I've seen a few people trying to defend Bambu Lab's bullying of an open source developer over completely legal AGPL code use...
Now @conservancy is raising funds to stop companies like Bambu Labs from abusing the AGPL and open source devs: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-printer-agpl-violation-response/
@geerlingguy @conservancy gotta luv lawyers: they keep the playing field fair and boy, these days in the USA, "now more than ever"
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"BuT tHeY'rE jUsT PrOtEcTiNg ThEiR ShAreHoldErS iNtErE—"
shaddap shaddap shaddap shaddap shaddap
@rl_dane @geerlingguy @conservancy
that's literally just "but they're just being selfish!" lol
Unfortunately due to Lawfare being a completely normal way of business in the USA, the GPL family of licenses are meaningless if you can't afford more lawyers than the people violating the license.
@pixx @geerlingguy @conservancy
Locking your front door and congressional insider trading are both forms of selfishness.
One is far more odious than the other.
@geerlingguy @conservancy Not also going to sue them? Do they lack the standing and need bamboo to do the suing?
@feld @geerlingguy @conservancy
Dude, don't be so idealistic. Some of us have to live in the real world. /s 😄
@geerlingguy @conservancy let em defend so Bambu Labs thinks they have a case and then when we win that case it can be good precedent 🥰
If we assume the allegations of Bambu Lab violating copyright are true, then I think that it’s the copyright holders who have the standing to sue. Usually that means the authors of the original code or their employers.
If Bambu Lab is going to sue an independent third party developer, then their defense is likely going to state that they have received a license to the software from the original author and that unlike Bambu Lab they are acting within the license.
But since it sounds like the third party developer didn’t feel like standing up to Bambu Lab it doesn’t sound like they are headed for court. Regardless of whether that third party developer want to take on the fight or not, I do respect their choice. I know it sucks to be in that situation, and they are given the choice between two paths which each suck in their own ways. It sounds like that third party developer did not deserve to be in that situation.
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@geerlingguy @conservancy Fabulous. Comeuppance! #bambulabs are bad actors and are not getting a Christmas card from me this year.
@geerlingguy @conservancy bamboo used the user agent as an authentication token. Which is the biggest bullshit ever.
If they want authentication they should have an "auth" file locally on the PC, not under AGPL which is used by the code to authenticate.
Yes that makes the installation more convoluted.
Seems to be easier to keep their cloud closed up via lawyers than via code.
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Take a look at #SFC's Principles of Community-Oriented #GPL Enforcement found here:
https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html
While that's tailored to the question of GPL (as opposed to #LGPL or #AGPL enforcement), a universal principle in #copyleft enforcement is always to use litigation as a last resort. Take a look at SFC's #baltobu project; we want to get working solutions to users ASAP:
https://f.sfconservancy.org/baltobu
Cc: @geerlingguy