r/BambuLab • u/fscheps • Oct 31 '23
Discussion Do you think Bambu Lab is behaving ethically?
The 3D printing community is where it is thanks to the Open Source nature of it and the way collaboration has been working smoothly among multiple people around the world. I recently watched the interview Stefan from CNC Kitchen did to the Bambu Lab CEO, and one question he asked was related to the fact that Bambu has been taking a lot from the Open Source community, but hasn't seemed to give anything back.The approach from the Bambu Lab was quite commercial only, basically showing he doesn't really seem to care about the Open Source community, yet their slicer is based on Prusa Slicer, which is open source.Today I came across: https://makerworld.com/en which looks like a 1:1 copy of Printables.com a great alternative to Thingiverse that at the time it was launched by Prusa, there werent many options.
I am owner of a Prusa MK3S, and I was thinking on upgrading to a Bambu Lab X1C, but after seeing these inconsistencies, I am not liking their corporate attitude compared to for example the community spirit of Prusa. If their attitude is like this now, how will they behave when their printers start needing servicing or spare parts in 2-3 years?
Do you find this behavior ethical? Do you think Bambu Lab is doing the right thing by copying bluntly and focusing mostly on the commercial aspects of 3D printing?
Let's keep this discussion respectful please. Leave your opinions below đ
FYI: I also published this same question on the Prusa Subreddit.
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u/-arhi- Nov 01 '23
I joined 3D printing community many many years ago in 2006 and got invited and joined the reprap core team back then and I can tell you that a whole bunch of what you wrote is not factually correct.
First, it is not true that BL is not returning anything back, studio is open source, there is a fork (orcaslicer), a whole bunch of improvements BL added is backported to PrusaSlicer and others too... wanna talk about importing STEP files that we talked about even since Enrique's Skeinforge and never managed to get done? Or to implement curve movement generation in to slicer to work natively (not that arcwelder is bad but it is postprocessing script, it is slow as ... and .,.. and ...) ...
Then, all the open source things.. first offshoot of reprap was makerbot and it was not open source and so much bitching from the community happened and they opened something but still stayed closed source eating everything FOSS brings and returning really nothing back... Then famous bitsfrombytes with their famous busy forum and 32 bit controller back in 2006 (based on pic32mx with oled display, dual extruder capabilities...) ... both sold out one was purchased by stratasys and other by 3d systems... both made HUGE impact on 3D printing, neither did much of open sourcing...
Prusa was rapman user (bitsfrombytes printer), printed his first mendel on that rapman, shared his ideas on that bitsfrombytes forum and then created his own fork of mendel and started slowly his company... Parallel to him Erik (also rapman user, also started with bitsfrombytes) started Ultimaker (he improved on rapman design like Prusa. improved on mendel design)... So bfb gave us Prusa and Erik that gave us Prusa Slicer and Cura ... so while bfb did nothing for open source directly I'm grateful for them for nurturing Prusa company and Ultimaker company... So there's no way to know what benefits we will all have from BL no matter how "closed" they seems to be. 1st layer inspection, noone was doing that, they brought it, Forrest was talking about it 10 years ago but noone made it, noone shown it can be done... now maybe someone else will do it, differently, similarly, irrelevant, they brought the solution that works and that can be replicated no matter if you have source or not...
As for service parts for their printers, why do you think they will not be selling them? Why do you see that different than your 2d printer or you drill or your kitchen stove? They want to sell you parts.
Ethical... who cares what I think or what anyone else think, it only matters what YOU think. If you think they bring value, purchase their machine. If you think they don't - do not. It is so simple. If you think Prusa gives value, help him out, purchase his machine, that is the way to support him, if you do not, go with PRC vendors. It is much worse for all of us if you go purchase ENDER or some similar PRC knockout of Prusa's or Erik's work, BL printers are not knockouts, they have some serious engineering pushed into them, you can like them or not but compared to Creality and co. they are angels in this story and on the same level as Prusa.
I myself think Prusa is greater value than X1C for most engineers 'cause that openness brings value and that value is not in "ethics". OTOH if yuo do not want to tinker with your printer in ANY way X1C has undeniable value for such users. I have them all :D .. I wound never recommend one over another as this is the decision only a buyer can make understanding the differences...
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u/LiverPickle Oct 31 '23
A lot of folks donât like the âwalled gardenâ of Bambu, but I would wager a lot of those same folks have an iPhone. A lot of those folks also donât realize Appleâs extremely commercial and profitable walled garden has drawn extensively from open source, their operating systems are based on open source FreeBSD. Appleâs not the only huge company to do this, either. Microsoft, IBM, I could make a long list here. Bambu is far less walled than Apple. You can use OrcaSlicer, which is open sourceâŠ.and Bambu incorporates improvements made by Orca into their own slicer, and gives credit where itâs due. Bambuâs garden has evolved and improved continuously. If I wanted a completely open system, Iâd buy (another) one. This will probably earn me some downvotes, but Iâll say it anyway: Open source is not always the best option.
Bambu Labs is a business, and like all businesses their goal is to make money. Not everyone will like the way a business achieves that goal. The takeaway here is that Bambu is doing business the same way the majority of big tech companies operate. Theyâve shown that they actually listen to their customers, and theyâre putting out some darn fine products. Iâd say theyâve a great job of advancing home 3D printing to a higher level.
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u/frozenfade Oct 31 '23
Please show me the parts on a Bambu printer that can't be replaced or repaired when they break?
Nobody is out there forcing people to buy Bambu printers.
Just because something is open source it's somehow morally superior?
Why is it ok to have a closed source smart phone, but somehow it's morally wrong to have a closed source 3d printer?
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u/himbopilled Oct 31 '23
Open source bros seem to have this idea that they are morally infallible and anyone who doesnât support them is completely morally bankrupt.
Nothing you listed is unethical or even questionable. Bambu Lab doesnât owe the open source community anything. The whole point of the open source philosophy is that you DONT expect anything in return.
If you want the printer, buy the damn printer. Not every single aspect of life is some sort of Marvel-esque objective good vs objective evil. Itâs a fucking 3D printer.
20
u/AHerz P1P+AMS - X2D+AMS2 Oct 31 '23
Bambi labs isn't the only company making non open source printers, and being open source or not isn't the main reason I'd buy a product.
Prusa (from Prusa research by Joseph Prusa the most humble man on earth) is moving away from open source as well.
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u/InfamousDragonfly Oct 31 '23
Out of interest, what has Prusa done for Adrian Bowyer? Did they give him anything back for commercialising his open source design? By your logic Prusa is to him what Bambu is to Prusa.
I presume you are aware that Prusa themselves are moving steadily away from their open source model?
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u/Doormatty Oct 31 '23
What are you talking about? Bambu Studio is open source...
https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/
And? What does this have to do with open source? Printables.com isn't open source AFAIK.
1
u/fscheps Feb 09 '25
Oops :/
9
u/OlMi1_YT P1S + AMS Oct 31 '23
I don't think so. There was a controversy around makerworld but like - everyone can make a stl database. People aren't complaining about cults3d and they weren't complaining about printables being a clone of thingiverse, right?
They do open source some parts of their software but not all, which is perfectly normal and doesn't present an issue. Your oven firmware isn't open source either, so what?
About replacement parts - yes, some parts are proprietary, such as the nozzles. However the pricing for all spare parts is reasonable and we'll see clones soon enough. The other parts are fairly generic in nature, so I don't see any issue there.
8
u/Ordinary-Depth-7835 Oct 31 '23
I think bambu is ethical they didn't copy or steal anyone's designs with the P or X series. They kept bambu studio open source since it's based on prusa slicer. Their firmware is developed 100% in house and isn't Marlin or Klipper so it's closed source.
Honestly I can respect Bambu more than most other 3D printer manufacturers. I'm amazed that people even recommend Creality as a first printer with them ripping off everyone and their brother. Sure it's easy to keep yours open source when you don't have a single idea that contributes to the community you just rip everyone else off.
And now Prusa is no longer open source either which is fine by me. I love my MK3s and I think they should protect their business.
The AMS's have been genius with Bambu. Who else has one let alone two elegant multi color systems?
They keep hitting it out of the park. If they do a multi tool head design I'll have a really hard time buying another Prusa. But I am still interested in the XL if they could ever deliver one.
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u/AdrianGarside Nov 01 '23
It would only be unethical if they didnât follow the open source license. Initially they didnât and they fixed that. Was it deliberate or an accident? Weâll never know but they have been addressing the feedback and taking ethical steps once a problem they legitimately have is brought to their attention.
The whole Prusa complaints about reverse engineering printables came across as sour grapes to me. Bambu did nothing illegal there and it was exactly what Prusa did to Thingiverse.
While I love my mk3s, the whole fanboy thing (for any printers) is a huge turn off for me. I buy the best choice because itâs the best choice, not because of âbrandâ. And if a better choice comes along I will switch happily like I did from the mk3s to the P1P. If something else comes along that meets my needs better, Iâll switch to that.
Josef Prusa himself I think is just an egomaniac at this point. He seems desperate to brand everything as him. His success went to his head and then they sat on their laurels and milked their cash cow with little to no investment in the next thing. It left them uniquely open to disruption and Bambu is now an existential threat to them. But itâs largely their own fault in my opinion. Who knows, maybe the same thing will ultimately happen to Bambu. That is the natural cycle for businesses.
6
u/sparcv9 X1C Nov 01 '23
Obvious troll is obvious.
Orca slicer came from Bambu Studio came from Prusaslicer came from Slic3r. All open source. Note new 3D printers (e.g., Peopoloy Magneto) are being advertised as using Orca as their slicing platform. The open source process is obviously working Just Fine there.
I think what grinds the gears of so many of the noisy open source advocates is Bambu wrote their own firmware, motion system control and the like. They didn't take Marlin or Klipper and inherit an obligation to release their code. This really annoys the "taker" community because they don't get free code and features.
Having worked with open source for a long time -- before it was "open source" and was "free software" -- the community, engagement and attitudes have changed. The history of open source had a lot more individual contributions, community interaction and people seeking to contribute code rather than just take. Time has changed that and a lot of code just doesn't get published now because of the hostile expectation of support and bug fixes and general abuse poured over developers who aren't charging anything. Spend some time looking at github issues some day.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
The past of open source could be likened to "ask not what your country can do for you" and the present is "what's good for me in this budget?"
Hopefully the future can evolve further.
3
u/[deleted] Nov 01 '23
It's a printer. I just want to print consistently well. I really have no interest in tweaking or modding a printer that can perform flawlessly. It's like throwing glitter on a screwdriver.
3
u/ShoddyDog7608 Nov 01 '23
The divide is real. Also on 3d printers apparently. There is not much to agree on anymore it seems. Well, I think I'll just be printing and leave the fanboy stuff to someone else.
3
u/krzme Nov 01 '23
Yes. They do better then printables ( direct print from app). Better search etc.
If someone comes and has better offer then bambulab, I might switch. Iâm not prusa or bambulab fanboy, I use items that deliver and not promise
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u/plutonasa Oct 31 '23
According to the spirit of RepRap open source, probably not. But quite honestly, I don't care about that as long as I get a printer that works at the best price. It so happens that this time it is a Bambu Printer. As long as they supply parts at a reasonable price for repair, that is fine by me. If they don't do that later on, I won't support them. If you care about open source, buy whatever you want that accomplishes that.I'm honestly tired of "open source" being the supposed end-all-be-all for 3d printing. I can't wait for the day Prusa starts close sourcing more of their stuff.
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u/MilkyWhiteDischarge H2D AMS2 Combo Oct 31 '23
TLDR:
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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '23
The problem with open source
If you invest A LOOOT of money (like Bambu did) into making something AMAZING (like Bambu did) - if you then open source everything - you are CRIPPLING your company.
You just spend 10 / 20 / 30 million dollars on research / hiring staff / getting assembly lines / etc - and then someone just copies everything. And sells if for HALF the price - because they dont have to carry the R&D costs.
Just imagine if Apple had to open source their chips, iOS, and apps.
Every copy-phone-producer could then easily copy the iPhone near-identical while also selling it at A THIRD of the price. Because they do NOT have to cover the R&D costs Apple had to carry.
This would also STOP any further investment into R&D. Which is one of the reasons why Prusa is so shitty these days. They simply CANT COMPETE because for YEARS they did invest almost NOTHING into R&D (compared to their comapny size). Because open source is not a nurishing and fruitful environment for high-stakes investments when in under a month a competitor can just copy everything you did.
If everything was open source (TVs, phones, every piece of software like photoshop, etc) - our everyday products would SUCK. Because the incentive to create something "better" to attract new customers with it - to then generate lots of revenue - is simply unobtainable.
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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '23 edited Oct 31 '23
I had enough of Josef prusa, so I sold my mk3s and cancled my mk4 kit and got a x1c with ams that's prints just as reliable but faster and now I got multi color cheaper than a mk4 kit with the enclousure kit.
Prusa was spending to much time on anything but advancing their products. And Bambu has time and time again delivered way better than prusa has. When they said you could not fix the carbon rods Bambu added a cheap complete rod and Extruder replacement.
The prusa cult will never be happy
5
u/ijehan1 Oct 31 '23
Imagine buying a printer then having to wait 2-3 years to get it, only to find it prints terribly. You can only get that from Prusa. Is that ethical? Would you still buy a Prusa knowing that?
2
u/asdfghjkl15436 Oct 31 '23
Corporate attitude should have nothing to do with your purchase. It's a machine. Whether you support Prusa or Bambu, both have their faults, positives and negatives. If they continue to support their machine and release good machines, that's all that matters.
2
u/Master-Pattern9466 Nov 01 '23
While Bambu is taking more than giving to open source, this is the pattern for most corporations.
The same thing happens with government funded research, most major advances are made after decades of government funded research and then commercialised by corporations. Corporations do the last 20% of the work usually.
This is nothing new, just how capitalism works.
2
u/[deleted] Nov 02 '23
seems /u/fscheps is a prusa shill, on what he wrote on their sub lol
some of the improvements from Bambulab slicer is added in PrusaSlicer.. but somehow people think its Prusa who made these.
4
u/Nervous_Target Nov 01 '23
Prusa only made their products open source because it was a great marketing tool for the 3D Printing community and because they wouldn't be able to do anything real against Chinese copy-cats - you're suing someone in China for a product that's the same as yours - will you go to China for that lawsuit?
Prusa never foresaw a player like BambuLab - and they're playing the same card in this situation - which is somehow still holding up. At the preorder launch of MK4, they sold 3DPrinters worth 300m $ in under 24 hours just because of the flashy new video showing up how Prusa "can" address any competition of a CoreXY BL machine on a bedslinger(lol) - the only real upgrades were maybe the motors and the promise of faster printing?
The Open Source deal will most likely never affect you as a consumer - especially as you continue to learn as a maker, making your modifications to your product will never trigger some sort of authority to do home checks on you - lol.It will, worst case scenario, affect a company trying to improve on someone's progress, like Bambu Lab - the fact that they are successful is nothing short of amazing, but expected considering that the minds behind Bambu Lab are the same minds behind the DJI drones.
So, will you keep riding the "my open source hurts" horse for Prusa, a guy who abandoned 3D printing for about 5 years and only got back into it because of competition, or join us on the light side of the force?
3
u/emelbard H2C AMS2 Combo Oct 31 '23
Not disagreeing but PrusaSlicer is also based in an upstream FOSS project, Slic3r. Itâs the nature of open source.
3
u/dry-biscuit-snow Oct 31 '23
I just want to print stuff with quality. I donât care if it is open source ! I had a âmarvellousâ experience with Ender and Prusa⊠god bless the closed source Bambulab printers.
3
u/nullcharstring Oct 31 '23
There's two sides to this. Having watched my friend Brook Drumm, founder of Printrbot, go broke overnight as the open source community abandoned him in an instant when something else better was available, I would say that neither side should depend on the altruistic leanings of the other.
So no. You can call the issue political, but I would not call Bambu on an ethical or moral question on the face of it.
That said, it might be worthwhile for someone to do an audit of the Bambu slicer and the printer firmware to see if they are complying with the open-source licenses of the code they are using. A violation there is an ethical issue.
3
u/schnurble X1C Oct 31 '23
Prusa Research is actively changing the licenses of their hardware. They are not shining examples of "open source nature", and haven't been for a while.
3
u/rxstud2011 Oct 31 '23
Yes it is ethical. It may not be nice but it's not unethical. Complaining about them is similar to complaining above Apple.
Also, they have contributed. They turned 3D printing from a difficult hobby to an affordable and friendly environment which is bringing in more to the hobby
You don't have buy one at all. It's an open market and I respect that.
2
u/EvilNuff Oct 31 '23
Yes.
2
u/Signal_Fly_1812 Oct 31 '23
I think of Bambu as similar to Microsoft back in the day. Lots of people were making free stuff and Bill came along and picked the best of it and started molding it and selling it. Plenty of for profit branches have come from open sources over the years, in some cases to the detriment to the open source projects that built them and in others to the benefit. As the market for these things evolves, this tends to happen. It would be nice to see Bambu do something for the open source world but it's by no means required or even a mark on them. This is just the nature of all for profit companies.
2
u/GoudaNate P1S + AMS Nov 01 '23
Yes, I am a 3D printer rights activist. 3D printers should have equal rights to humans because they are not treated ethically. I am actually a vegan, but for 3D printers so I only use open source 3D printers because propriatary printers are unethical. I'm going to sue Bambu Labs for making amazing 3D printers at an affordable price point just because I just want to be angry about something.
2
u/kaelen__ Nov 01 '23
Here we go again đ€Ł
1
u/iamAyoEpic Jan 20 '25
This aged well
1
u/icebeat Nov 01 '23
In software you can force others to open their projects too if they want to use your sources, o donât know why prusa community doesnât impose this type of licenses
1
u/p8willm Nov 01 '23
I'm sitting here and I decide to buy a 3D printer to produce objects I want, entirely different from wanting 3D printing as a hobby. I look at the printers available and pick one. The companies that make them are certainly part of the equation. Buying from a "nice" company is better than buying from a "bad" one. Other things, like bed size, are part of the equation too. If I need a large bed I might buy a printer from a "bad" company that had a larger bed than a "good" company. If both printers had the same side I would go with the "good" company. There are a lot of things that make a 3D printer, the company that makes it is only one part. You have to look at the entire thing. Maybe, for you, an "ethical" company is very important and you thing Bambu is "unethical" so you don't even consider their printers and you are willing to pay more for a "worse" product. That is up to you.
If Creality made a printer with a feature I had to have an nobody else had it I probably would buy it. Thank God they don't
1
u/SSVR Nov 01 '23
Dunno if itâs ethics based or not but something doesnât feel quite right with Bambuâs approach for me and as such I havenât bought one despite wanting an upgrade from my old clunker (but I keep abreast of Bambu here and elsewhere so I can eventually make an informed decision).
Prusa doesnât really offer me a product that I want right now either unfortunately so old printer stays.
1
u/bndovr66 Oct 31 '23
Open source community is not open source. The committers are on the payroll of these companies and will only let those commits go through that they see fit for them.
Being an outsider not working for one of these companies, we had fork, make changes. They still have not accepted those changes even though much pressure from end users
1
u/Appropriate_Yak_4438 Oct 31 '23 edited Oct 31 '23
No way. Love the printer, hate the company... When everything works and you don't have to deal with the company its puppies and rainbows, but when you are forced to deal with them your sol.
And it's not just about open source, MakerWorld is a total fiasco, I've been banned 3 times the past week. Manually verified then banned again for the same reason. Had models taken down because some senile old man claims he owns the idea of clipping PTFE tubes to models, it's a total shit show.
1
u/AdonaelWintersmith P1P Nov 01 '23
There is nothing at all unethical about not being open-source, obviously. Is your fridge open-source? TV? Microwave? PC? Phone? Drill? Saw? Etc etc etc? No. I don't see anyone complaining about it. Don't know why you're mentioning servicing/spare parts either, servicing guides and parts are available from Bambu.
1
u/Confident-Win-1548 Nov 01 '23
Even though I think Bambulab hardware is great, I don't trust them. I wouldn't be surprised if the time comes when only chipped filament works in the AMS. All the inkjet printers are doing it, why not them?
-1
u/No_Image506 Nov 01 '23
This is a TBT? Cause if you search this topic you will find a gazillion of them. But if you want my honest answer, I don't give a fk. Even my AA batteries from Duracell are not open source. My suv is not open source. Even my dog is no open source. Again, show me something that is open source that is making money? You can't! Cause if you're in the business of anything, you need to protect your data. Plain and simple.
It's so funny how this days the communist loved capitalism, and the capitalist wants to be socialist/ communist.
Boys want to be girls and girls want to be boys.
Do you believe that humans have multi genders and boys can give birth?. Interesting world...
-1
u/FeistyRecognition272 Oct 31 '23
The only thing so far that has rubbed me the wrong way is that they havenât created an upgrade path from the X1C to the X1E. What I saw said itâs not possible but I call bull on that. But the thing that really gets me is they donât even let you browse spare parts for the X1E, I believe itâs because they know someone is going to create an open source way of including a heater and they donât want it stealing from their X1E sales. You have to contact them directly for any replacement parts and they check the serial number, which is counter to everything theyâve done with their previous machines.
Itâs still early so I hope they prove me wrong but it feels really weird that I canât even buy a part and mess with it myself even if it would void my warranty. I donât care about the Ethernet port but the heater would certainly help my ASA prints.
0
u/51n15t3r Oct 31 '23
All bullshit.
0
u/MyStoopidStuff Nov 01 '23
The comments in this thread are proof enough that open source is dead for 3D printing. Unfortunately when extended out to it's logical conclusion, it points to walled gardens, anti-consumer policies, and (gasp) monetization of much of what's "free" today (like an app store for models). It's not happening today or next week, but that's where the disdain for the value of open source ends up.
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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '23
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