The cheap printers are repackaging other's work without contributing to anything in any appreciable way. It's disappointing at best and damaging at worst, as it has moved all development up in price and capability.
Then along came Bambu, taking that capability and offering it for cheaper. There's solid evidence that they did so by stealing from open source projects. Their initial offering of a slicer program even sent diagnostics data to Prusa because they didn't change it.
You couldn't make me buy a Bambu, and I will strongly suggest not giving them money for the same reason you shouldn't buy knock-off aftermarket parts for your project car.
Resin printers offer an interesting mirror. Their roots aren't in open source projects. So most use the same hardware for control and it's tied to software that is feature-locked to a subscription service. It's weird to me that much of the user base seems to have boiled with this frog and thinks this is the only viable business model.
Moral of the story: if you want to see 3D printer manufacturers continue to innovate in a way that isn't headed to enE36 M3tification, spend your money with folks actually doing the development and supporting the community.
I'm not following this. Bambu is selling a printer they have based on an open source design. What part is "stolen"? Their software (also based on open source stuff) is a bit contentious, although you can use other forks of Prusa Slicer with the machine.
Which consumer level manufacturers would you recommend purchasing from? Most of them are selling kits based on open source designs (many of them originating with the same RepRap design).
Which professional level manufacturers would you recommend purchasing from? To may knowledge, none of the are "supporting the community".
I will strongly suggest not giving them money for the same reason you shouldn't buy knock-off aftermarket parts for your project car.
I just want to highlight that there is a big difference between a manufacturer copying a turbo design and undercutting the developer, and a manufacturer selling a commercial product based on an open source design.
For what it's worth, based on this thread and a fair amount of review-reading I bought a Bambu P1S and set it up yesterday. It's MUCH more user-friendly than my old Creality. I think so far the only thing I don't like about it is that the bed is smaller than I'm used to working with, so potentially some pieces I'll have to print diagonally to fit a single print in the work envelope.
At $800 after s/h it wasn't super cheap, but it's also worth putting that into perspective: This is a technology that was barely in its infancy in the consumer space a decade ago and two decades ago effectively didn't exist. I'm also hoping that I can use this to help me do some prototyping of small parts, which will bring in some income.
These Chat GTP powered bots are crazy.
ProDarwin said:
These Chat GTP powered bots are crazy.
it's like if Curtis73 was a GPT-bot ;-)
In reply to ProDarwin :
Open source licenses still have requirements. It's more than just the slicing software. Companies using it without following the requirements is problematic.
Can you elaborate on where the issues are? I've googled this an I'm not finding any concrete info. I see they have made some patents (in china) of "improved" open source designs, but I'm not sure I understand if that is illegal in anyway, violates the open source license, or provides any competitive advantage whatsoever.
There is lots of speculation on Reddit that they are not acting "ethically", however as is typical of forums/social media, its not backed up by anything other than vague statements. It honestly comes off as people who want them to publish their enhancements as open source, furthering the design, rather than commercialize. Thats not a requirement to my understanding, but I recognize there could be a lot more to the story.
ProDarwin said:
Can you elaborate on where the issues are? I've googled this an I'm not finding any concrete info. I see they have made some patents (in china) of "improved" open source designs, but I'm not sure I understand if that is illegal in anyway, violates the open source license, or provides any competitive advantage whatsoever.
There is lots of speculation on Reddit that they are not acting "ethically", however as is typical of forums/social media, its not backed up by anything other than vague statements. It honestly comes off as people who want them to publish their enhancements as open source, furthering the design, rather than commercialize. Thats not a requirement to my understanding, but I recognize there could be a lot more to the story.
Most open source licenses require any derivative code to be published openly. Some folks speculate that it would be extremely difficult for Bambu to build out the capability they have without using open-source code. Bambu has recently mentioned some third party firmware policies: https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/18rkbtl/bambulab_x1_custom_firmware_is_almost_here/
I still feel like Bambu has a skewed view of the market and community, and feel like this is an examble of "embrace, extend, extinguish".
