https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48109224
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48175820
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48115127
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48115681
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48186583
Etc etc
If a user compiles official BambuStudio from source, does BambuLabs then also claim their non-bit-identical client is also impersonating the "real" BambuStudio?
Or are they abusing user agents strings as authentication mechanism?
If they don't consider it abuse, but rather legitimate use of agent strings as authentication mechanism, then are they effectively openly arguing they left the user-agent-as-credential in the public repository? BambuLabs is going to claim in court that it publishes login credentials to its network in its open source BambuStudio, and then complaining that people actually use them?
If I bring my post-it with all my computer passwords to CCC and wave it in front of any camera I find, can I then sue the CCC and others filming, because they are spreading my credentials?
Or should I be laughed away in court?
Not saying Bambu is in the right here, but your view of how the law works is a bit lacking.
Now you're threatening someone for taking and posting a photo of that key.
Palm devices pretended to be iPods so that users could use iTunes to copy music to them. Apple threatened legal action and Palm backed down.
There’s plenty of other printers that can do the same or better and/or cheaper if you want “building and managing the printer” to be half the hobby, which is a totally fair thing and can be lots of fun if you’re into tinkering, but for a printer that just prints things as a tool there’s absolutely nothing close to Prusa and they’re worth every cent.
I run an Elegoo Centauri Carbon ar home, and the building and managing process was unscrewing couple transport bolts and clicking "self calibrate" button. From what I've seen, Creality is the same way now too.
Yes, the old Ender 3 I used to have demanded attention every other print. But it's not the norm now.
I'm sure Prusa makes a better product, and it probably starts to make economic sense if you run a print farm. But for home use, a 300€ box that happily melts plastic into whatever shape I need is a sweet deal. It even has a 50€ multi material extension box now, however that's on months long backorder.
I don't know the last time you used Linux, but I've used it as my main OS for almost 20 years and have never really felt like I was "fighting" it. My system has always done exactly what I told it to do.
I also used Mac OS and macOS on and off for probably 20 years as well, and it freaking sucks in many ways. _That's_ where I feel like I'm fighting the system. And I grew up with it.
The Year of the Linux Desktop arrived a while ago and nobody noticed :)
Strange then, that so many people and particularly those who haven't spent years or decades fighting their OS or desktop environment, seem to disagree.
Every time a linux user says "everything just works" there's a massive gotcha. Remove the terminal and try to use a linux system, setting everything up, while properly roleplaying those who haven't spent years to get used to linux's many weird choices and you'll perhaps understand.
Choices are only weird if there's prior experience with something else with significant enough differences. In this case I still remember the effort it took to switch from Windows to Linux, but I used Zorin OS to make that road smoother.
I've installed Ubuntu and Fedora KDE for less technical relatives and they've used them without issues.
I precisely wanted to avoid another hobby, of which I have too many already. 3D printing as a hobby doesn't appeal to me, I just wanted something that solved the problem and was relatively cheap. The A1 is this for me, it's as close as a fire and forget appliance as I could find.
Not saying there aren't better alternatives, just that it simply works for me.
I saw this mess coming from miles ahead (and it will repeat itself), so when it was time to replace our Ender 3v2, I got a Prusa printer. Yes, it was much more expensive than Bambu, but at some point we have to put our money where our mouth is. We cannot talk all the time about open source, consumer friendliness, the right to repair, etc. and then reward companies that don't give a shit about it. So our money went to Prusa.
It's a great printer too!
I get voting with your wallet but not many people want to spend 4x more for a worse product.
Snapmaker (also Chinese) seem to be doing things better at the moment, but only time will tell how the serviceability is.
For me personally, the only viable choices today would be a Prusa Core One (possibly with INDX for multi-material, I don't care about MMU/AMS, those are just for multi-colour and with a lot of waste) or a Voron 2.4. My Prusa Mk3.9s bedslinger is still going strong though, and I don't expect to replace it any time soon.
Second hand market for prusa printers is decent as well.
The Mk3.9 probably isn't a price competitive upgrade though, today I would in your position probably look at selling the Mk3s for 100-200 EUR and buying a Core One instead. But if the Mk3s works for what you are doing, then don't bother. (The Mk3.5 might make some sense if you only want a bit higher speed and network connectivity.)
Personally I don't see myself replacing the Mk3.9s for a long time, though an enclosed printer would be nice and let me print warp-prone materials like PC and ASA.
Yes you pay a lot more, but I guess that's some sense voting with your wallet... I'm personally going to buy a Prusa after I stabilize where I live.
(Also, what did Snapmaker do? I thought they were relatively innocuous?)
Orca really needs a plugin system so that we don't get so many forks. I want full spectrum, wave overhangs, Snapmaker customizations for their printers, Sovol customizations for theirs. I also want the latest Orca nightly. So that's 5 different forks of Orca a good plugin system could replace.
As an aspiring business owner, I am looking to transition to a more open printer as the OCL isn't something I want to rely on.
There's a ton of printers that are strictly offline. Some are older and some are newer, but there's a ton of them either way. That "offline" part is simple to accomplish.
Can you talk more about what else are you looking to achieve so the field can be pared down a bit?
So, if the Vizio case works out for OSS licenses, then Bambu Lab's likely won't be able to lock things down in the way they're intending (unless they expend significant effort to rewrite code).
That'd "stop" them from winning in the way they'd like, to the benefit of the wider Community of Bambu Labs users.
I cannot see the future but I believe this fear is unsubstantiated.
It's nice to have pinky promise that BambuLabs cloud service doesn't keep copies of your model files, potentially keeps track of print frequencies (is this a prototype or a finished design?), ... it's easy to assume they wouldn't know what that jig you designed for work is for, but if they collect or buy sufficient data with public databases (where was the printer shipped? what business is registered in this location?); its probably very easy to follow and steal jigs / tooling designs / ... and to organize identification of its use by sector.
I'm in the market for a new 3D printer. My old Ultimaker 2 is still going strong, but it's from a different generation and doesn't fit my needs anymore. Looking purely at features, I really want a Bambu Lab X2D. However I hate what that company is doing, don't want to give them my money and don't want to lock myself into their increasingly locked down ecosystem.
Features I want:
- 2 nozzles (print parts with a different support material or a combination of solid and TPU)
- make simple 2-color prints without manual intervention (to add labels on parts, only a few layers require two colors)
- hassle-free filament storage (protected from dust and moisture, multiple spools ready to print at all times)
- a choice of different nozzles (e.g. 0.8 mm) which can be swapped easily
- able to print ABS reliably (or another material that is more heat resistant than PLA), the Ultimaker 2 with its open chamber is not good at this (parts lift off and warp)
- hassle-free operation (no tinkering)
Don't need:
- cloud stuff (I print everything locally, my own models)
What should I buy?
I have heard good things about the Snapmaker U1 that just released, though apparently the slicer software isn't quite there yet, but you could just run stock OrcaSlicer instead.
Time will tell how reliable and more importantly serviceable the Snapmaker is. Prusas are renowned for both of those.
https://www.printables.com/search/models?q=drybox shows plenty of fancier alternatives as well.
Same problem with the Snapmaker U1.
Edit: the Snapmaker U1 also seems to have an open top, which is problematic for ABS, I assume.
EDIT: See also https://www.printables.com/search/models?q=drybox for plenty of more fancy alternatives, including some for mounting on top of the printer.
https://www.theregister.com/security/2020/04/13/how-to-make-...
Empirically compared to most tech products in 2026, Bambu products have very little lock-in and are relatively open. But they are handling communication so poorly, they are creating their own drama and blowback for no gain while managing to piss off every OSS fan in the world.
Bambu's model is you can either (1) use the product off their cloud and do whatever you want OR (2) you can use their cloud but are locked to remote controlling the printer with their app. That's empirically more open than most home smart tech products (robo vacs, playstations, smart fridges, whatever) which don't give you the first option at all. Bambu literally lets you disable all their cloud and auth features with one click and use open source apps instead.
The issue is that Bambu made their closed cloud too good, so people really want to use it. Their cloud mobile app is way better then any other vendor.
Bambu has never done anything even remotely similar to HP requiring you to use their refills, yet people repeat this myth online like it's inevitable. Meanwhile the very popular eufyMake UV 2.5D printer literally has ink cartridges with lockout chips in them an nobody complains at all.
Where Bambu has totally failed is (1) they changed the cloud access rules after releasing their first products which people absolutely hate and (2) they are terrible at communication, making awkward threats at OSS developers who try to access their cloud without permission.
The funniest part is the only reason the developer was able to access their cloud is because Bambu supports Linux with OSS software. The Linux software isn't notarized, so they couldn't lock access to their cloud to a certificate. The 'hack' was just running the Linux cloud auth code on Mac/Windows.
This creates a situation where the actual details of the dispute are pretty nuanced, some people are vaguely mad at Bambu for things they absolutely aren't doing (like locking out 3rd party filament), and yet Bambu is still creating an army of haters to achieve basically nothing useful for themselves.
The smart move would have been to totally ignore the OSS developer and just lock down their cloud service on the server side. Then there would have been no drama and they would have achieved their goals.
Bambu needs to hire a western PR person who understands what is going on here to clean this up. The whole thing is dumb, avoidable, and pointless. Even if Bambu 'wins', they achieve nothing for the company.
The other nuance though is that Bambu is outselling other brands enormously and their sales this past Christmas were bonkers. No other vendor is even in the same league. HN readers will be buying Prusa or whatever, but Bambu is servicing a different market segment in which Prusa is totally irrelevant and has microscopic sales. But it's worth remembering that this entire drama is over something that literally does not affect 99% of Bambu's user base who happily use their cloud apps and have no reason to try anything else.
Why is everyone mad at them? I'm not blaming either side, but it sounds like a rather typical failed negotiation.
It set a HTTP user agent string...
> But he wanted to be “properly acknowledged” for possibly revealing “a significant security gap
> Jarczak’s code shows that his fork of OrcaSlicer identifies itself as “BambuStudio,” but mostly just by saying that out loud and hoping Bambu’s systems don’t ask any questions. Image: Bambu
is the “security gap” claimed by Bambu
Because they're unjustifiably being huge pricks [0] and violating an OSS license that covers the software that they've built their commercial product on top of. [1]
[0] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIbpQtoz6hs>
[1] <https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-p...>