Calling Bambu Lab a ‘strident long‑time AGPL violator,’ the nonprofit is organizing reverse‑engineering volunteers and an Orca Slicer fork in a right-to-repair move for 3D printer owners.
Software Freedom Conservancy has decided to take the bull by the horns when it comes to open source software compliance in embedded devices. Open source compliance issues are nothing new. Some of you might remember that about 20 years ago, GPLv3 was created in part to deal with issues caused by TiVo, which made a TV recording device that was powered by Linux and other open source software that was locked down with DRM.
Embedded technology has changed since, but embedded manufacturers are still looking for ways to game the system. For example, during the last year or so, SFC has been making news with its ongoing legal battle with Vizio –the Walmart-owned maker of smart TVs — for running Linux without making all of the source code available. Now SFC has found a new target with similar issues. On Monday, it announced that it’s taking on Bambu Lab’s 3D printers over source code and other AGPLv3 compliance issues.
The organization has declared the problems with both Vizio and Bambu as right-to-repair issues, and is tying this latest case to its current fundraising campaign.
“After recent news of violations of the Affero General Public License, version 3, SFC staff began a comprehensive AGPLv3 compliance investigation of both the userspace software and firmware on Bambu’s devices,” SFC said in an announcement published Monday on its website. “While the investigation is ongoing, two specific AGPLv3 violations have been confirmed.”
The Issues Thus Far
The first violation concerns Bambu Studio, the company’s slicer software that takes data from a STL file, a 3D model file that describes the shape of an object and “slices” it into many horizontal 2D layers for transmission to a 3D printer. Bambu Studio is open source — released under AGPLv3 — and is based on a pre-existing line of open source slicer software (to get biblical about it, Slic3r begat PrusaSlicer which begat Bambu Studio, all AGPLv3).
“While some source code for Bambu Studio can be found on Bambu’s Github organizational account, Bambu (in effect) admits publicly that they have violated the AGPLv3 by combining Bambu Studio with a proprietary library — which they distribute to the user via an interactive prompt in the UI,” SFC explained. This breaks compliance with the license, since the AGPL requires that any and all software needed to run AGPL‑covered code and distributed as part of a combined work must be provided as complete corresponding source under AGPL‑compatible terms.
The company’s other compliance issue comes with a bit of a story.
According to SFC, Bambu Lab user Paweł Jarczak examined the incomplete source code for Bambu Studio and then modified another AGPL‑licensed slicer, Orca Slicer, so it could communicate with Bambu Studio’s currently‑source‑unavailable components running on Bambu Lab’s servers, effectively letting Orca Slicer stand in for Bambu Studio. Bambu cried foul, and demanded that Jarczak remove his modified version of Orca Slicer from GitHub, with claims which included the notion that its terms of service override the AGPLv3.
That claim is patently untrue. As AGPLv3 spells it out: “You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.”
SFC’s Immediate Actions
The response from SFC has been to declare what Jimmy Carter (quoting William James) might call the moral equivalent of war.
“The recent aggressive behavior toward Paweł Jarczak was a last straw for us: we have decided to launch a multi-pronged effort that will assist consumers and users in the short-term, and also work toward a long-term strategy to improve the software right to repair for all 3D printer consumers,” SFC said.
It’s starting by activating its volunteer troops to reverse engineer libbambu_networking.so, bambu_networking.dll, and libbambu_networking.dylib, Bambu Studio’s object code that Bambu is calling proprietary.
“Object Code combined with AGPLv3’d software must also be licensed under AGPLv3,” SFC explained. “As such, these object code libraries are governed by the AGPLv3. SFC and our volunteers are within our rights to reverse-engineer these libraries for the purpose of creating our own Source Code that can function as a drop-in replacement in Bambu Studio. If Bambu Studio were not known to be a strident long-time AGPLv3 violator, we would not begin with this approach, but we believe the reverse-engineering effort will yield results more quickly than legal action possibly can.”
It’s also creating a repository to maintain and improve Jarczak’s fork of Orca Slicer.
“SFC does not fear Bambu’s aggression,” it said. “We welcome volunteers to join us in maintaining an OrcaStudio fork that works with Bambu’s 3D printers. Volunteer contributors working on SFC’s behalf have some amount of personal liability protection, and SFC does our best to insert ourselves should Bambu make legal threats to any of our volunteers.”
The plan, according to SFC, is to use those two initiatives to build a replacement for Bambu Studio that’s both compliant and works better for people who own Bambu 3D printers. In addition, the organization is going to launch a standing committee to discuss software freedom and rights in the 3D printer community, as well as look for further Bambu Lab violations.
“We normally do not actively look for violations,” it said. “However, in this case, SFC will watch Bambu Lab closely and continue to investigate — regularly looking for any potential violations of copyleft licenses.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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