Louis Rossmann taunts Bambu Lab by hosting banned 3D Printer firmware fork, dares $1 billion company to sue him — more creators pledge support and boycotts, Snapmaker donates equipment to embattled de
2026-05-14 14:19 UTC
Replies (18)
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@Godort@lemmy.ca 2026-05-14 16:33
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.
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@irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-05-14 23:15
Claude.md 🥀🥀🥀
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@DaddleDew@lemmy.world 2026-05-14 14:37
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.
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@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-14 14:50
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: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8&t=2s
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@hayvan@piefed.world 2026-05-14 20:06
Where fork?
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@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.today 2026-05-14 18:36
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.
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@Syrc@lemmy.world 2026-05-15 10:02
(Premise: I don’t have a 3D Printer, have next to zero experience using one and never heard of this controversy before. I’m just asking out of curiosity) I’m in favor of people using open-source stuff to use better the stuff they bought, but putting aside my bias that seems pretty clearly an illegal thing, can someone ELI5 how could they not lose if they’re sued? What I understood is that Bambu Lab sold those printers advertising cloud access through their “official means”, but a lot of people used unofficial open-source software to access it, because it worked better. Then at a certain point, the company disabled access to third-party apps and allowed only their proprietary one, but people didn’t like that and kept using the open-source app to access their proprietary servers. Which prompted the company to sue. It’s an ass move to do, but the open-source software wasn’t officially supported even before, right? And now it’s still used to access their company cloud, not a separate one, right? From my understanding they didn’t remove any functionality that was officially advertised, and people are now using unauthorized software to access the company’s proprietary cloud, did I misunderstand something?
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@fonix232@fedia.io 2026-05-14 15:45
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.
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@rumba@lemmy.zip 2026-05-15 22:26
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.
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@rosco385@lemmy.wtf 2026-05-14 18:54
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@Bluewing@lemmy.world 2026-05-15 13:54
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.
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@grue@lemmy.world 2026-05-14 14:44
Does this community not allow videos? I tried posting a link to it directly yesterday, but Automod removed it instantly.
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@NegativeLookAhead@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 13:33
I was pretty close to buying a P2S until I saw Jeff Geerlings latest video, which led me to Rossmanns. Bambu labs obviously hates its users, why would I give them my money?
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@4grams@awful.systems 2026-05-14 16:03
I bought my Bambu back when orca slicer and local network was out of the box supported. It was only a few months later that they locked out their firmware and started down this path. I’ve been steadfastly refusing to update firmware. I hope to modify it someday but if not, I’ll just make sure it’s my last Bambu.
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@Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-05-14 15:40
Lol on me, I bought a p1s like 3 months ago. Works like a charm though and 300€ is what like the hotend cost on my wanky homemade printer from the past. Would love a full FOSS replacement ofc.is that something even possible (especially the cloud stuff, mighty convenient)?
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@tal@lemmy.today 2026-05-14 15:25
I don't really see the point. I mean, why bother to try to do something that just makes the company's printers more desirable? Even if you "win", the company is going to be a pain in the ass. Do you really want to waste time and financial resources on improving the company's product? Just don't buy Bambu Lab printers. Don't recommend them. And don't support them with software. If this was a world in which there was one 3D printer manufacturer, it'd be different, but it's not. They have competition.
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@Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2026-05-14 16:17
that was basically my chain of purchase as well. I knew way in advance of bambus shady history. Elegoo came in with a fairly affordable option that doesnt constantly shit itself as some of the printers of yesteryears (not saying its 0 though, you can find cases of it all the time) its under tollerate level because they dont mandate i have to use elegoo slicer (free to use orcaslicer), and so far at least allows for open source firmwares to exist.
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@lime@feddit.nu 2026-05-14 21:13
yeah, a lot of times. i had software licencing responsibilities for a product for a while, and they really didn't want gpl stuff in there for the reasons stated in the thread. the interesting wrinkle in this situation is: if rossman is distributing all of bambu's code, including the account stuff that far as i can tell is another codebase, and he hasn't gotten it from his own printer (which wouldn't have the sources) then no "agreement" has taken place. if bambu is told to distribute sources and they say "no", they're in the wrong. but if they haven't said anything, then technically rossman is stealing the code. it would most likely get thrown out, but the case can be made.