Bambu Lab's AGPL evasion: exactly what the license was designed to stop

I think the Bambu case is a good one to litigate the AGPL but perhaps should start in the Court of International Trade. That court has the power to block imports as part of a TRO which would shut down a lot of their revenue from the US at least. Doing something similar in Europe would also help apply pressure. Takes lawyers and money though, of which there is certainly not enough of the latter.

Not to be too glib here, but its one of the paradoxes of "free software" which is there isn't any money generated by the licenses that keep it free. Where as "licensed" software has a revenue stream that is used to enforce the license against people who fail to honor it. The FSF can only do so much with their budget here.

The Chinese tech industry is built upon a foundation of GPL violations.

There is no way to stop it beyond getting CBP to block imports, which effectively amounts to shunning.

I never used Windows, I never used Apple, I never used Adobe, I made my life harder than I needed to for my ideals...

Now I am old and have enough hobbies and want things that just work.

Got an iPad, and honestly most apps actually suck and cost monthly subscriptions plus app price, got a windows PC for music and it's horrible and full of ads.

But these 3d printers actually just work.

From a customer standpoint I can't blame them, it's sad that they can't be at least a little less evil

copyright etc has been dead the moment the personal computer arrived. we are still living through the chaos of the new world being born, but I think it has been over for a while already.

I would be very surprised if any kind of license like the GPL (or any license for published code) is left in 100 years or so.

DRM is another face of the same struggle, and this too shall pass. Ironically, DRM coming from the same source as the GPL (wanting to force rules onto something freely copyable), is viewed very harshly, since it supposedly interferes with your "freedom". But in the end they are the same.

Both GPL and DRM come from the idealistic fantasy that non-scarce digital goods have any (market) value at all. AI is just the latest nail in this coffin.

Bamboo has been sketch and proprietary since the beginning. It's such a shame to see the maker community get sucked in (though I guess there is precedence wrt Fusion et.al.)

We just purchased a brand new top of the line Bambu with all the accessories, only for it to be defective on arrival. Their front panel display uses such thin fonts, it makes it almost impossible to read without glasses, and their error codes just send you in infinite loops that make you want to pull your hair out. They really spin themselves as the end all and be all to turn key professional 3d printing, and the reality has been anything but. We are currently waiting on a new part from China that will show up when whomever knows and at best, and all they could offer us a minor credit towards spending more money that doesn't even equal an hours pay.

I wish I could talk better about them, but what a let down. I really hope someone really figures out how to put the screws to them over this GPL violation.

> At the same time, a parallel market in 3D printers for manufacturing was developing. These were printers that took up a whole room and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Machines that take up rooms and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars existed a decade or more (probably 20 years, if I had to guess; patents) before hobby printers. I’ve not seen one retail printer that wasn’t based on the tech from giant commercial printers. And there is definitely tech in giant commercial printers that will never be retailized (laminated object manufacturing).