Open Source isn't sustainable anymore
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2023
- Open Source projects are being exploited - and that leaves everyone worse off than we started.
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I've been making my living working in open source since the early 90s, so, yeah, this is something I care pretty deeply about. The concerns you raise aren't new, these were already old issues when I started my career. Yes, scummy companies will violate both the letter and the spirit of the license the products they steal were issued under. No, encumbering the technology with patents is not the answer. All patents in this space will accomplish is rolling us back to the bad old days (the past was the worst!) where hobbyists and the community were hamstrung and prevented from developing new and interesting spins on the tech. It won't even slow down the race-to-the-bottom clone manufacturers. They don't care about the legal licenses they're violating today, they won't care about violating patents or stealing closed source tech either. The already widespread problem of counterfeit proprietary tech on Amazon & eBay is proof enough of that!
Completely agree. I experienced the same thing!
This is the way...
1000%, abandoning open source is bad. This kinda just feels like Prusa is mad about it so Thomas is backing that 😫
Now that is some fact boi level commentary! totally agree :)
@@PMcDFPV Allegedly ;)
I have come to prefer Open Source products because they embody ideals of a free, cooperative and trust-based society that I want to exist in.
Yes, Open Source is 'good intentions', but good intentions still matter. The more we succumb to cynicism and mistrust, the less deserving we are of good things.
For me it's not just a matter of principle. It's an entirely practical consideration: Open-source products are far easier to repair, upgrade, and interface with third-party accessories.
Exactly this.
So...what's your business model beyond Koombaya? Paying for support? Paying for arbitrarily walled-off features? How is that better? Why not, I dunno...get paid for the damn product?
@@HydraulicDesign Your payment is a working 3d printer ecosystem. We built the 3d printer because we wanted the 3d printer.
If you build the 3d printer because you want to sell shovels in a gold rush, I'm not interested in supporting those who want to enclose the commons for profits so you can go and kick rocks.
Capitalism encourages our worst, most predatory traits. Open Source software AND hardware and ditching capitalism is the only way to a utopian society heh
I have made the conscious decision to pay the premium cost on open-source hardware a few years ago. I understand the difficult position they’re in, and I also understand I could have shinier toys quicker if I paid for closed-source products, but I still stick with open-source for a few reasons:
1. The only way to support an idea I’d like to see stay in the future is apparently with my wallet;
2. Open-source companies are more likely to support other ideals I like (like Right to Repair);
3. Even if the company eventually closes, I can usually find spare parts and support outside their website.
And I also understand some closed-source companies can also provide advantages like that. Part of my decision is still motivated by a naïve « sharing is caring » attitude, and denial of the unsustainability described in this video.
Repairability is very important, that’s one of the main reasons I like open source products. If you buy a closed source product, it may be cheaper at first, but eventually it can be way more expensive when it comes to spare parts and upgrades.
For me, it's not just a matter of principle. Open Source products are more convenient because they can be more easily modified, upgraded, and interfaced with a wider range of other compatible products.
Yeah I’m not *too* dogmatic, but i do try and buy Open Source whenever possible.
@@ericlotze7724This video felt dogmatic lol
The other benefit to open projects with the copyleft style is every little upgrade anybody makes for any reason get shared, and usually used on older systems. Which means everyone can end up benefiting and even the cheap clone makers that don't play nice can be of use providing the hardware at a price that lets folks in their sheds experiment on the hardware affordably. Though ultimately if the license is not followed and funding for the folks doing the hard work of maintaining the core and complex parts of the projects are not getting any support for their time... Linux largely works because many of the developers are paid for by the companies that provide IT services built on it to other companies - in effect all these companies are sharing the development costs of making the tools better but have a core business model that is using and supporting those tools, not selling the tool.
Everything gets taken advantage of. Linux is also exploited the same way, lots of vendors using it and changing it and not sharing their source code. It's still worth it even when it's not perfect IMO.
Enforcement is a problem for both open source and patents, the people who break GPLs should be made an example of with some hefty fines for sure. Patents are not perfect either, for example the Chinese don't care for patents at all and will copy anything and everything.
However we also have some of the biggest companies in the world devoting development resources to it, and sharing their code, and using it themselves internally. The leeches are inconsequential.
@@ffoska Exactly, in the end, lawsuits are the enforcement mechanism, hoping customers just won't buy a good cheap product that's using someone else's patent or copyrighted code without permission out of ideological commitment isn't it.
@@destinal_in_reality Well with some reason provided folks have historically not bought stuff because of where it was from, the stickers on some old products saying 'Made in the OTHER China' as an example. Won't stop all scam artist and corruption from passing something off, but if you give people a good enough reason not to they have voted with their wallet in the past and probably more often than not their money went where they thought it did. Not sure if such a thing will apply widely to the younger generations today, but it might.
Though I do agree actually enforcing the rules would help a great deal - and if you can't get folks like the Chinese company to play by the rules of the game properly then put up the trade barriers to their nations goods more wholesale and see how fast they are forced to change their internal rulebook. As it is in China's interest, sure there is going to be some pain on the other side too, but lots of places outside of China with lower labour wages...
@@ffoska If they are happy to violate the license, what would stop them from violating the patent?
Pal, 3d printing exploded and became mainstream BECAUSE several patents expired a decade ago, if it wasn't for that they would still be sitting on them and we wouldn't have anything...
Such a good god damn point. Was watching thinking, man, this doesn't sound right to me then I saw this comment and it really clicked.
Just imagine where we'd be if those patents hadn't delayed the introduction of 3D printing by 20 years.
Nah man, we need more Stratasys patents to protect us....
That's not the whole picture. Think about it the other way around: because they could patent their development work they invested so much in R&D. If they couldn't have done that nobody would have invested enough and now nobody would have 3D printing.
Some technologies just need a lot of money from the start.
@@bisti1900 Eh, 3D printing isn't exactly rocketry in terms of funding required. The basic concept was envisioned in the 1940s, four to five decades before the patents started appearing. And look at the first patent for FDM--it was invented by one guy, who went on to found Stratasys. I'm sure someone else would have followed suit in short order if he hadn't patented it. It becomes pretty obvious that there were a bunch of small projects looking into a number of 3D printing technologies followed by a lull in innovation after the patents went through.
We need to strike a better balance in intellectual property law. There should be more reasonable protections in-between _"Anyone can use this idea for anything."_ and _"No one else can make anything like this for 20 years."_
you can license a lot of things. Any other rule results in less innovation because R&D isn't worth it then
@@adamriese3610 you can open license a patent and sue those who violate just as you can sue those who violate open source licenses. There's not much difference here.
A patent doesn’t guarantee no one else can use it for 20 years, it just means they have to get your permission!
@@Ficalos so does copyright so I don't get what Tom thinks is better about patents.
It's not "no one else can make anything like this for 20 years" if the owner licenses the design to others for usage like 3D Solex did with CHT to Bondtech and E3D
The point of open source is that you stand on the shoulders of everyone that came before you to build the platform on which you constructed your improvements. Your calculation of your gains or losses should include this.
It does. But it's really, reaaaaaly frustrating to see others take your work, make a very sucky fork out of it and still have the audacity to then dump all the support questions on you. Sure you can say "Go over to those people for support", but it is eating up your time and energy, especially since these users don't realise the difference and start getting angry.
There is also a cost to the mental space the people that develop open source are in. And lemme tell you; We are hurting right now.
@@jaimevankessel It's frustrating? So what? Lots of things are frustrating. Someone else eating the last muffin, that's frustrating too, so should we make complicated muffin laws?
You know what is reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllly frustrating? When you invent something, and then someone else has the government prevent you from using your invention, just because they happened to invent something similar before and unbeknownst to you. Or maybe they didn't even invent it at all, they just saw where you were going and patented it before you. (That, btw, has happened to me.)
No, patents are pure evil. Inherently unfair, and a huge disrupter of progress and innovation.
@@marcus3d I didnt say anything about patents.
@@nallath And the OP said nothing about support, that you were complaining about. And nobody mentioned muffins before I brought them up, so I'm expecting you can thank me for that. :D
But really, if you get support requests from people of a fork then that's a problem orthogonal to anything the OP said. Hopefully you can fix that, perhaps with some branding?
@@marcus3d Uh, he did mention that. You remember the whole part about parasites? Yeah, those are the situations than open source developers in the 3D printing world have to deal with (and why it feels so unsustainable to do so).
So patents or muffins might not be the solution, but the sad fact is tha going on as we are is also not a solutoon.
Open source is working just fine and has been for decades before 3d printing was even a hobby. The problem is taking expectations from the for-profit world and blindly walking into open source with unrealistic expectations. It is a rare company that can open source their main product and be profitable, and nearly all that do actually profit from professional services contracts. If your business model is weak against low-skill knock offs, its not going to go well for you. This is not a weakness of open source, its simply naieve application of it. Also, most companies go out of business and would have anyway even if they hadn't been open sourcing their development. Difference is, at least their work lives on.
In fairness, most startups fail. So we can expect most open-source startups to fail too. And we shouldn't be too quick to blame the open-source model.
I absolutely agree. I would even say the whole technological and scientific progress is based on the open source principle. What if pythagoras said no you don't get my theorem!
@@thorleifthunaraz9802 Pythagoras didn't invent the theorem. His followers, the Pythagoreans, didn't even believe in irrational numbers. Legend has it that they killed the first of their order who suggested irrational numbers were the only solution to the hypotenuse.
How it came to be associated with Pythagoras (when it has been indepentely discovered in other parts of the world), will never be known. But my hunch is the influence of the Greco-Roman empires and Western imperialism from the past 4 centuries.
@@jonathanlawley4863 They associated the theorem with him long before any such empire existed though. And even if other mathmaticians did invent the theorem before him that isn't proof he didn't also invent it. History is full of the same ideas being independently developed.
With all the subscription and right to repair nonsense going on, we really need to support open source commercially as much as we can.
I do not understand where R2R has anything to do with the ongoing discussion!! do you agree you should not own the products you buy? or that you shouldn't be allowed to Repair them?
@@kazuzaPT Opensource software is similar to Open Source hardware. There are companies such as Dell, MSI, and others who force users to void their warranties when the manufacturer declines the repair. Apple is using opensource software BSD for their operating system. Yet, their hardware can't be worked on. You can watch Louis Rossman trying to repair Apple hardware with parts he ordered and Apple has threatened to sue him for showing how to fix people's hardware. Tesla is very similar they use opensource software on their OS and navigation but then say its closed source. You can't fix their autos or Tesla won't even sell you parts to fix your EV. Subaru in their manual says they use FOSS software in their dash OS. I can go and buy parts and fix my subaru if I want. There are companies out there that run on Linux OS such as laptops/network equipment/servers that allow you to see their code on the software side. Also let you work on the hardware and not worry about voiding warranty and work with the customer on providing parts or getting 3rd party hardware to resolve your issue.
@@kazuzaPT Anti-repair policies are largely enforced through patent and copyright laws. Supporting open source manufacturing is the solution.
@@peterhoulihan9766 but then, there will not be an incentive for R&D as well... it's a catch 22
@@kazuzaPT Nope. Many people choose to support R&D without any reward. Just look at projects like the commander X16. That received massive support, including monetary support and expert design work from all kinds of professionals purely because they believed in the project.
There are proven models for funding open source design work. We don't need patents.
I think open standards and opensource in general is a really good guard against monopoly. If a company wants to make a product based on proprietary technology, it needs to be at least as good as the FOSS option, otherwise there's no point paying for the proprietary option.
Additionally, I think Stallman was right when he wrote the GPL, that any use of GPL licenced code needs to be GPL licenced. This enforces the two way collaboration when a corporation uses the free code. the problem is that nobody takes the time to enforce the licence terms.
It's not "nobody", it's more like "the squeaky case gets the lawyers and funds"...
It is usually more the money to have legal representation to enforce legal terms. When the linux kernel has been treated that way, the linux foundation actually does the pursuing or one of the other large open source foundations.
Cant enforce licenses against the Chinese copycats. They copy your project before your own version is live and dont give a f** about gpl.
@@wgroenewoldcan you name a project with GPL license stolen by China?
@@guatagel2454 All the Prusa clones offered by AliExpress don't comply to GPL e.g, but since Prusa does they should as well. Also numerous of incidents with routers that use opensource components that don't opensource their firmware.
My problem isn't so much with patents and closed source as with what they can lead to today: the impossibility (or even prohibition) of repairing or customizing your printers. Loss of ownership via subscription systems, confinement to an ecosystem (when will rfid chips be installed on spools to ensure that you only use filament that is "compatible" with your printer?) Be careful what you wish for....
Add to that the fact that so far those lock-in mechanisms are ridiculously easy to defeat, until they start doing things like introducing an off-gassing ingredient that will make it very unpleasant to print with that material unless it's used in the "official" printer that happens to have a nice HEPA filter subscription.
@@MMuraseofSandvichI doubt that such a countermeasure would be validated by the health authorities, in Europe at least. But we can trust their R&D departments to find a solution.
@@MMuraseofSandvich Doesn't have to be that complicated. HP also cannot stop you from physically refilling ink on their inkjet printers. But they can slap a chip on each cartridge with cryptographic checks that make sure that the printer only works if the correct chip is present and the allowed number of pages for that chip hasn't been exceeded.
Something like that would be no issue at all to make for a 3D printer. Come to think of it, it would be a really smart idea to patent such a process and with that patent block the implementation of it.
In a free market, the market decides that. Bambu had their slicer as a cloud service, the market wanted none of it. The business will adapt or die. The proper meaning of "the customer is always right" is that the customer always know what they want to buy, not the commonly miss understood demi God status of they can do no wrong.
@@MinnesotaHomesteading This only works if the manufacturers offer the fitting options. If you want to get a Open Source Hardware hackable highend 2D printer, there is just no option like that on the market. Same with other device types, e.g. smartphones or cameras. If there is no option, the user can't choose.
Prusa's open-sourceness is a factor for me. I've purchased 2 of their printers, an MMU, and some other stuff, and I'm happy to pay a bit of a premium for a high-quality printer where the design files are free so I can print replacement parts and enjoy looking at the design. And if they ever go out of business or sell to an evil corp, it's pretty likely that we'll all still be able to buy or make replacement parts for the machines we've purchased.
I suspect there's enough people with this kind of attitude to sustain a business, but maybe not a business the size of Prusa.
But they aren't sharing design files for their two latest printers (Mk4 and XL) - at least so far. How much of a factor is that? It bothers me a bit, but on the other hand, I can empathize with them; it seems like they got hit really hard by the cloners.
@@mghumphrey Prusament may or may not have been helping with their profitability
@@mghumphrey I personally am not so much "Pro-OSH" as i am "Anti-Copycat". I generally gravitate towards whoever created the innovations first. That actively advance the tech, be it as open-source or proprietary. Avoiding the copycats that try to turn things into a race to the bottom.
From what i know with Pruza. The designs are partially closed for now in regards of electronics and firmware. They want to release them, but find present licensing structures not suitable. So they are trying to make one themselves that would allow for transformative/educational use of their designs, but lets them take action against those who would simply clone it. Either give back, or kick rocks.
@@chielvoswijk9482 Most people are tbh. Supporters of intellectual monopolies tend to ground their argument in "everyone always buys the cheaper option," but in reality this just isn't true. Anyone walking through the supermarket can see the same things selling at different pricepoints. People make purchasing decisions for a variety of reasons, not just choice.
Even if open source may not make sense for corporations, it’s still a valuable tool for individuals and groups like Voron to contribute IP to the community in cases when they cannot or do not want to commercialize their ideas.
I feel like this is a highly counterproductive, moot point to make. Don't try to discourage people or companies from open-sourcing their stuff. There's already enough gatekeeping of information out there, which is highly harmful to the further development of humanity as a whole. I trust that people who open-source their stuff haven't made that decision lightly and are more than capable of evaluating whether it's economically viable or not.
Thomas doesn't care about humanity. He doesn't want development of humanity as a whole. That would interfere with big companies making more profit at the expense of others. That's what he thinks is important.
I wanna ask him which corporation got to him and is paying him to say this. I thought he just made the opposite argument not that long ago. Maybe not but he was for sure bragging on open source
@@bryangrissom191 I don't think he's getting paid to say this, but that he's just brainw...eh..influenced by others, and not thinking through his claims.
@@bryangrissom191Oh come off it, no one is paying him...
Since when did "economic viability" become the standard for deciding what was right, or fair, or ethical? Sounds like capitalism is corrupting yet another soul
The various exploitative companies are already violating the GPL3 licenses. What would stop them from violating patents?
Exactly!
That’s the point.
It doesn’t matter which type of license, it should be respected.
Patents are infringed all the time. The patent holders file lawsuits.
@@RBzee112 people and organizations can and have been sued for infringing the GPL - it is after all a license to use and idea or design. The problem is that most things covered by open source licenses are made by organizations without the resources to follow through with those cases, and those cases can be harder to prove. The same would be true if you chose to patent the design - pursuing a patent infringement is a highly costly business although companies prefer them because what is patented is far more specifically stated in the patent rather than just requiring derivative works be released under the same licence.
Patents only give you seat at the table. It doesn't automatically stops someone from violating patents.
This is a very narrow and defetist view of a very complex problem.
There are ways to support open source (voting with your wallet, supporting and advocating for laws that protect open source, etc) and open source is much wider than 3d printing (like gnu you mentioned).
If we give up on open source we give up on innovation and a lot of the rights we have now
Tom addressed "voting with wallet". People have been voting - the majority for cheap clones.
People generally don't vote on laws. And the laws are written and voted on by legislators who have more contact with lobbyists than their constituents. That's how the Americans Invent Act came about, substituting first-to-invent with first-to-file, which only benefits those with deep pockets and large patent law teams.
No, he's absolutely right
Additionally, FOSS and Right To Repair only makes sense as a hobby or educational purpose, nothing else.
At best, you're 'doing it for free'. Donation and sponsorship isn't viable enough as a financial safety net to your project, remember the RHEL and Ubuntu fiasco???
Even if you're bringing up so called "privacy and anonimity rights" as a security arguments to support it, its also suffers the same issue
Intellectual Property Law isn't sustainable anymore. This needs to be changed.
"Intellectual property" is newspeak in itself. It's literally restriction of actual property. Unfortunately there are 2 completely opposite concepts mixed in the term "intellectual property". One is "anti-deception", like trademarks, and the other is "anti-progress", like patents. The former is good, while the latter is pure evil.
Based
@@marcus3d patents aren't even that bad because they expire within reasonable timeframes. Copyright, on the other hand...
@@StrokeMahEgo They're both horribly bad, in their own ways. Copyright is worse wrt time frame, patents wrt to scope of restriction.
The only form of intellectual property I support is one that works the same as physical property. If I own a book, I might also own the text in that book, not just the paper and ink, but the information as well. Same if I own a hard drive, I might own the data on that hard drive. Someone else might own an identical book, or even an identical hard drive, with the same contents, in which case they own their copy of the 'hardware', and their copy of the information therein, even if it's identical to my copies.
If I make a copy of something, under normal circumstances I would own the copy, even if it's identical to the original that belongs to someone else. There may be special circumstances (say, someone hired me to make a copy of something for them) in which case a copy might not belong to the maker, but without such agreements, by default the copy belongs to whoever made it. Just like if you make a chair (even if you are copying someone else's chair), using wood you own, the chair will belong to you, unless you specifically have made agreements such as being hired to make a chair for someone. Why should intellectual property work any different from physical property?
Things like ideas and designs shouldn't be different. I have an idea, someone else has an idea, even if they're identical, we each have our own copy of that idea.
I like the fact that many printers can be flashed with a different software. It bothers me if they are locked down.
If you use a printer that requires the cloud, use of it will disappear if the manufacturer goes out of business, then you end up with a huge paperweight.
if you are lucky someone figured out how to flash an open source software.
I bought my first Prusa (MK2 in 2017) for two reasons; 1) you (Tom) released a video that said "it just works", and 2) I loved the whole ethos of Open Source. I knew I was paying over the odds, that I could build one from Chinese parts for a lot less, but I was happy to give Prusa some extra money to help keep the whole thing going. I do hope I'm not the only one.
Oh,, and Tom, that is the most depressing video I seen in a long time. I do hope you're wrong.
you are completley right!
I know a bunch of people getting upset by this, but this is just Business 101. If people can freely copy the work that you're doing without repercussions, then there is no real reason to put in the time to do the research in the first place. And while China is notoriously bad at enforcing patent infringement, it's still better than not having any patent at all and everything being open source.
@@falxonPSN The thing is you can also build that product on top of what others have built before. Building from scratch can be expensive.
@@falxonPSN Science is (for the most part…) all shared because “we stand on the shoulders of giants”. If we went all “what’s mine is mine” you have those gaps like where the ancient mathematicians wouldn’t share their work due to that making them loose their jobs etc.
Systems can change, heck Modern Capitalism wasn’t always around. Ask some Feudal Lord or Merchant!
I'm reading my own story, MK2 purchased early in 2017, made decision based on videos by a few TH-cam content creators including Tom. Through a series of upgrades, it's now an MK3S+ with just motors and display from original. It just prints! No regrets, I don't mind paying more for the better experience and supporting future development. It's akin to supporting your local restaurants who invest in the community instead of a large chain.
opensource will always be sustainable. I fully disagree. there will always be space for proprietary products in the market, but startups will almost never be able to start a project from scratch, and will continue to fork open source projects. the compliance aspect is annoying, for sure. .. but open source is not going anywhere.
I don't think the problem is open source itself, but the larger economic system that puts profit above everything else.
Open Source is not the problem here, greedy corporations are the problem and trust me just because something is patented doesnt mean they wont steal it cause they will but you cant really prove it cause they obv wont show their source code or CADs. People who do open source do it because they actively want to spread their knowledge and knowhow to the world because they believe that people should have access to those things. Hold greedy companies accountable instead of saying that people shouldnt do open source.
That’s right, open source is not the problem.
Everyone can choose between the products. And with the internet it has never been easier to find out which company respects (open source) licenses and which does not.
has been tried.. hasnt worked.. patent law needs change.
Agree, more robust patent laws are the solution. People do need to eat and the market needs to innovate together.
Source code isn’t patented. Code can be copyrighted, but not patented. A business process (even one implemented through code) CAN be patented, but the code itself is not the patent. If you implemented the same process from the ground-up in a different language, if it still performed the patented process, you would be in violation.
Copyright is what protects specific bits of code. Patents protect methods of doing things (regardless of the specific code.)
Everybody is selfish and greedy, the only question is to what extent. Free market capitalism and property rights, including IP, is the best way to keep greed in check.
If your only goal is to earn as much money as possible then you have bigger problems than whether other people make money from your open code or hardware design. Companies don’t fail because they open their source. They fail because they spend more than they take in.
@@JorgTheElder The people buying knock-offs of a hot new design weren't going to be the designer's customers anyway, they were just going to go without. It's only if we're trying to maximize the designers' profits to the exclusion of all else that this is a problem. In looking at the system as a whole, knock-offs give poor people a chance to have more. And I repeat, businesses don't fail because they open their source. They fail because they spend more than they take in.
But they might take in less than they spend *because* they opened their source...
@@norsktysker That simply doesn't happen. No business fails because they open their source. They spend money they don't have, and then they're done. See my previous comment about how people buying knock-offs were never going to be their customers.
You can’t blame the license for someone not complying to it.
It doesn’t matter if it is an open source or a closed source license, it should be respected by everybody.
Sadly, many customers don’t care about how the products are developed and manufactured and there are some examples of companies that take open source products, develop something onto it and then selling it closed source.
But the customer can choose which product to buy 😉
That's absolutly what I was thinking about when watching this vid, we can't blame the license or even the law because some people enforced it!
Android maybe, sort of
@@fredbourhis That’s a misunderstanding. I wanted to state that the people who are violating the license are the problem. It’s not the fault of the license.
Licenses don't matter if they can't be enforced. It's VERY hard to prove that a closed source product is using open source designs (because, well, it's closed).
@@gustavrsh Well it is hard to find out, if someone is violating an open source license that’s right. But with the internet it has never been more easy for a customer to find out about the product that you are actually buying.
Being honest, open source or not wasn't on my mind when I purchased my printers (Anet A8, Prusa Mini (Clone) and a MK3s+). Over the last few years I have followed the work that Prusa have done with their firmware and slicer. They share their code, and work together with Ultimaker to implement stuff like organic support and arachne. Creating great software like this isn't cheap, so I will support this type of company when I purchase my next printer. Oh, and it will not be from a company that go open source after being "forced" by the community.
Open source hasn't been on my mind when buying a 3D printer until recently. I started years ago with a cheap Ender 3 to modify the heck out of (a learning experience). Later when I had the money I bought a Prusa Mini, because it was a good product. Part of it being a good product is that everything is open (source), so if Prusa does a nosedive, I don't get stuck with a non-working printer I can't fix due to no parts being available due to patents. Later I wanted (for business) a coreXY printer and settled on a Voron, an open source project. I also bought a Prusa MK3S to make parts for that same Voron, just having a more simple dependable workhorse available was essential for me (choosing again for quality instead of price). At the same time news about the Bambu Labs printers became available, that would save me 40 hours of work on a Voron, but it's one of the dozens of new tech Kickstarter companies that's showed up over the years. How long will they stay around? And even if they 'make' it, will they not be bought out by a big company and get their products shelved? A lot of those Bambu Labs components are proprietary, I don't want to get stuck with a ton of printers that I can't maintain/upgrade! The Voron kit I bought from LDO Motors, not because they (properly) do open source, but because of quality. I did buy into the EVO ecosystem, for a couple of reasons. I can easily replace the whole hotend if Revo became unavailable for whatever reason, it is quality, it makes my life a whole lot easier, and the company behind it is well established.
I choose a Creality Ender 3 because it was cheap and it could die a cheap death if I messed with it in the wrong way. But when I wanted to do more, I went for quality (Prusa, Voron, LDO Motors). That quality includes supporting open source. But let's get real here, if Prusa wasn't open source and Creality didn't have the option to clone it cheaply like they did with the Ender 3, how many people would then later start buying a Prusa printer? If the Voron was closed source, why would I choose it over a Bambu Labs? Without those open source companies there wouldn't be any of the cheap clone companies, imho those open source companies wouldn't be around anymore if those cheap clone companies wouldn't attract a ton of new people into the 'hobby'. Prusa is now bigger then ever, and they still have issues with being able to deliver new products in a timely manner (still a 5-6 week lead time on their Mk4)...
The issue of companies that followed an open source model isn't that they followed an open source model, it's that they did the business side 'wrong'. How many proprietary 3D printer companies went out of business over the years, or had to sell? Many! From what I saw, way more then open source companies (but there where way more proprietary companies as well).
Heck, many of the parts used in open source printers are proprietary or did you think that ARM processor was open source? So patents are a necessary evil for some parts, but imho an 'evil' for some others. Revo is imho 'OK', the Bambu Labs printers are not... I think that open source and proprietary can coexist, because eventually proprietary becomes open source...
My motivation to recommend to go Prusa way in the company I work for was of two kinds: first this is the only 3D printer manufacturer who produces their products using their own printers. This means that they can't be a crap we bought previously. And second, that it is mostly open source, so we won't be out of spare parts and software fixes even if the worst happens and they will go down the sewer. In other words: open source means long term support.
My big issue with closed source innovation is when you get a whole field locked down and forced to use inferior or uncomeatable tools and hardware. This is a big thing in SLA printing. With Chitu in control of most of the commercially available control boards and software, people couldn't use optimal features in their preferred software, and at one point couldn't even make files with the most up to date software if they had hardware that was barely a year old. With some of the more recent options, it seems market demand is going away from one company in SLA and more into other open source based options. So, things are not as bad, there's still expensive proprietary things, especially in the resin side of the business, and things are better than they where. in my opinion.
I actually support quite a few open sources projects wherever possible. It's a better idea to charge at least a small amount initially for any service, since it helps enforce a certain level of responsibility by those who are using it.
Open source is very good in software. And there has been some experimenting on bio medical areas. pooling research reduces risk, but does mean other will copy. Enforcement is also tricky, but before patents the world was open source. Copying someone’s work does not make you able to improve on their work. So the real question is how to fund the good projects, and how to enforce the license. Copy cats will always exist even for patented things.
Honestly the most pragmatic solution to that question. Is to disincentivize international trade in regards of finished products.
That is how things worked before patents. Local markets and knowledge didn't have to worry about what happened on the other side of the world. They could be competitive and ground themselves in the local economy in regards of material costs. The world market was like a giant Mesh with values changing in a gradual manner as you went from market to market.
Streamlined international trade has led to a shift from a mesh, to more of a star topology where every market is directly compared to their asian counterpart. Where if they can make it cheaper than local even with import and tax fees. They win and right now they nearly always win in a fair fight. Making Intellectual property a necessity as it can ward them off partially.
@@chielvoswijk9482 A bit late, but not necessarily so (in regards to your comment). You can totally patent something in your native country and still experience cheap Chinese knockoffs, as Chinese law only prohibits copying of other designs and products, if the originals are patented and trademarked in China too. If they aren't it won't matter how many patents and trademarks you have elsewhere, you'll still be ripped off with Chinese knockoffs. Patenting is also a _very_ expensive affair today, often costing millions of dollars to get world wide protection against copies, making it next to impossible for anyone who isn't a major, international brand, to patent anything. And since patents can also only be filed on purely original ideas, it is no wonder why most just seek out a trademark on all possible design solutions as an alternative to patents.
I don't think we need to abolish any systems, as the primary problem with enforcing open source licenses, is endemic to closed source proprietary solutions too. Nobody have any luck suing for anything, unless they're in the top 1% in wealth.
Open Source functionally upholds Right To Repair for those of us who don't like paying more than the product is worth for basic maintenance.
But Thomas Sanlanderer doesn't want you to have the right to repair, because that might get in the way of the company making more money off of you. That's what this video is all about, how a company has to get monopoly to prevent innovation, so that they can get more money from "their" innovation (as if that didn't build upon tons of past innovation that they paid nothing for).
@@marcus3d What are you talking about lol. Did you even watch the video? The video is about companies like Creality grabbing whatever is free and selling it, so now we’ve got patents again.
@@I_enjoy_some_things I'm talking about Thomas not understanding OSS, and promoting something inherently unfair, particularly when it doesn't work. Patents don't help with companies in China where western patents (as well as copyright) aren't respected. And even when patents are enforced they are used to prevent innovation, to restrict your freedom to do what you want with your own property, time, and efforts, just so very few, who are already wealthy, will get more wealthy, regardless how it affects the rest of the world.
Prusa's commitment to open source matters to me and that was a factor in my purchase. Open source in the 3D printer industry is a microcosm. Apache, linux and other unix-like open source operating systems, GiMP, wordpress and so many more open-source systems are best in class or strong competitors. I wouldn't draw too many parallels from the 3D printer market.
7 months late, but I'm gonna add additional software: Blender is about as strong, if not stronger than Autodesk Maya and is completely free. I've met several people who prefer Blender over Maya. UE4 is a game engine that's developed by Epic Games Studio and is probably the most photorealistic and engine for compiling interactive virtual spaces that resemble reality. UE4 is powerful enough to be used in architecture design too and Epic Games have only grown as a company from having UE4 free to use and open sourced.
the patent holder must be obliged to ensure the presence of his product on the market at a (market?) price ... otherwise the patent must go to the public domain (from where the patent holder actually got it with his deeply derivative work)
Yes, I've been thinking along these lines as well. Some system by which patents should be automatically licensed after a few years.
@@WhiteG60 I'm thinking it would be better if the system didn't require any more subjective legal interpretation. For example, imagine a law something like this: 5 years after any patent is granted, it automatically gets openly licensed for $100m. And each subsequent year, that price drops by $10m.
The patent-holder has the right to license it on more permissive terms. But anyone can use it if they pay them that set price. So the monopoly is phased out gradually.
@@andybrice2711trouble with that is that this is just an arbitrary number. And the result would just be more patents to generate more income, because the chance of getting rich of such a patent would be greater than the cost.... Basically the same issue we already have, but worse.
Who determines the price? The biggest issue with patents is that China doesn't care about your IP.
@@kain0m Well, it is an arbitrary number, yes. I'm only using it as an example. Though currently that number is essentially "infinity" because you can choose to exclude everyone from using your patent. The core of the idea is that patents should expire "gradually" by enforcing open licensing after a certain time with a price cap which gradually declines.
How that price is decided-you're right-there would have to be a better mechanism for that.
To (loosely) quote Linus Torvalds: Open Source works not because of everyone's selfishness, but because everyone is selfish. The Linux Kernel grew, not because people were openly willing to give up their code, but because people wanted (for whatever motivations) run devices their already owned and were no longer supported or incompatible among each other.
This is also true for the early days of 3D-Printing. Everyone was sharing everything because back then everyone was building their own machine and sharing their work made it more likely others could help and improve.
Nowadays the improving part is getting unachievable for the average Joe. You pretty much need a workshop capable of precision engineering to improve upon the best designs out there. All while the Chinese copy and mass-produce the best designs for next to nothing. The benefit of "If I share my work, others will also give me their improvements" is gone.
It isn't gone. It's gone when you've given up looking for it, that much is true, but just because you can't see the sky on a cloudy day, doesn't mean that the sky is gone. Now improvements require precision machining. Why not make those machines open source then?
It isn't just that Stratasys patent. There's also the Arduino, another open source project that was at the core of Reprap printers... all those ATmega boards used work from Arduino in some form or another...
If it wasn't for open source projects, 3d printing would still be an industrial only thing. So instead of saying "Open Source isn't sustainable", I would like to think how we could make it better.
Patent don't protect from patent infrigment, they just offer a way to fight back... Like licensing ! There need to be a bigger push to force compagnies to properly license their stuff.
License are basically a patent in the protection they offer.
This rant is bizarrely profit-focused. Yes, FOSS development often isn't profitable. But profit often isn't the point of FOSS products. Free and open source hardware is no different.
The common model is to make something developers use FOSS, so other developers will use it and some small number of them will contribute back to the project, creating and refining a tool that is useful for developers in general.
Okay, open source focused companies struggle to compete with proprietary companies when selling consumer oriented products. So? It's not a failure of open source; it's just another example of the race to the bottom with pricing. An open source backed product should last much longer thanks to better documentation and possibly third party parts, but a lot of people will just buy a slightly cheaper proprietary product with a shorter useful life instead.
Some profit is necessary to sustain a business though. And it's rather different with hardware. With software, volunteers can build it at home on their computers. But hardware requires manufacturing facilities and tooling costs.
@@andybrice2711 Not everything is about profit.
At risk of being overly pedantic. Wouldn't your description make "FOSS products" a Oxymoron?
Agree. Most projects start just with the intention to make tools for the benefit of a interested group. If people or corporations want to capitalise on that to make money, most of the licenses seem to permit that. Plus as long as large projects with corporate sponsorship / development remain bound by the original license, then that's perfectly ok too. This mostly seems to be a swipe at the Chinese manufacturers.
@@chielvoswijk9482 Not oxymoronic, just a business practice that usually doesn't work out. Designing and selling open hardware 3D printers is an example.
Thoughts on Open Source non commercial? Anyone can freely use, but need to negotiate royalty/license with IP creator(s) for profit and commercial use?
Non commercial licenses are not open source by any common definition of those terms. Open source means people can use the thing for whatever purpose they like, including commerical purposes.
The "Prusa Concept" of just open-sourcing everything and still being a viable business only works if you:
- Make your products to a decent quality
- Still price them reasonably (don't just jack the price to meet your bottom line after sales go down)
- Innovate FREQUENTLY
Prusa themselves were going down a bit because they were just trying to sell the same old mk3 for 5 years. So they released the mk4 a little early (as you can see by some of the features being a little half baked on launch).
E3D didn't get anywhere with their toolchanger, so as v6 sales continously go down (which someone at marketing/sales probably chalks up to THOSE DAMN CLONES) they decided to close revo down with patents.
As the posibility space of what to improve on a home 3d printer closes down and genuine must-have improvements get fewer and fewer it just gets more and more enticing for companies to close everything down. But patenting everything and closing down the software repos is the first step to get us to the tamper-proof cartridge, dead driver, 0 customer repair world we are at with paper printers right now.
And that, together with the fact that 3d printers aren't anywhere close to hands-off as regular printers, can kill 3d printers for good.
agree
Good post. I especially agree with the comment about innovating frequently. It was until about 2 years ago that the Prusa MK3 clones started to sell well. If Prusa had released the MK4 3 or even 4 years after the MK3, the cloners probably would not have been a factor.
This comment needs to go to the top. Innovation and Continuous Improvement is key.
When we talk about companies losing to open source it really comes down to the story around Prusa - remember, Prusa, the same company that tried to charge 1K USD for a dated printer for 5 years with minimal innovation. You couldn't even look to Prusa when the market asked for slightly larger medium format printers, or large format printers. No IDEX solution at all. MMU solution that was broken for years if we had to be honest with ourselves. Sticking to a bed slinger design, and struggling to get CoreXY out while Chinese Printers were experimenting, and FOSS community was starting to kill it with VORON.
The list goes on; this would be excusable if jumps happened every 2-3 years (development cycles take a while), but at every 5 years they are simply resting on their laurels trying to churn profits with old Tech.
During that 5 years Chinese Printers did create a race to the bottom, with many early designs being terrible buy cheap, but slowly they figured out how to improve and get better quality at the low price points year over year. Today's Bed Slingers are much better than the Mk3, and and incredible leap over what they initially provided. Eventually someone was going to figure out how to do a 3D Printer right, and Bambu Labs was the company to open that door. Even with all the hullabaloo, they could have simply released their own Prusaslicer ini and config scripts, and the end result would be the same. Closed sourcing up is their way to really admit they have no value add other than a great implementation of what FOSS has already done. People aren't jumping because of potentially questionable Lidar, they are jumping because of CLEAN, FAST, and RELIABLE prints.
Had Prusa continued innovating, or found a way to drop prices, their predicament today would not be so severe. If the premium for an equivalent printer was 100-150$, I would absolutely go Prusa. But when I can get a 300x300 Printer that was darn well out of the box for 300$, why would I spent 1000$ for a Mk3 (just a few months ago). When Bambu Lab has a 700$ fully (well save for a few things, but it isn't a kit) assembled printer, and the Equivalent Mk4 runs me nearly 1300$ after shipping and import fees...and Bambu Lab will always run circles around the Mk4 because its CoreXY vs Bedslinger...why should I pay a 50% premium? I can add a RELIABLE MMU/AMS to the P1P and still come out 30% cheaper.
competition
you said this so much better than my angry rant. thank you !
The problem is that in the long run there only is open source? Anything proprietary comes with an invisible clock counting down until it disappears, either bc the company abandons it, or fails, or is taken over and changes direction, or updates it in ways that make it less useful to you, etc… In the long run, only open source persists
The main problem with patents is that they are only as good as your lawyers and the resources you can trow when problems arise... So they work great for big corporations and for the lawyers, but not for small creators that only want to create.
I am new to the 3d printing community. Literally just started researching it in the last 7 days. I am almost certain that I will be purchasing a Prusa Mini+ in the next couple days. The single largest factor in purchasing this machine, despite the cost, is the fact that the product and manufacture have genuinely embraced the open source community. I would rather spend 5 times as much on this product then support companies that either just take from the community or even worse pay lip service to it without actually contributing back. Open development in general improves the quality of life for humanity in general, this is to big a benefit to allow to be spoiled by some who don't understand or don't care. We should explore other ways to solve these problems.
I generally will choose an open source product over a closed sourced one even if there is a large price difference. Repair-ability and lifespan is really important to me. I've seen many other companies choose Prusa's over other Chinese cloned printers for this exact reasons too.
the problem on the other hand is like stratasys which block the market of fdm printers for years, is still doing the same for printers with heat chamber etc etc.... i'm ok with patents but at some points the patents should become like the one useds as base for phone technology where the license is very low cost as it's on something that is mandatory for everyone and is a standard (and companies still makes money with it )
Appreciate you using your platform to raise these points. What I struggle with in the 3D Printing influencer space is the number of people who happily call out companies but will still use and feature them on their channels. Creality have long been a company who leach from open source and yet they're featured on many channels. If you're preaching then start to practice what you say....
If open source Doesn't work, Why is Linux everywhere and Unix dead? Why did Blender fail and go bankrupt as a proprietary company, then pivot and become wildly suspenseful as an open source foundation? Why are so many people building Vorons when a proprietary printer would be cheaper and easier? Tom is missing something That is, economically, dollar for dollar, open source punches well above it's weight class.
True, open-source monetization rates suck, (that is convincing users to pay) but the small monitory trickle of from users back to the developers is lifeblood.
Because open source projects tend to run *much* more efficiently. Eg: If the project is good, users will evangelize for them. This is far more efficient advertising budget. Open source does not spend money on DRM or CEO’s or patent enforcement. Aso open source leverages the internet in ways that proprietary companies can’t.
Open source is not going away and that is just a win win for everybody.
based W
BSD is permissive, no need for share back
GPL mandates sharing, developers might give flak
But beyond the code and legalities
What we need is human rationalities
BSD fosters collaboration, keeps it simple and fair
GPL, some might say, is like forced charity in the air
For human kindness to truly shine
It’s important to balance both, with open minds and a spine
So let's encourage fairness to those building our tech
By respecting their rights, and not leaving them in wreck.
What do you consider MIT?
We have to consider, that 3D printing has turned from an enthusiasm driven 'amazing new thing' to a tool of daily use. When I buy my next circular saw, open source isn't a topic at all. I am absolutely in love with my new Bambulabs and sold my two MK3's, because the Bambulabs are the much more effective tool, to live and develop my creativity in designing cool stuff. Like my circular saw. And this is, what I really want to do.
Problem is that the BambuLabs is so proprietary that you can't just go out and find a cheaper part if something breaks, nor can you fix them whenever BambuLabs close down permanently. In the case of your circular saw you aren't forced to only buy new blades from the manufacturer, nor are you forced to buy replacement parts from the manufacturer and most old machines are still fully fixable despite their manufacturers having long since closed their doors. Bambu and other proprietary closed source systems will do that. I'm not asking you to get rid of them or go back to what's currently inferior products. I am merely asking you to remember that your circular saw and your printers have two entirely different systems in regards to repairability and most closed source systems won't let you repair with products that aren't theirs too.
"There a couple of notable cases where open source seem to work". This can only come from someone that has very little insight into open source software outside of 3D printing, and this comes of extremely ignorant if he thinks Linux is the only open source software project working out. Pretty much all libraries, frameworks ,and programming languages that are flourishing today are open source. Figuring out how to pay full time maintainers will always be a problem at some point, but there are multiple ways of going about it. 3d printing is such a tiny piece of open source software space, so going after open source in general seems like someone did not do their homework.
Open source works just fine in plenty of places outside the printer space.
Was going to say this. I'm a software dev, our entire industry is built on opensource, and all of the major opensource packages have enough sponsorship at this point that they afford to have a dedicated team working on them as part of their dayjob. Opensource =/= 3D Printing specific.
For me, it's more about company's behaviour as a whole than their products being open-source. Yes, companies who do open-source products are typically also more respectable in other ways, but those are still two separate concepts and it is possible for a company to do one without doing the other. On the flip-side, I simply do not have the kind of income to be able to vote with my wallet: either I buy whatever I can afford, even if it is coming from a highly disreputable company, or I don't buy at all and thus miss out on all things related (including possibly learning some valuable skills) -- there is no in-between for someone on a low budget.
I absolutely do not purchase any products that are not in the spirit of reprap.
After my first creality printer, I quickly went for open source designs.
In this vein I have taken quite a bit and haven't been able to give too much back, but I am planning some things lately that might enable this.
Slice and E3D can beat it from my point of view.
The Revo is nothing special, it's a low flow hotend and even the HF version is just a standard flow hotend.
Slice has their patents denied in Europe for being trivial, I don't see too much worthy of protecting here. In fact I don't see how this didn't come up before.
CHT is revolutionary in the 3d print space but also here there is a ton of issues with how it's marketed and how the license is handled.
If I can, I would always buy open source supporting designs over closed source designs.
In the context of Prusa specifically, I'd argue that they have positioned themselves as a market leader via Open Source philosophy.
We're seeing clones and derivatives of the mk3 all over and one may view this as an exploitation of the Prusa team's hard work, however, this puts Prusa in a firm position to drive the market as a whole. They have seen the wide adoption of their technologies and so can be relatively confident that where they step, the entire consumer industry is likely to follow.
In a community, some will always choose to take advantage of things without giving anything back. One must have faith that the host is stronger than the leeches.
I agree with this too, I see "Prusa style printer" all the time, which is Kleenex brand level recognition tbh
I think the future of open source is not the brand new "tool" on the market, but the "right to repair" of older systems. The companies may be required to provide some minimal information for new laws and regulations around "right to repair" and it's a place where releasing to open-source older designs (two years old?) would have less risk of IP loss while gaining customer loyalty; and thus, increase value to the stockholders.
man, look around you. "Open Source isn't working out so well"? You are literally speaking on a platform that leverages tens if not HUNDREDS of open source projects. You would not have YOUR platform right now if OS didn't exist and wasn't continually improved.
What you're citing is XKCD 2347 "Dependency". The large closed source platform leeches off hundreds of open source projects and doesn't care if their developers live or die, doesn't support them. This is exactly the point. A lot of people who have done extensive open-source work (myself included) regret having done that.
@@SianaGearz factually wrong you just have to look at how many OS projects are supported by big corporations. And even if they weren't, there are millions of OS projects that are supported without financial gains in mind. Just because people can and will share knowledge. Saying "OS is not working" is incredibly wrong and saying that ON THE INTERNET, which is built on OS is ironic.
@@gcm4312 It's working out for some part of the ecosystem and not others. Of course i had other reasons to work on open-source projects besides profit; but the fact that it lead to my health declining and having left me broke isn't particularly encouraging, in spite of having a userbase of over half a million back in the day who used the software on a near-weekly basis or more. I only got a few hundred € out of it, not nearly enough, i ended up spending more on directly related costs like crash collection server and paying my contributors. And that's the fate that many open source contributors and developers experience. Open source is "great" if you ignore the people suffering to make it happen. This is all built on SO many skeletons.
Personally I try to purchase as much as I can from the original developer. This way you get better after sales support and helps them in the long run.
I only buy open-source printers now. If a manufacture has not complied with the law they do not get my money. Maybe you TH-camrs should refuse to review printers that do not fully comply?
I always wondered if selling support for open source instead of trying to profit of the software itself wouldn't be the solution. I think it would work even better on an industrial scale since selling a package of software often doesn't yield the majority of the profits, but helping transitioning a company to a new software solution, training people on how to use the software and providing support when problems arise, do. And for years to come. You could even charge for adding additional features, as long as the resulting software is still open source. The tricky bit is how to achieve that leap for an opensource software to reach professional standards, especially without fragmenting in a dozen different projects.
I also think that that could be a solution. I don't see the issue of fragmentation, as this must be started by the projects themselves, and upstreaming /mainlining the new feature should be part of what gets sold. But how do you get customers that are willing to pay for such a service?
@@michaeljennings6565 By providing a low cost of entry, which is basically free since it is open source. The amount of reinventing the wheel within industry is insane. Companies are unwilling to spend the money for a ready made solution. As they are usually provided by a monopoly and crazy expensive. So they start implementing their own solution. Which grows over time, and eats up more and more money. Making it an even harder decision to switch, since they want return on their "investment". I just think there could be an entry point for an open source solution before it gets that far. Maybe fragmentation is not the main problem. However getting the ball rolling and providing a solution, that is known to work, and popular enough people actually get to know about without a lot of digging, is. There could be a critical point of polish and popularity you have to hit, before it takes of, and yields you any profits for support.
That's actually a big way that companies exist in the open source world and make a profit, but the key is that support requires people. Selling software is just copying bits, so you can scale up the profits far easier once you've paid for the development.
@@Rickertt The issue I see is that once you have convinced people to use the open source software it will be hard to push them into the paid service model. Because taking that steps gives them little _additional_ benefit. But as @gerthodyn points out this model works for some open source projects. It is just much harder to get this to work than fall back to a "traditional" software business case.
With 3dprinting the additional complication is the hardware part. Open source software,as hard as it is is still much easier to get working than open source hardware.
Maybe the future will be shops that sell cheap printers and parts for printers and an open source Firmware project that has sponsors and innovates. In this scenario the parts would be cheap as all the shops offer equal stuff and compete on price. Basically all the printer companies have gone bust, and sponsering open source is the only way to move the industry forward. Hmmm. No that will not happen, we are doomed!
That's why I chose the Prusa MK4 instead of the Bambulab XYZ. With Prusa, I can be confident that there will be future expansions and ongoing development for the printer. The best example is that I could have upgraded my MK3S to an MK4. That's brilliant and deserves support.
Yes, the Prusa costs around €300 more, but I am supporting a cool company in Europe.
Nope sorry. Open source is a must. Dont let them influence us to accept these patents
Yes! OpenSource is important for me and it greatly influences my buying behavior.
Thanks for the reminder to send a couple of donations towards Marlin, GinaHäußge et al.
The conflict of capitalism ( dictatorship over property ) and open source ( sharing and Democratization of property)
I don't think patent-encumbered 3D printer designs are likely to benefit users so much as they will benefit the patent holders, but it seems the latest narrative among 3D printing influencers and their followers is that Open Source gets you supposedly obsolete designs like the Prusa MK4 while proprietary development gets you revolutionary new designs like the Bambu Lab X1C, P1P, and P1S. 3D printing technology would evolve more quickly if the 3D printer market as a whole were to abandon Open Source in favor of proprietary designs, or so these people claim. The fact that companies like Bambu Lab would not have gotten to where they are without Open Source is somehow tossed aside in this calculus.
I tend to investigate product's before I purchases a product and "IF" I find anything that feels malicious I wont by it. I have supported a few open source initiatives like Wlroots, FreeCAD and KiCAD with money but that is perhaps just me.
Same here , and I have for many years
I will always look for something running open fw, ability to mod. But when I bought my last printer there were 2 options: wait 3 days for a creality cr6 or 4/6 weeks for a prusa mini. A company is sustainable if it can keep up with the orders. I looked for a mk4, costs a leg and ships in... Unknown.
Companies don’t need to release their hard-earned ingenuity immediately. Why not have a 2-year lag between the innovation and the release to open-source. So the open-source version of the Prusa slicer is 2 years behind the one you get when you buy a Prusa license.
That Voron you've got behind you, I've got one too. In that price range there are options and I chose the Open Source one.
I love Foss software and I try to find good foss alternatives before I look for non open source projects. But I also understand that these projects need Unding or at least contributions from the community to stay alive.
Is PrusaSlicer a relevant argument in any way? It's based on an open source project, it's not like Prusa made the slicer from scratch. They probably wouldn't have made a slicer if they didn't already have a super solid (open source) base to build on.
Open source is the only reasonable way to avoid monopolies imho. That's how mostly everything in the software world works, things are open source until you need support, they you pay up. Works fine there, seems to work fine for Prusa as well..
That was such a weird point to make. The reason PursaSlicer is open source is *because* Prusa took advantage of an existing project and built on it, in exchange, they have to allow others to do the same. I'm not going to feel bad for Prusa because other people are doing the exact same thing they did. That's what's meant to happen!
This same argument has been around since the 90's when the open source movement first started to take hold. A lot of the FUD came from microsoft and other big tech companies.
Yeah, pay by choice models just can't possibly work.
That's why NPR went off the air years ago.
My gripe is with freeloaders on stl files. Etsy is a free for all for people breaking non commercial license agreements from thingiverse and printables files. I design and 3d print my own products and have people stalking me to only copy my ideas within weeks. Its disgusting ip theft. I am not a huge corporation. I am just one guy trying to feed a family and not go homeless.
If your current business plan depends on having a government-enforced monopoly, and that doesn't work, then you need to change your business plan! D'uh!
Mad props on that intro! As for the meat and potatoes, I'm of the opinion that the legal duration of patents needs to be dramatically reduced, especially in this era of rapid technological growth. And that's as someone who is considering filing for a patent.
Can't agree more with You.
3d printed wouldn't be what it is today if the pattent didn't expired in 2014, stratasys never did nothing with all those properties
As others already said, this is a difficult topic. The biggest downside I see in everything getting patented is that that usually leads to fully closed/"locked down" ecosystems. Sure, your Bambu printer is relatively cheap and works just fine, but you have to take the printer and its accompanying software as is with pretty much no chance to modify anything or use an alternative.
I personally prefer ecosystems that are more open to modifications. Currently, the hottest candidates for succeeding my current printer are either the Prusa XL or a Voron 2.4. Yes, they are more expensive, but I can use the slicer of my choice, modify the printer to my liking and have a big community behind both ecosystems that can provide guidance and help with issues.
The (OS making) model was bound to be hardness tested, and probably will be continually. We promise to continue to bolster the success and growth of open source hardware - which is sure to be a challenge requiring your continued efforts on this front. Thank you!
Patents are only as good as your ability to enforce them. Bad for the little guy, good for the big guy.
My biggest worry about this sort of thing is that everything is going to go behind a curtain - And we'll be back where we were when this was all getting started. The printers will be expensive because the competition will be locked up behind patents. Printers will only support filament from the manufacturer.
And in the United States at least, patents are a proactive litigation tool: You have to go out and sue violators. You have to get violations blocked at customs. I understand your position, Thom, and agree with a lot it. But I can't help but feel that what you're advocating for mostly benefits lawyers.
The problem is we will end up with closed-sourced printers like HP, Canon, EPSON .. etc. We will be buying propriety filament for $500 each.
Leaving aside the huge number of successful open source software companies, there are a solid number of businesses that look a lot like prusa doing quite well doing OSS hardware and a software suite that the rest of their industry takes advantage of, ultimately making the overall market larger and all players involved stronger. Arduino and adafruit probably being the best examples.
But I also thing prusa has recognized some of their struggles and is leaning in to markets and ideas that are more protected from basic clones.
The XL is pretty obviously targeted at businesses even if hobbyists are going to buy a ton of them, those biz users aren’t going to buy a clone to save a few hundred bucks and will value the prusa reputation for reliability and support enough to make that product a hit, with the clones helping to drive the “xl standard” just like we’ve had the “i3 standard” for years, which will help them against their real competitors over at bambu labs. Being open source also meant that they could freely use the work the Klipper team has done with input shaping without any legal risk. This is something that doesn’t mean much to the average home user, but, if your looking at options for your print farm even a 1% risk of legal action because your room full of k1s turn out to violate some license violation is at the very least potent FUD for prusa sales to leverage.
But even in the consumer market they’re pretty clearly leaning in to advanced mfg to set them apart. Open source or not, the barrier to entry for making something like the nextruder is a lot higher than just assembling some aluminum extrusions and stepper motors and shipping a printer.
While there’s certainly not any guarantee that prusa will ultimately win these markets, I don’t think OSS is their issue, and is very possibly their greatest strength as they move into a business market that appears to be finally taking off for production processes as well as prototyping.
On the other hand I do think there is a lack of enforcement of license terms, particularly by marlin and Klipper, and that the community would ultimately benefit if they were more aggressive in targeting companies who violate their terms, although individual actions are almost certain to be unpopular.
The patent has its place but so does open source
I remember some youtube video about some chinese manufacturer not following the license terms of marlin. Felt weird to see comments like "Well, that's what you get for buying the cheap product. If you want a proper open source one, you should pay more!"
...when the real question should have been "Why should this one cheap manufacturer get ready software for free without having to respect its license terms?"
Not distinguishing between open-source *software* and *hardware* makes the discussion more muddy than it is. For software the clear winner is open-source. Avoid printers/embedded/iot devices that use close source/proprietary firmware, especially ones that don't allow flashing firmware easily ("closed bootloader"). Many reasons for this from privacy ("can employees arbitrarily access the camera/microphone of your device?), security ("does the company care about security bugs?"), forced obsolescence ("your device stops working for you after exactly 3 years cause the company stops supporting it"), extensibility ("no, X feature you want is not supported"), repairability ("company ignoring bugs for months"), diy ("no you can't do that"). With open source you can take matters into your own hands, have visibility into what *your* device is actually doing and turn to and contribute to a community. I avoid closed source even when open source software devices cost 50-100% more.
Hardware is different. I can easily download Marlin, fix a bug and submit my patch that benefits everyone on their next update. That doesn't work for hardware. Making software copies is trivial, making hardware copies (efficiently) requires a factory. That said, most hardware patents are awful. You can (maybe) justify a 20 year monopoly on medicine that required years of extra research and expensive randomized controlled trials. A 20 year monopoly on drilling 3 holes into a printer nozzle instead of 1 hole is absurd. There should be some short term protection against copycat companies so startups can get funding and started and small companies can cover R&D and the usually larger *factory* costs, but again, 20 years is absurd.
Do you REALLY want to give up your right to modify and repair the electronic and computer based products you buy?
Good point about E3D, but they ARE making a high quality, reasonably priced product. The new REVO is WORTH the price point it's at (currently). Open source slicers and Marlin printer firmware enable printer users to push the envelope of their printers and maximize performance of inexpensive printers (Ender family).
There IS a market for open source, but there is also a market for closed source on the bleeding edge. And that does suggest a model, develop new tech and either patent it, or protect it via other legal devices. Later on, release it as open source as you update the tech with new (closed source) developments.
Personally I don't have a black and white view of patents.
I like to buy open source stuff for the ability to find all I need when I one day try to repair the thing after I tried using it beyond its intended purpose and broke it.
I have no problem buying patented stuff when it is someting truly inovative and brings me something I would not get otherwise - I use CHT nozzles in one printer where 30% more flow rate is incredibly usefull and Revo in another where easy, toolless and cold nozzle switching is very usefull.
I do not plan to buy anything ever again from Slice and their approach to patents plays a role in it. They sell horribly overpriced hotends (relative to what their performance) and they use patents make sure nothing even remotely similar can be sold by anyone. And they use a patent for it which personally I think the patent office should never have afforded them - a small piece of tube as a standoff - if they did the research and found that the same idea in principle has been published by multiple people before.
I agree that the current way of tryign to have things open source is not sustainable in our global capitalist economy. But I am affraid that if the alternative is patents the future looks bleak if those patents keep fuctioning like they do now. It will not be long untill somebody manages to patent a wheel and force everyone to pay them dividends for using cars and bicycles. Patenting things could be workable but the proof of originality and narrow definition of what it is the patent locks needs to be there. Things like Apple patentign a tablet decades after it was seen in movies and TV shows cannot be allowed to happen. The moment someone finds proof the idea was public before the patent that patent needs to loose at least some of its power.
You have some great points. However, I propose a counter proposal. I would encourage a system where a 'patent' should last for no more than 2 years after it's public release and then the original code becomes open source and forkable. During the two year span of the patent, it should be possible to license the design or sell and transfer it for any remaining time.
After the 2 years, downstream updates can be managed through service agreements.
We are working on the first fully open source msla printer ( The Prometheus MSLA ) … as we can see on the video « open source » is debatable but for a project like us ( i think ) open source is mendatory because we want this printer available for everyone. If it’s lock down first we are not better than everyone else and we can compete with Chinese manufacturers. So we have a few hundred dollars more on the price tag than the chinese one without giving more. Be open source give the full access for people to really modify, repair and upgrade the machine for their needs … no need for messy and hacky solutions like the closed printer
Its a shame that each generation is loosing more of its ethics and knowing right from wrong. Your word and a handshake was the strongest bond you ever needed. I always thought when I heard open source that a company with a great idea was reaching out “here is our design help us make it better just don’t profit from our efforts. Collaboration should be a strength not a weakness.
It's interesting that you put the voron in the back but didn't talk about it (or did I miss that?). It's open source and it becomes more popular. Is it also sustainable? Well, at least the design ideas have an impact. But interestingly the former company decided that there is no business case behind their ideas and they shared everything instead. I think by creating this community around it we have the chance as customers and DIYers to influence the market a lot, which is quite nice to see
I appreciate all the efforts you have gone into in embracing open source. I myself has always encouraged people to consider printers from companies which embrace open source. IMHO the problem lies in the lack of education on what the true value of things are in this capitalistic world, when everything gets evaluated under that single thing, the pricetag. I feel there should be more sustained encouragement to people who values things more than just profit/price. Also, having more people educating the public on how open source could benefit everyone. (individuals tend to fail at viewing the grander scheme of things, more education is always appreciated.)
I agree with you. I think the video does a disservice to the Maker community by not propounding our shared values. The video accepts stereotypical “ profit is everything” motives of companies and “cheaper is better” motives of consumers. Both companies and individuals should be beyond that (even if the herd isn’t) What kind of world do we want? should also factor into our behavior and into this discussion and into the videos of leaders in our community. If we want a thriving open source/open hardware community, what actions should we take? If you want that world, what can you do to help?
Three words.
RED Digital Cinema.
Patent law in America is fucked.
Seems a reliable way to generate engagement :) Jokes aside, it would be interesting to see a followup video on the contrasting viewpoint. I see some elements of counterpoint buried in the comments. So then the people enthusiastic about this video would drive engagement on that video, positive here becoming negative there and vice verse.
I think the only personal piece of advice I have is, be aware that you are the ideal target for pro IP influence. You can not and should not escape from the satisfaction of being a successful pro, deeply invested in the field. And because you get to hang out with other big names who are also heavily invested (often on a specifically monetary basis in addition to taking pride in their craft), naturally their interests and points of view are pervasive even without explicit discussion. It is human nature to absorb the concerns of one's colleagues, particularly when you have the means to participate in the ecosystem. I am the same way, whether I want to be or not. But of course, don't forget that you also have colleagues who are deeply committed to the continuation of open source and its transparency, inclusiveness,, and pursuit of unhindered progress and of course freedom.
Since before most of us can remember, open source has struggled with worry over how it can survive in a zero sum world of ownership, even aside from flurries of corporate attacks. But its continued survival is noteworthy--some of the longest enduring technological edifices survive exactly because of their openness, resulting in a net democratization of the technical landscape and a reduction of pointless technical churn...
Sorry, I'll stop, it could be a cool counterpoint though.
Let's stop acting like Prusa Research is being taken advantage of.
I would argue that Prusa Research would never have existed without OpenSource.
They had a design for a printer, but the firmware they chose was Marlin, and their slicer was forked from Slic3r. Neither was made by Prusa, but without them, Prusa printers are paperweights.
I bet their Webshop and most back office tools were also off-the-shelf Open Source components.
Without using the work of others, Prusa would not have had a product to sell or the infrastructure to do so.
Furthermore, Prusa's market position today is based mainly on being early and their eco-System play. Both were only made possible by having OpenSource tools ready to use, free of charge.
Marlin and Slic3r are not Prusa's property.
So, what is the issue when their competition does what Prusa Research did themselves? This is how it is supposed to work!
OpenSource was created to ensure we have free hard- & software available to us, not to ensure the profits of any company.
Btw. what about Duet in that context?
If you are unsure where closed source leads, just look at the state of 2D printers today. Maybe you want things like DRM locked filament, but I definitely don't. We need more open source, not less
I have always bought open source programs/ software when available, and i will continue to do so. If you don't support the ideas, the market gets stagnant and ideas become bland or limited, and new ones don't come up as often.
I really wanted to support Prusa this time around, even willing to pay 50-100% more.
But the Prusa XL, assembled, can't hold a candle to the Bambu X1C w AMC, at 100% more price.
This is not ok. Sadly I went with the Bambu X1C.
I'm surprised the Prusa XL didn't take the hint and go with an enclosure, which greatly simplified printing with ABS/ASA and also gives much greater rigidity.
I hope in a few years Prusa will have finally turned around.
Tom: it's not just about open source or not. Companies still need to put out a better product. Even at a 100% more price, there shouldnt be a need to make major sacrifices from the competition.
The irony of Bambu using a fork of Prusa Slicer.
And the XL was a bit of a mistake, imo, and the reprap philosophy has really been holding the Multimaterial offerings from Prusa behind. Bambu also was allegedly formed by a bunch of DJI engineers, so Prusa is up against a very competent company who had the luxury of starting from scratch.
I suspect we will see them pivoting more towards their own designs and fewer 3D printed parts in the future. Their hotend genuinely blows dual geared extruders out of the water. But they have some catching up to do on software, and I think they need to move to a more modular core xy system. I really don't want to see Prusa go under. I think that would be really bad for the industry.
@@TheFatAssCat totally agree.
Voron/CoreXY started years ago, and it was so apparent how fast this system was.
Voron and CoreXY were open source. It should *not* have taken Bambu to come out before Prusa got out an XL. They should be been at the forefront!
Patents don't contradict open source???
Patents require you to publicly publish the design, even.
Patents are useless for small companies... at least in the US. I speak from personal experience. My company held several patents here in the US. We were being infringed upon, and followed all the legal procedures to remedy the situation... but the justice system is designed (here) in such a way as to benefit the wealthy. We spent over 4 million dollars in legal fees, and the end result was that our company was driven bankrupt, and the defendant's countersuits cost us the rights to use OUR IP... our only recourse to get out of the suit was to sign over all of our IP and even our company name to the defendants. They even admitted that the IP was ours in court... but unless you have bottomless pockets, people who can outspend you will win. Every time.
I lost my company, my IP and 4 million dollars because I had the audacity to try to protect my patents in the commercial furniture industry.
Also, Patents are not international. you need to pay for, and defend your patents in every country. In the US, as a small entity (which is discounted) a patent costs about $2000 in filing fees alone... that's if you do the patent paperwork, drawings, searches, and all of the other often complex parts of filing a patent... for example I had to convince the USPTO that my monitor mount wasn't the same thing as a trailer hitch... this isn't hyperbole. They said the utility of one of my patents to hold a monitor was too similar to a box hitch for a trailer... it took me 3 rounds of rewording and explaining to the patent examiners why a trailer hitch can't hold a computer monitor on a desk. (And that was with a very experienced team of patent attorneys)... I actually figured out the solution, which was to put a physical model in their hands (this was before 3d printing was available to small companies, I built the model from cardboard). I can't imagine trying to explain to them the difference between a MK8 hot end and a Slice Engineering one... they are both basically glue guns to the USPTO... the claimable improvements is so small that it would be a nightmare to get the patent examiners to understand why it's an improvement that isn't obvious to "someone skilled in the art" of 3d printer engineering.... and even if you get really good attorneys and pay the tens of thousands of dollars for their expert patent writers, you still need to have your engineers explain every minor functional detail at a microscopic level so that attorneys who aren't engineers can explain it in plain language to judges, examiners, and eventually a jury... and this process has to happen in every country you want your patent protected in... and forget about getting one in China or a third world country anyway... so a US patent will keep US companies from copying your design (unless they can outspend your defensive budget)... and it may get you some relief from offshore knockoffs, but it won't keep china from selling copies internationally... you need a German patent for Germany, and a Japanese patent for Japan, etc. Some EU countries have combined patents for several countries... but considering that you need to hire attorneys/barristers/etc. for each of these different systems who know how their patent system works... it quickly invalidates the value of patenting in the first place.... (For small companies)... and then there is the time factor. It takes 3 to 5 years in the US to go from patent pending to getting your spiffy ribboned patent from the US... (which costs more money) and it's not a one time fee... you need to keep paying for the imagined protection... and then be willing to pay as much to defend your patent as some larger company is willing to pay to take it from you... in every country... and you need to find to infringers yourself (unless some kind entity is willing to inform you that someone is selling an infringing item... )... THEN, assuming you can afford to win the lawsuit, you need to prove what the damages are... but the worst case is that you run out of money, and the other side wins... then they can come at you for their legal expenses.
I may seem a bit bitter... but I lost a 25 million dollar a year (gross sales) company because I was out-spent by someone who wanted to rip off one of my patents... and like I said, I even lost the other IP (like the trademarked company name) as a result of their countersuits for financial damages caused by my company trying to stop them from stealing from me... and they now do business in my company's name... during the lawsuit they got away with telling my customers that --we-- were the infringers.
This may seem like a fluke... but I have a good friend who had almost the exact same experience, except it was a government agency that stole his patent for a method of creating a monolithic lightweight wing structure for UAVs (in the 1980's).
Open source is even more powerful with A.i. much more powerful. We need to be more innovative and use the tools available. Open source is about bringing the technology as fast as possible to get to better products quicker. Best example is Blender 3D. Open source is a tool that works but not all tools work for every problem.
I think you're conflating hardware and software patents. Hardware patents make sense while software patents largely do not.
Dude, you are confusing "free software" and "open source" those are different on ideological level schemes of s/w distribution and development. Actually RMS is against "open source". Also "free software" need not be gratis it can be sold, but it should respect user's freedoms. I will reiterate "free software" is about respecting user's freedom, and "open source" is about giving up stuff for free! Totally different approaches, and "open source" way is morally, intellectually and financially bankrupt idea, but "free software" is a sound, ethical and sustainable way to distribute your software. You can and should sell "free software".
Your video made me go over to voron design (I built my 2.4 last year) and set up a monthly donation of $5 - so much about your impact! ;) Thanks for your work, too!
I think a company like PRUSA who values and appreciates Open Source could use a license that allows new work to become Open Source after a certain time period that allows them to make a profit first. For example, they could have their MK4 become Open Source after 18 months from release instead of upon release. They make the money to pay for the research and development and profit off of their work so they can continue making new and better products while at the same time giving back to the community.