Technology

Great move by Snapmaker. In considering buying a new printer soon I am very annoyed by how difficult it is to know beforehand how much functionality of a printer is locked behind cloud connectivity that can be remotely disabled at any point. I know Bambu is to avoid absolutely thanks to the very public backlash they got but what about the others?

I know Prusa is a shining example of letting their customers own their devices but they are pricy. I didn't know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.

It looks like Rossman is saying that anyone can post this code because it's an open source, GPL code. Rossman also posted the code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8&t=2s

Jarczak’s fork crossed the line by injecting falsified identity metadata into its network communication. “In simple terms: it pretended to be the official Bambu Studio client when communicating with our servers.”

If it's easy enough to get access to your cloud infrastructure by just changing some metadata about the connection, then you really should re-think your authentication systems. If I were to publish the exact model and pinning of the lock on my house, it would be silly of me to be mad that someone used that to make their own keys.

Where fork?

I'm happy with my slightly modded Ender 3 Pro, but if I ever upgrade the Snapmaker U1 looks nice. I'll only buy from a company that supports open source firmware. Bambu is trash, unfortunately every 3D printing related YouTuber seems to have happily taken a sponsorship from them so they are everywhere now. I hate it.

I don't agree with everything he does, but he's right more than he's wrong and I also have no idea how he walks around with balls the size of watermelons. You GO Louis.

There is one thing everyone misses in this pissing contest. Bambu is a Chinese company. So any lawsuit will probably need to take place in China. It ain't happening in the US or the Europe. So, guess who wins.......

Josef Prusa wrote a blog post, recently about this. I have to apologize that I can't seem to find a link to it right now. But the gist of it is.

Bambu forked Prusa Slicer and had to be threatened to publish the code for the fork by Prusa the company, "stealing" ideas and claiming it your own is just good business in China, because the code is all AGPL.

But Bambu has a problem now. The Chinese government requires access to their technology and cloud. Because one way or another, the Chinese government requires access to any industries tech under "National Security". So Bambu can't allow access to 3rd party actors in this case because the government can't control the access of the outside code, which makes it illegal.

So Bambu has screwed themselves by forking an open source project that requires anyone to have access to the code and be able to use that code and make changes to that code. That the Chinese government doesn't allow. And Bambu didn't pay attention and let that little snippet of code that is under contention loose under the AGPL. As I have claimed all along, Bambu does not have the smartest coders on payroll.

But Bambu is pretty sure the Chinese courts have their back in this matter. In the past, Prusa has seriously considered going after Bambu in court. But the Prusa's lawyers know they can't win no matter how righteous the case because, well China. And Prusa most likely has access to much better lawyers than Rossmann does. So this ain't going nowhere.

Josef Prusa is very angry because it's evident the AGPL means nothing if it can't be enforced and Bambu is worried that it will get screwed over in the market because they could lose a lot of sales over this. Or even get their products banned in some countries. Or not. Many Bambu fans seem to care very little about it. Because just use "Developer Mode" without understanding the deeper implications. And that it's not really any protection.

Edit to add: When push comes to shove, just who do you think Bambu is going bend the knee to? Some court 1000s of miles away? Or the Chinese government that's right outside the door? And yes, if you want to sue a Chinese company about patent, you will need to do it in China.

Claude.md

🥀🥀🥀

My next printer is definitely going to be a Snapmaker.

They one-upped Bambu with the fully open approach of the U1, did a better tool changing printer at a lower cost, and are now supporting the good fight. I really hope it's not a publicity stunt before enshittification begins, but so far, I'm liking them a lot.

Fingers crossed for a slightly improved U1 - primarily, a larger print volume (I'd be super happy with a ~5cm increase in all directions, making it 320x320x320), which I'm buying the moment it becomes available.

Does this community not allow videos? I tried posting a link to it directly yesterday, but Automod removed it instantly.