A few hours after making the analysis public, I was contacted by Bradley M. Kühn from Software Freedom Conservancy.
Bradley M. Kühn created the Affero clause for AGPLv1, co-authored AGPLv3, and has worked on GPL enforcement, copyleft, and license compliance for around 30 years.
He agreed with my analysis and considered it correct and well written in the context of Bambu’s violation, specifically the missing Corresponding Source for libbambu_networking.{so,dll,dylib}.
He also told me that SFC had been working on the same problem in parallel.
I am currently collaborating with Software Freedom Conservancy on efforts related to Bambu’s AGPLv3 violations.
How exactly does that allow them protect their servers? And in what way that is better than, let’s say, a proper SDK that anyone can integrate in any form into their product and let’s say obtain an API key in their account to use whatever they want with their cloud just obeying the request quota they’ll have?
Becuase frankly they dont want you to do this, they never promised it or made it a feature. Your assumuing you should be able to do this. Bambu never offered you this functionaly.
That is actually not true at all. Ability to seamlessly use slicer with the printer, without all kind of dev mode / lan mode, would help by expanding a base of people who can test new features.
I highly doubt it, 95%+ of bambu products are sold to people outside the 3d printing user base. Opening up offers Bambu more risk and hassle for limited to zero gain.
hat is their right. I personally don’t belive they’ll be able to produce a capable closed-source slicer that won’t violate AGPL, therefore they’ll just eventually lose a huge portion of market if they do so. But that is their right to try and their position doesn’t give them right to break the law.
Your making a lot of assumtiuons on the size of the market. Again Bambu is selling huge numbers of printers to people not even in the current community. Just look at the marketing and advitising. its all about bringing people in.
Im not saying everyhting is perfect or everyhitng is as it should be but there seems to be this obsession that bambu needs to turn back to the way it was on day one and thar is simply not going happen.
No one was forced to update their printers, everyone was able to stay on the fimrware they were on. No one was entitled to get the benefits update brought with the changes to acess so it was a choice people had to make.
People want their Cake and Eat it thats the issue.
Bambu was closed from the very start and due to their groth is only going to get more so. That is what it is.
The dev has stated that Reddit is the only platform where he can discuss it without any sort of problems and everything checks out with his update and the SFC.
Reddit is not my preferred place for news or serious discussions, but i’ll leave the link here:
See I disagree with you on a lot of points but you are right, they are different softwares and that’s an issue others have raised.
Why haven’t they followed up with new cease and desists is my question.
I won’t bother replying to 3dEd anymore, he has aboslutely no clue and calling anyone who forges a User Agent header a criminal is just delusional.
I think you need to check on who you call a troll, Iv been printing sinxe 2012, I have X1C,P1S, P2S, H2D and many others. just becuase did not need to post before now does not make a troll.
Iv been sitting and watching this unfold and decided now to comment here, iv been around the doscord and others for years.
Just becuase an accout shows as new does not mean its a troll
A properly implemented open client following the protocol is no more dangerous than the official client.
Its bambus network so they are fully with in their right to protect it
Protect from what? Doing security-by-obscurity in proprietary binaries is not an effective way to stop bad actors. It’s an effective way to control the ecosystem.
Can we differentiate actual security concerns from company policies for once?
Oh om not saying it cant be done better, and should not be but there is this obsession with “Bambu need to give back”, “bambu build their busiess on Open Source” as if they are all take and give nothing back over this plug- in.
I don’t care if the server or firmware is closed source.
They just have to follow the license with Bambu Studio instead of taking when convenient but not giving back when it comes to obligations.
So here is a genuine question, if Bambu did all the changes, introducted new secutriy method that meant only Bambu Studio could still be used however they were 100% complient with AGPL would you then be happy ?
Since you feel this is relevant to you: You’re absolutely right - it’s the behavior!
It’s usually characterized by ignoring all previous comments, not introducing yourself, and jumping right into a controversial topic with a big bag. Empty profile, without links, without even completed the tutorial yet or confirmed rules in it.
Wierd, ill try to see wht Chrome has done, I have been around a long time. Infact I have spoen to Rossman a few times in messages as I used to contribute a fair bit to the Repair.WIki site. I stopped when it was all migrated to the new hosting and had to be done again from scratch and I did not really have the time.
Overall im just intreated as im not really convinced people know what they want in all this.
I absolutly agree everyone should be compliant with licencing however lets not pretend Bambu is the first or the only one, Creality was months behind with the K series Klipper release, Qidi and others have all fallen fowl.
It just seem this seem to be a pitchfork moment over something that in all honesly is the least of the problems.
…no, really, the subs often encourage people to create an account here, and then people are surprised that, despite everything, it’s all pretty tamed here in this forum.
Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think you get the idea.
I would not be happy with this but would have no valid reason to complain or demand that they open it up.
But there is a caveat.
I would still expect my printers I’ve purchased in 2023 and 2024 to work seamlessly with whatever slicer and bambu handy. As it was when I purchased them.
I do not mind them releasing new printer with closed down ecosystem but releasing a printer and then drastically changing how I can use it (by limiting my slicer choices for example) after they took my money is not ok.
If it worked at the time of purchase I would expect it to work throughout the lifetime of the product
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