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!
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.
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...
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.
@@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.
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."_
@@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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
@@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.
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 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.
@@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.
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.
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 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.
@@Foxhood 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.
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
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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 RUclips 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.
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.
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 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 😉
@@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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
@@Foxhood 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.
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
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.
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)
@@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.
@@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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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 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?"
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 )
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.
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?
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.
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....
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.
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!
If there are two shiny equivalent 3D printers that perform the same, I would pay slightly more for the open source supporting one than the one that sends my data to servers somewhere in China. On the other hand, companies that steal IP shouldn’t be able to enforce IP in Countries where they operate.
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.
I have no objection to companies patenting legitimate innovations, provided these inventions do not rest on open source innovations. But I think its very important to differentiate between legitimate patents and illegitimate ones. We have seen that *some* companies' patent applications attempt to cover open source innovations. And some of those foul patents do get granted. Patent offices are not great at vetting wether the applicant actually developed the idea they are claiming, or simply took existing designs or ideas in open source then patented them. The only post-grant recourse is expensive legal action, which open source inventors cannot generally afford. These companies then use their patents to profit off the work of others.
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.
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.
Autodesk just turned life-time licences into subscriptions and screwed people. I am not going to support them in any way, not even by using their "free" tools. Adobe made it artificially difficult to find the installer for older versions of Lightroom, despites the licence I own. This is why I put the effort in learning to use FreeCAD, Gimp, Darktable, Inkscape, etc ... and make donations to support them.
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.
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.
It's the same story with environmental protection. It often doesn't make financial sense, but is still the right thing to do. And often the only way to recoup that cost is to market the benefit to society.
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.
The problem is that nobody is suing the companies that aren't complying to GPL. Linux isn't a good example as most of it isn't GPLv3 and hence can even be used in commercial solutions while only releasing the Linux code itself, but keeping your specific code closed source. That makes it good for companies to use, but also means you get stuff like Linux-based devices using secure boot that doesn't allow you as a user to change anything on it. Klipper is GPLv3. Any system running Linux has to allow the user to modify that Klipper install, which practically would mean giving not only the source code, but also root access to modify it. Creality not adhering to this should have the EU and US immediately block all their sales and force them to recall all already sold items. Using a patent to protect something like REVO isn't something I like, but it's ok. Using open source without adhering to the license is not and something has to be done for that. PrusaSlicer cannot legally become closed source because of the license, unless they rewrite EVERYTHING from scratch in a clean room approach, which is probably impossible. But they could damn well sue Creality for their Creality Slicer.
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?
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.
Don't ignore the downside of the modern patent business model. In order to make patents work for you these days, you have to be prepared to enforce them in court. This is not just the exception - it is the rule for any patented technology or design with demonstrated commercial value. It's expensive, time consuming, & can be a major distraction from a business's core mission. I'm an inventor on 3 patents & a 4th that was not advanced past the application stage for strategic reasons. These were as an employee of a large corporate patent holder. I've also watched this play out in other industries in which I have some non-professional interest (as a customer or a hobbyist). In the not-so-long-ago history, patents were granted on a first-to-invent rule basis. A patent filing & defense had to include meticulous records of when the various aspects of the invention were developed. If a patent application was filed & published, a competitor could show evidence that they invented it first & nullify the application Then some countries & regional jurisdictions started to switch to a first-to-file rule basis. Eventually the whole world moved in that direction, because it became very difficult to compete in the global patent world with the first-to-invent rule set. This made it easier to get patents filed & granted, but forced the complexity onto the legal system, which isn't always very effective at resolving disputes. One of the consequences is that small companies & individual inventors are almost completely shut out. Once the first-to-file rules were in place, large companies started to file patents on anything that might be some strategic advantage. One of the more ridiculous examples was Apple & Samsung patenting "gestures" for using on touch-screens for controlling smart-phones & other media devices. This included things like swipe left, right, up, down, pinch to zoom in or out, multi-finger or open-palm swipes, etc.. They each filed hundreds of patents in dozens of jurisdictions, for gestures. Some of these were in direct conflict with each other, but filed at different times in different countries or jurisdictions. After the patents were granted (most were - even the most bizarre), these companies started suing each other over the gestures implemented on their devices. Samsung would win some cases in one jurisdiction, but Apple might win the case over the same patented gesture in another jurisdiction. Once the majority of the cases were decided & damages assigned by the courts, the 2 parties had a series of out-of-court negotiations where they decided who gets to use which gestures & who gets to own the patents & collect royalties. Mostly, their claims against each other cancelled out & they don't charge each other any gesture-related royalties. But you can be certain any other competitors have to pay huge royalties to include gestures in their touch-screen operating systems. First-to-file rules created a log-jam of frivolous applications. Patent offices responded by hiring anybody with breath to be a patent examiner. The patent application process became a revolving door fee-collecting exercise in 4 stages: original application, 2 rounds of rejection for any reason, & a granted application as long as the applicant pays the 3 rounds of fees & mounts any kind of defense. All of the details were forced into the patent courts, where patent attorneys contend for their clients like modern gladiators. Small inventors who can't afford the court fees & the best lawyers are out of the game, unless they can attract an investor to cover the legal costs. In that case, the inventor usually gives up a significant portion of their future equity. I have a friend who tried to mount a defense of a patent. The patent lawyer also became his venture capitalist & ended up with controlling interest in his company. There are some cases where a small inventor has managed to succeed. Independent mountain bike suspension designer, Dave Weagle, has licensed his patented designs to several bike brands. That hasn't stopped the 2 largest bike brands in the world from copying his designs. The courts sometimes decide in his favor & sometimes against. But he's collected enough royalties to build a thriving business, & he continues to patent refinements & new designs. So, in regard to open-source vs. intellectual-property business models, pick your poison.
Great Analysis. I hold 12 fully granted patents, which were mainly for a business defensive stance. I love working with Patent Lawyers but actually dislike the whole patent idea in the first place. Given a decent lawyer, patents can be obtained on trivial ideas. This practice harms all businesses more than the well deserved patents.
And if there were or won’t be open source then no 3d printer would be out there Last examples of old ideas come to life: aracnie, lightning infill, fuzzy skin…. Even the core XY or bed slingers are result of old ideas. Ban them and the hobby would stay at this level
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.
Those that come later in the adoption curve, both consumers and manufacturers, don't have the same mindset of sharing to improve for all ... they have a winner takes all attitude ... happens with all tech ...
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.
I personally prefer open source and usually don't care to pay more for it because I feel the support for customization is more widely available for those open source products. I design and build all my own printers and love customizing and coming up with different ways to tackle a design problem and open source products allow that flexibility. Duet for a good example. I am jaded on the E3D Revo, and the main reason I have not made the switch is due to the closed nature on the nozzles and them not offering a "hardened" option at launch. I am currently using genuine E3D V6 hotends with customized Raise3D nozzles because I prefer the nozzle profile over the standard E3D. The same argument can be made over filament, at one time printer manufactures started making it so that their printer would only accept their rolls of filament and shut out the ability to use filament from just anyone. Not that I would buy a premade printer but if I did I would never consider one that forced me into buying their rolls of filament.
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.
@@u0000-u2x 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.
The problem isn’t open source the problem is the consumer. Instead of actually putting their money where their mouth is and supporting these wonderful projects they use so much they take em for granted while paying other companies that use IP as a business model. It’s time for people to either fund companies that are open source or shut up and enjoy owning nothing as everything becomes a monthly service.
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.
Being primarily a software developer I assumed, when making EVA that it's going to work in the same way when I shared my work - it didn't. When I make a piece of code that can the useful to someone else I'll just share it knowing there's a potential for someone to make hefty amounts of money using my library and it does not bother me, developers share knowledge all the time (just look at stack overflow) it works somehow. For EVA... I don't know, I had to pay for the CAD licence, screws and plastic for experiments I release it for everyone to use to see it being produced on Ali without even a credit - I'm struggling to this day on what to do about all this as I really don't want to make money on EVA - EVA was supposed to push 3D printing forward (unlock printers from vendor lock-ins). There's the additional factor of stupid polish tax laws that is not helping my case (i.e. we cant use Patronite). I'm not complaining as I received donations for EVA - it's just eating me from the inside and takes away the will to work on the project :( I hate patents but I get why those are used.
EVA is an amazing platform, well done and it's really brilliant. And me understanding open source I know how to credit or support the author in the development. But this video is not that, open source is here to stay, Tom and Jo like or not. This is just have a destructive point to it.
I only buy open-source printers now. If a manufacture has not complied with the law they do not get my money. Maybe you RUclipsrs should refuse to review printers that do not fully comply?
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.
Intellectual property should not exist. I don't think any company or collective should be required to share their knowledge with the public, but at the same time, just having an idea before anyone else should not make it yours. Whoever can provide a product at the best price should succeed through competition.
I am a teenager kid without a lot of money (I make and sell custom 3d print and laser cut stuff to make pocket money) I like engineering and stuff and really wanted to get a bambu. However I am now realizing how much bambu has stolen from the voron and klipper community that I am literally going to build a voron. I also want to buy a prusa, but I am waiting for them to make a more budget friendly enclosed not bed slinger machine. My idea. Keep open source alive as long as possible. Thats why there is so much innovation and for people like me its amazing and I love it.
Chinese companies tend to be especially bad at this. They don't respect proprietary licenses, let alone open source ones. This is why I avoid their products.
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!
i prefer open source not because it's morally superior or anything lile that. but because its much easier to build on top of it, to modify, to repair and to continue using after some unexpected shit happened to the manufacturing company
The open source nature of prusa printers played a huge part in my choice of 3d printer years ago, and I'm still waiting to have the budget for a prusa SL1S instead of buying a cheap resin 3d printer with closed hw/software. I think the main drawback of any open source product is not that customer don't care, it's that society as a whole don't really value open source and libre initiative properly. In the same way we see value in non-profit organisation and public founded research and there is a framework in many countries to make it work alongside private "for profit" entities, there should be a framework/structures in place to help open source company to exist. But I do share your sentiment around this, I agree that the current situation around open source hardware is not great.
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.
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!
Yes, I care very much whether the companies I support are friendly to open-source hardware and software. Yes, I will pay more for companies that do this rather than chasing the cheapest options. My first 3D printer in 2014 was a LulzBot, my second was a Prusa. I'm a pretty casual 3D printing hobbyist, but support for open source has always been one of my top considerations.
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 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?
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@Foxhood 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.
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
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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 RUclips 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.
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 !
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.
I don't think the problem is open source itself, but the larger economic system that puts profit above everything else.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@Foxhood 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
@@Foxhood Not oxymoronic, just a business practice that usually doesn't work out. Designing and selling open hardware 3D printers is an example.
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 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?"
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 )
The essence of this should be: do not buy bambu-lab printers or anything that just takes from open source without giving back
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.
if any of you have the "bring back dislike extension" you'll see that almost half is dislikes
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?
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.
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....
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.
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!
If there are two shiny equivalent 3D printers that perform the same, I would pay slightly more for the open source supporting one than the one that sends my data to servers somewhere in China. On the other hand, companies that steal IP shouldn’t be able to enforce IP in Countries where they operate.
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
I have no objection to companies patenting legitimate innovations, provided these inventions do not rest on open source innovations. But I think its very important to differentiate between legitimate patents and illegitimate ones.
We have seen that *some* companies' patent applications attempt to cover open source innovations. And some of those foul patents do get granted. Patent offices are not great at vetting wether the applicant actually developed the idea they are claiming, or simply took existing designs or ideas in open source then patented them.
The only post-grant recourse is expensive legal action, which open source inventors cannot generally afford. These companies then use their patents to profit off the work of others.
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?
The conflict of capitalism ( dictatorship over property ) and open source ( sharing and Democratization of property)
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.
Autodesk just turned life-time licences into subscriptions and screwed people. I am not going to support them in any way, not even by using their "free" tools.
Adobe made it artificially difficult to find the installer for older versions of Lightroom, despites the licence I own.
This is why I put the effort in learning to use FreeCAD, Gimp, Darktable, Inkscape, etc ... and make donations to support them.
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.
All of history was open source until we invented the lawyer.
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.
I am not considering Revo because of the proprietary nature, for what that's worth. The problem isn't open source, it's the companies expectations.
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.
It's the same story with environmental protection. It often doesn't make financial sense, but is still the right thing to do. And often the only way to recoup that cost is to market the benefit to society.
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.
The problem is that nobody is suing the companies that aren't complying to GPL. Linux isn't a good example as most of it isn't GPLv3 and hence can even be used in commercial solutions while only releasing the Linux code itself, but keeping your specific code closed source. That makes it good for companies to use, but also means you get stuff like Linux-based devices using secure boot that doesn't allow you as a user to change anything on it. Klipper is GPLv3. Any system running Linux has to allow the user to modify that Klipper install, which practically would mean giving not only the source code, but also root access to modify it. Creality not adhering to this should have the EU and US immediately block all their sales and force them to recall all already sold items. Using a patent to protect something like REVO isn't something I like, but it's ok. Using open source without adhering to the license is not and something has to be done for that. PrusaSlicer cannot legally become closed source because of the license, unless they rewrite EVERYTHING from scratch in a clean room approach, which is probably impossible. But they could damn well sue Creality for their Creality Slicer.
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?
I have a few issues with patent laws. They are outdated. Patents should be 5 years max. They should be global. And it shouldn't take $10k to get.
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.
Don't ignore the downside of the modern patent business model. In order to make patents work for you these days, you have to be prepared to enforce them in court. This is not just the exception - it is the rule for any patented technology or design with demonstrated commercial value. It's expensive, time consuming, & can be a major distraction from a business's core mission. I'm an inventor on 3 patents & a 4th that was not advanced past the application stage for strategic reasons. These were as an employee of a large corporate patent holder. I've also watched this play out in other industries in which I have some non-professional interest (as a customer or a hobbyist).
In the not-so-long-ago history, patents were granted on a first-to-invent rule basis. A patent filing & defense had to include meticulous records of when the various aspects of the invention were developed. If a patent application was filed & published, a competitor could show evidence that they invented it first & nullify the application
Then some countries & regional jurisdictions started to switch to a first-to-file rule basis. Eventually the whole world moved in that direction, because it became very difficult to compete in the global patent world with the first-to-invent rule set. This made it easier to get patents filed & granted, but forced the complexity onto the legal system, which isn't always very effective at resolving disputes. One of the consequences is that small companies & individual inventors are almost completely shut out.
Once the first-to-file rules were in place, large companies started to file patents on anything that might be some strategic advantage. One of the more ridiculous examples was Apple & Samsung patenting "gestures" for using on touch-screens for controlling smart-phones & other media devices. This included things like swipe left, right, up, down, pinch to zoom in or out, multi-finger or open-palm swipes, etc.. They each filed hundreds of patents in dozens of jurisdictions, for gestures. Some of these were in direct conflict with each other, but filed at different times in different countries or jurisdictions. After the patents were granted (most were - even the most bizarre), these companies started suing each other over the gestures implemented on their devices. Samsung would win some cases in one jurisdiction, but Apple might win the case over the same patented gesture in another jurisdiction. Once the majority of the cases were decided & damages assigned by the courts, the 2 parties had a series of out-of-court negotiations where they decided who gets to use which gestures & who gets to own the patents & collect royalties. Mostly, their claims against each other cancelled out & they don't charge each other any gesture-related royalties. But you can be certain any other competitors have to pay huge royalties to include gestures in their touch-screen operating systems.
First-to-file rules created a log-jam of frivolous applications. Patent offices responded by hiring anybody with breath to be a patent examiner. The patent application process became a revolving door fee-collecting exercise in 4 stages: original application, 2 rounds of rejection for any reason, & a granted application as long as the applicant pays the 3 rounds of fees & mounts any kind of defense. All of the details were forced into the patent courts, where patent attorneys contend for their clients like modern gladiators. Small inventors who can't afford the court fees & the best lawyers are out of the game, unless they can attract an investor to cover the legal costs. In that case, the inventor usually gives up a significant portion of their future equity.
I have a friend who tried to mount a defense of a patent. The patent lawyer also became his venture capitalist & ended up with controlling interest in his company.
There are some cases where a small inventor has managed to succeed. Independent mountain bike suspension designer, Dave Weagle, has licensed his patented designs to several bike brands. That hasn't stopped the 2 largest bike brands in the world from copying his designs. The courts sometimes decide in his favor & sometimes against. But he's collected enough royalties to build a thriving business, & he continues to patent refinements & new designs.
So, in regard to open-source vs. intellectual-property business models, pick your poison.
Nope sorry. Open source is a must. Dont let them influence us to accept these patents
Yeah, pay by choice models just can't possibly work.
That's why NPR went off the air years ago.
Great Analysis. I hold 12 fully granted patents, which were mainly for a business defensive stance. I love working with Patent Lawyers but actually dislike the whole patent idea in the first place. Given a decent lawyer, patents can be obtained on trivial ideas. This practice harms all businesses more than the well deserved patents.
And if there were or won’t be open source then no 3d printer would be out there
Last examples of old ideas come to life: aracnie, lightning infill, fuzzy skin…. Even the core XY or bed slingers are result of old ideas.
Ban them and the hobby would stay at this level
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
Those that come later in the adoption curve, both consumers and manufacturers, don't have the same mindset of sharing to improve for all ... they have a winner takes all attitude ... happens with all tech ...
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.
I personally prefer open source and usually don't care to pay more for it because I feel the support for customization is more widely available for those open source products. I design and build all my own printers and love customizing and coming up with different ways to tackle a design problem and open source products allow that flexibility. Duet for a good example. I am jaded on the E3D Revo, and the main reason I have not made the switch is due to the closed nature on the nozzles and them not offering a "hardened" option at launch. I am currently using genuine E3D V6 hotends with customized Raise3D nozzles because I prefer the nozzle profile over the standard E3D.
The same argument can be made over filament, at one time printer manufactures started making it so that their printer would only accept their rolls of filament and shut out the ability to use filament from just anyone. Not that I would buy a premade printer but if I did I would never consider one that forced me into buying their rolls of filament.
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.
@@u0000-u2x 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.
The problem isn’t open source the problem is the consumer. Instead of actually putting their money where their mouth is and supporting these wonderful projects they use so much they take em for granted while paying other companies that use IP as a business model. It’s time for people to either fund companies that are open source or shut up and enjoy owning nothing as everything becomes a monthly service.
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.
Being primarily a software developer I assumed, when making EVA that it's going to work in the same way when I shared my work - it didn't.
When I make a piece of code that can the useful to someone else I'll just share it knowing there's a potential for someone to make hefty amounts of money using my library and it does not bother me, developers share knowledge all the time (just look at stack overflow) it works somehow.
For EVA... I don't know, I had to pay for the CAD licence, screws and plastic for experiments I release it for everyone to use to see it being produced on Ali without even a credit - I'm struggling to this day on what to do about all this as I really don't want to make money on EVA - EVA was supposed to push 3D printing forward (unlock printers from vendor lock-ins). There's the additional factor of stupid polish tax laws that is not helping my case (i.e. we cant use Patronite). I'm not complaining as I received donations for EVA - it's just eating me from the inside and takes away the will to work on the project :(
I hate patents but I get why those are used.
EVA is an amazing platform, well done and it's really brilliant. And me understanding open source I know how to credit or support the author in the development. But this video is not that, open source is here to stay, Tom and Jo like or not. This is just have a destructive point to it.
I only buy open-source printers now. If a manufacture has not complied with the law they do not get my money. Maybe you RUclipsrs should refuse to review printers that do not fully comply?
Let's hide Mathematics and Physics from people. Let's patent a concept of an axiom and a theorem and go from there.
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.
Intellectual property should not exist. I don't think any company or collective should be required to share their knowledge with the public, but at the same time, just having an idea before anyone else should not make it yours. Whoever can provide a product at the best price should succeed through competition.
I am a teenager kid without a lot of money (I make and sell custom 3d print and laser cut stuff to make pocket money) I like engineering and stuff and really wanted to get a bambu. However I am now realizing how much bambu has stolen from the voron and klipper community that I am literally going to build a voron. I also want to buy a prusa, but I am waiting for them to make a more budget friendly enclosed not bed slinger machine. My idea. Keep open source alive as long as possible. Thats why there is so much innovation and for people like me its amazing and I love it.
Chinese companies tend to be especially bad at this. They don't respect proprietary licenses, let alone open source ones. This is why I avoid their products.
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!
i prefer open source not because it's morally superior or anything lile that. but because its much easier to build on top of it, to modify, to repair and to continue using after some unexpected shit happened to the manufacturing company
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.
The open source nature of prusa printers played a huge part in my choice of 3d printer years ago, and I'm still waiting to have the budget for a prusa SL1S instead of buying a cheap resin 3d printer with closed hw/software.
I think the main drawback of any open source product is not that customer don't care, it's that society as a whole don't really value open source and libre initiative properly. In the same way we see value in non-profit organisation and public founded research and there is a framework in many countries to make it work alongside private "for profit" entities, there should be a framework/structures in place to help open source company to exist.
But I do share your sentiment around this, I agree that the current situation around open source hardware is not great.
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.
Patents aren't the main problem. They are only relevant for companies, not for the community. Not open sourcing the IP is the issue.
Patents are only as good as your ability to enforce them. Bad for the little guy, good for the big guy.
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!
Yes, I care very much whether the companies I support are friendly to open-source hardware and software. Yes, I will pay more for companies that do this rather than chasing the cheapest options. My first 3D printer in 2014 was a LulzBot, my second was a Prusa. I'm a pretty casual 3D printing hobbyist, but support for open source has always been one of my top considerations.