It's maddening that quite a few people are jumping to defend Bambu here.
Principally if you sell a device with a certain functionality and you later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft. It does not matter the slightest bit whether you break into someone's house to physically alter the device or whether you remotely install a malicious software update to do that.
But what's even more insane here is that some people are claiming that BambooLabs would somehow have the right to do this, because while BambooLab might not have the right to limit the hardware they already sold (which they did and these people just pretend did not happen) they have the right to limit their printer client software under the license conditions they impose on it from the beginning, when their printer client is literally a modification of AGPL licensed software. The entire point of the GPL is to prevent people like BambooLabs from doing exactly this. The AGPL is literally the single license with the most restrictions on BambooLabs to ensure that the users of the software — the customers — do not have any restrictions in what they can do with it.
Some people are seeing this situation and just decide to side with the company against their customers on imposing restrictions on an already sold product after the sale and they are literally making shit up to justify it.
Edit: For people who do not know what this is about: Someone modified AGPL software to reenable features of these 3D printers that BambooLabs stole after the sale and BambooLabs sent a legal threat to them to stop distributing the software.
> later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft.
I've always been told it's called business. But I fully agree with you. Just wanted to note that this is the current business model both with hardware and software
This is why the fight/loss for open computing is so important.
Without the ability to run your own code, this will be everywhere and everything.
Without some counter force of open source pushing back and offering alternatives, we'll be putting tokens in a machine to check your email. Reading email will cost 4 tokens and you'll only be able to buy them in groups of 7.
> I've always been told it's called business.
The "business" ended when the sale transaction concluded. The fact that you were the seller in that past transaction doesn't entitle you to vandalize goods that now belong to someone else.
This is just crime trying to disguise itself as legitimate business, as scams often do.
> The "business" ended when the sale transaction concluded.
Actually not, though not in a way that makes the rest of your post incorrect.
Various laws and regulations state that the seller has responsibilities to the buyer after the initial transaction has completed, one of which Bambu might¹ be transgressing by removing features that people we lead to believe were part of the product, and could reasonably expect to remain part of the product, at the time of the sale.
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[1] This has not been tested in court, and I'm no lawyer, take my idea of what is the case with a requisite serving of condiment.
Crime is unfortunately legal.
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There's a class of person who's so fundamentally incapable of ignoring authority figures that they'll defend even the most pathetic positions possible.
I always put printers (2d and 3d) behind a firewall so they cannot reach the internet. This prevents auto-updates and surprises like disappearing functionality.
I've been bitten by an HP printer auto updating and my aftermarket ink suddenly not being acceptable. Never buying HP again after that.
I once updated my Epson, and it started rejecting aftermarket ink. Fortunately there is a way to downgrade the firmware.
Never buying a cartridge based inkjet printer again.
If you don't care about ink quality, then aftermarket ink is fine.
However, if you want your pictures to last 10+ years under the sun, or being able to read what you have printed after some time, getting the genuine ink is the way.
People think ink is simple. It is not.
Anybody thinking otherwise, some points of pondering:
It's not dyed drinking water.Lastly, I'm not against people using 3rd party ink at any level. I just want to point out that not every ink cartridge is created equal.
> then aftermarket ink is fine
Then why don't they allow it, perhaps with warnings?
They don't block after market ink because of quality concerns, though they might claim so, they block it because they want to make more money from you themselves through ink sales. The common response here is “but they make a loss on selling the hardware!”, to which my response is “their bad pricing decision is not my problem”.
I agree that "making loss on the hardware and using ink to offset that" is a very bad business decision. I have an 10+ year old HP Deskjet 4515 Ink Advantage which had a high initial price but cheap refills (black ink is pigment, but color cartridge is dye, but is UV resistant if printed on good photo paper), and that thing never created any problems for me hardware or software wise.
I can still use any print I got from it even after a decade. Ink's that stable on these.
From my perspective, 3rd party ink or toner is a support nightmare, esp. if it's bottom of the barrel. Again, from my perspective you should be able to take the responsibility and use these if you really want, but any ink or toner related damage might be out of warranty then (HP's genuine cartridges come with their own guarantees).
So, I can speculate that makers both offset the price and don't want to handle support tickets related to 3rd party ink damage for lower end devices, and buyers of higher end models are either using 1st party ink, or fine with paying the repair costs if their 3rd party installations go haywire.
Also, it's possible that kits for higher end inkjet systems (large format/plotter systems) tend to be higher quality since these models cater to professional shops which needs high quality supplies.
Lastly, I talked with someone who said that they buy the cheapest paper and cheapest ink because the printouts are disposable for them, and I find that point entirely fair, too.
My main point was underlining the fact that ink is not something simple in formulation. I don't defend banning 3rd party ink, but just pointing out some facts. I believe everybody can carry out their own fafo procedure.
> However, if you want your pictures to last 10+ years under the sun
Ah yes, the standard usecase for a printer. putting pictures outside for a decade.
That does not mean I cannot use the ink I want in a tool that I own.
Yes, your ink might be better. Market it that way and make it known. No problem with that. But prevent me from using my tool using DRM and firmware updates? That is customer hostile.
We don't disagree. See my longer comment above.
In the case of Bambu you'd want to do this to prevent surprises like your printer from randomly starting to print due to a "cloud error".
https://www.techradar.com/pro/did-your-3d-printer-start-prin...
that's what I had in my mind - I want to switch back to HP printer because the Brother I bought has inferior picture printing quality, but I am scared of any software update, so I guess I'll connect it to old linux machine and serve via CUPS
I just don't allow outbound connections for our HP printer.
Which means the controversy in question would not apply to you whatsoever.
> if you sell a device with a certain functionality and you later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft.
It could be argued that it is not theft by various devious uses of legalise¹.
Personally I'd go with calling it, at best, deceptive sales practices (on the assumption that they knew they'd be moving this way long before they did), or possibly outright fraud if I'm in a less generous mood.
[FYI: Bambu A1 user for nearly two years, also have a Snapmaker U1, if I buy anything else it won't be Bambu unless their attitudes change. The A1/A1mini are still two of the best budget beginner printers IMO, though some clones come close, and I do recommend them if asked but with caveats around potential lock-in later and not believing promises due to a history of changed online posts, deliberately excluded from the WayBackMachine, and what to my understanding is an AGPL breach]
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[1] “There is a way to use the feature, so it isn't an attempt to permanently deprive”, or “you agreed to the possibility of such changes in the EULA”, and so on.
The fact that theft is legal does not change the fact that it is theft. Crime is legal. That should not stop us from calling it out as crime.
Is this the reverse "you wouldn't download a car"?
You wouldn't download [and print] a 3D printer.
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You are on a venture capital run forum. A lot of people here would approve of this business model, as long as it brings in monies ...