cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/opensource/p/1823177/3d-printer-reviewers-being-honest-in-this-industry-will-put-you-out-of-a-job
This is the emails between the YouTuber YGK3D and Anycubic, it seems like they won’t send 3D printers to reviewers who mention their GPL3 license violations.
tl;dr Anycubic uses open-source software for their firmware, but doesn’t make it public as per license agreement, and they don’t seem to be friendly to anyone who calls this out.
More info: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxIMpZTkXqFo0H6pDwhZpdYqMYvLhPvWA5?lc=UgxA-4LYvwrnonXuXsZ4AaABAg
This comment is more about FOSS than about 3D printing, but if you’re interested in GPL violations, you should know about the court case SFC v. Vizio. If it goes the way the SFC is pushing (and the courts have made a surprising amount of noises suggesting they’re broadly sympathetic to SFC’s arguments), ordinary end users will have a lot more leverage to push companies to honor the terms of the GPL and provide source code as required by the GPL. Every manufacturer of smart TVs, smartphones, game consoles – hell even robot vacuum cleaners, cars, and sex toys – if they include GPL’d code in those TVs, they’re required to provide source code to users on demand. As it is now, companies can (and do) flagrantly violate the “source code provision” requirement in the GPL. But this case could change that.
Wasn’t following the guy, but I will now. Fewer and fewer people in yt 3D printing space remain that care about the ethics of the companies selling this and more and more are just bambu sponsored.
Bambu sponsorships are a fucking plague.
I want to get into 3D printing before it’s outlawed and I’ve been gravitating to Bambu because I’m novice enough that marketing works. Where should I be looking? Price is a consideration but not my first.
Strongly suggest not going with Bambu, they have a history of attempting to start a walled garden ecosystem, the only thing that has stopped them thus far is backlash.
I have Bambu lab A1 now. Have had ultimaker and various creality printers. Bambu lab is by far the best in terms of print quality, ease of use, reliance and speed. Isn’t this the real reason why it has become popular and not them pressuring reviewers to only do good reviews?
What drama or problems is there with Bambu?
It’s DRM’d bullshit that gives a big fat 🖕to the entire open and collaborative spirit of 3D printing. The hobby was built on open source and open hardware (see e.g. RepRap) and Bambu is trying to destroy that.
I don’t give a fuck how good the print quality and whatnot is; It could give you a handjob with every print and it would still be completely categorically unacceptable!
Agree! Will have to look into what the DRM and Bambu thing is about. I built my first MakerBot waaay back at uni so I get and support the idea of the free and open 3d printing community
The most trustworthy reviews are always those where the reviewers just bought the products. Even when it’s not as blatant as it is here, there’s always a motivation to not anger the company too much when you get their products early and for free.
The most trustworthy reviews are always those where the reviewers just bought the products.
So much this. One reason why there are so super few honest Bambu Lab reviews out there, they understood how to do PR through influencers and used their VC money to send thousands of devices everywhere for basically free (and keep doing so) to build an overly positive lifestyle image. Those few who do actual deep dives and get cut off from new free devices simply drown in the masses. Meanwhile their printers melt themselves and the A1 Mini apparently likes to catch fire.
Anycubic is a whole different beast, they’ve known to basically steal stuff for many years (like when they took Prusa’s first-gen MMU design and successfully patented a slightly different design). Shit like this is one of the reasons Prusa is meddling with new licenses in the first place.
Creality now went IPO and is blasting every corner of their products with AI. Elegoo also already broke licenses to close off their devices.
Pretty sure vendors like Snapmaker, Sovol or QIDI also have done a sufficient amount of shit.
Capitalism will always be a shitshow like this, and it’s annoying. Ethical or even lawful behaviour shouldn’t be something you have to be able to afford, it should be the fucking default because it’s made free and beneficial to everyone.
