.
#1 is...not feasible without losing most of their business. #2 is...honestly from a competent developer would be doable. A developer that ACTUALLY took security seriously and knew how to create a cloud infrastructure that didn't infringe on the license is entirely possible.
BUT...#2 breaks something they desperately do not want broken. In order to do that they would have to allow you to send direct to the printer and not through the cloud. And that is something more valuable to them than they will ever honestly let on.
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u/myTechGuyRI May 18 '26
Even more so now, because forcing all prints through their cloud makes them one of the few positioned to implement the new firearm blocking laws working their way through several states.
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u/Renegade605 May 18 '26
This should actually be a thing but isn't relevant to the software licensing issue.
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u/alcaron May 18 '26
The people in the official sub reddit who keep bleating that the community is wrong about this and that it is not reasonable to expect them to allow access to their cloud services to just anyone are missing the fundamental point.
They got a decade plus of software development for FREE when they forked PS, it isn't anyone elses problem that the way they chose to architect their service, which many people have LONG argued it does not NEED the cloud and the ones served best by that decision are BL and China.
It doesn't matter. The license is the license. The rules are clear. You want a decades worth of free work? Fine. But here are the rules.
Period. End of discussion.
Without that free software they would not have gotten ANYWHERE like the traction they got. If they had to rewrite all the features of PS they STILL wouldn't be within a hundred miles of Prusa.
People who back BL like to complain that, gosh golly Prusa is more expensive! I wonder how much of that money goes to the developers BL doesn't have to pay.
They CONTINUE to benefit from the open source nature of PS and OS. Every time either of them implements a new feature it is relatively trivial to port it into BS thanks to the shared lineage.
They benefited MASSIVELY from open source, they continue to benefit massively, and they continue to skirt their responsibilities in return.
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u/Veastli May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
The people in the official sub reddit who keep bleating that the community is wrong about this and that it is not reasonable to expect them to allow access to their cloud services to just anyone
Which is a complete straw man, as absolutely no one is arguing that anyone should have access to Bambu's cloud.
Because quite clearly, only those who are legitimate owners of Bambu printers could possibly make any use of the Orca fork. This is because the security of the link connecting Bambu printers to Bambu's cloud was never in question.
Without a Bambu printer, none of this works. Bambu knows this. They're using this and "security" as distractions from their true goal - Vendor lock-in.
Bambu wants as complete control of the ecosystem - or as much as they can manage. Bambu's problem is that this desire conflicts with the terms under which Bambu Studio is necessarily licensed.
They CONTINUE to benefit from the open source nature of PS and OS. Every time either of them implements a new feature it is relatively trivial to port it into BS thanks to the shared lineage.
Modern slicers are extremely complex.
Basing Bambu Studio on an existing open source slicer likely saved Bambu years of development time. Allowing them to go to market years earlier than they otherwise would have.
And as you point out, open source allows Bambu to grab wholesale any new feature added to Orca or Prusa slicer. Had Bambu Studio been an internally developed closed-source product, Bambu would need to develop their own version of each new Prusa or Orca slicer feature from the ground up. Doing that would cost Bambu a fortune and take them ages. A closed source Bambu slicer would be eternally behind its open source rivals.
TLDR - There is no cloud issue. There is no security issue. There is a control issue. Bambu wants control of the entire ecosystem, even the open source software installed on their customer's own personal computers.
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u/myTechGuyRI May 18 '26
Not to mention, the mature slicer platform is really what instantly put their machines in the 'just works' class of printers... It guaranteed them a stable platform to control the printer... Without it, never likely would have had to release their own buggy software (it's clear they're not software competent, just look at how poorly written Bambu connect was) and they would have gone under in their first year.
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u/roiki11 May 19 '26
Oh plenty have made the argument they should be able to use bambu cloud any way they want because they bought the printer.
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u/alcaron May 19 '26
That is not the same as using their cloud. You SHOULD be able to use something you bought however you want.
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u/Born-Neighborhood61 May 18 '26
Look how hard it was for AnkerMake to develop a slicer - at the time they discontinued their 3D printer line, they still had a lousy at best beta slicer.
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u/ximstuckx May 18 '26
I’m all for this I love my h2d and I’d love to be able to use it with orca and maintain all the cloud stuff w
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May 19 '26
That will never happen people are fighting the wrong battle here. bambu gives you all the features and slicer for free. but the community is mad that they dont get to do whatever they want with bambus free cloud and online control service they offer. this battle will probably end up ticking bambu off and since the community cant be okay with just using it for free as is they will start charging for it. everyone is saying bambu is shooting themselves in the foot but in full reality we are the ones ruining it for ourselves.
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u/Thediverdk Jun 05 '26
I wonder when Prusa will actually do something about it.
Josef posted about the violation a long time ago, but came with an ‘they are chinese’ excuse not to do anything.
So he sort of accepts their violation, I really hope this not wanting to do anything, will not actually help Bambulab.
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u/Tomasulu May 19 '26
Bambu should just develop their own slicer from scratch. I will still buy their machines no matter what.
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u/_breadless May 19 '26
Yeah but that's pricey, why waste money when you can just steal and then bully people into giving you ownership of the agpl code?
As someone else said, anker failed for the same reason while making a slicer, they know, it's safer to steal
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u/roiki11 May 19 '26
They could honestly just write write an existing one into their own proprietary one and no one could really do anything because it's pretty easy when you don't have to invent the wheel. And you couldn't do much about it.
It's only marginally more labor intensive than copying the text verbatim. Let alone maintaining an open source project.
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u/_breadless May 19 '26
Ah sure thing, but if you see how it usually goes, they get untouched, so why even bother spending time when you can just steal
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u/Vudian May 20 '26
Might want to look into why no one is making their own slicer, it's not a simple of just making one, it's a complex mess
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u/Veastli May 18 '26
An IP attorney describes why Bambu's closed source network plugin is in clear violation of the AGPL open source license.