An Open Letter to the 3D Printing Community
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- I'm pretty sure this video is going to bomb, but I just can't keep silent anymore. I've been stewing on this for a couple weeks at this point, and I honestly just need to get it off of my chest. (There is no sponsor for this video... go support your favorite open source project!)
One of the most incredible things about the 3D printing community, without a doubt, is the collaborative, open source nature. It's mind-blowing, actually, that in our little corner of the internet, people contribute so much of their hard work and talent towards creating things that all of us can use and enjoy. I absolutely love it.
But with that said, as I've gone deeper into this community, I've come to notice what I believe to be a major issue that is holding back our beloved little community. The people at the forefront - the ones moving us forward with true innovations that the rest of the industry later adopts (i.e. klipper, mainsail, fluidd, orcaslicer, the ercf / enraged rabbit carrot feeder v2, freecad, stealthchanger, the voron tool changer, tradrack, type things) - are not being compensated for their work.
I wrote this from the heart, and know that I was just as guilty as any of us. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized we need to change it. So, to be the change I wish to see, I made donations to Voron Design, Nadir, OrcaSlicer, Klipper, and Mainsail before requesting that you guys do the same.
I hope you'll take the time to listen to the argument I have to make, and whether or not you agree, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. I read them all, and try to respond to as many as I can.
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I've designed a couple of popular props and shared them freely on the biggest 3d printing file sharing sites.
My reward was that these designs ended up on Etsy with people claiming they designed them...
yeah that's fucked
People will absolutely steal others' hard work for a buck
@@flioink Contact Etsy.
That’s awful.
The shear amount of designs I've seen at markets that I KNOW are not for commercial use (because I'd love to print and sell them myself) is sickening. I've also had a couple of vendors come to me telling I'm doing it wrong... Sign up for a designer's Patreon download what I need and then cancel and re-sign up in a few months, rinse and repeat. A lot of this hobby has to do with the honor system.. and there are a lot of dishonorable people out there :( The people who are doing what is truly the hard work do deserve compensation and respect and acknowledgement for their work.
Same, i have 100's of designs over the 10 years that i haven't published because i noticed i didn't any credit from some i did upload and were copied. I still upload good simple things that i really don't mind if people copy without attribution
Keep in mind, the only reason we can even have any fun with 3d printing is the fact that the patents Expired some time ago, and we were finally allowed to do anything in that area. If not for the patents held hostage by singular companies we could have it already evolving for the last 25 years.
True. I'm not advocating patents. Just advocating supporting people so they can generate even MORE awesome open source work.
@@thenextlayer We get that but for you to protect your intellectual work you'd have to patent it especially if your livelihood depends on it.Last thing you'd want is Creality to make copies of your projects
Yeah, we need patent reform. 5 years is perfectly adequate to recoup the costs without long term rent seeking.
@@NihilisticZebra Why not ? The Voron team was at worse indifferent if not happy to see that Sovol made a v2.4 clone. If push comes to shove, you make it under a license like GNU GPL that forces them to also make their stuff open source or even CC NC which forbids commercial use. Patents for the sake of "protection" in a field that is being made and unmade by open source is a shit take, if they can make your stuff better than you can, then they should make it because it benefits everyone.
@@NihilisticZebra Patents do not protect you. If, for example, Creality makes a copy, the patent office will not go to Creality and say “You can't do that”. You have to pay a lawyer to sue Creality for patent infringement and that can take a long time and be very expensive. And if you don't do that, the patent expires.
The only ones who benefit from patents are big companies who can afford a lawsuit.
thank you very much for the video and for linking our donation platforms! we have already received a few donations!
Awesome, I'm so glad! I've also become a Patron. Thank you for all you guys do for the community!
Considering Voron is a free project the “customer service” the dev team provides on discord is insane. Even the community support is insane on discord. Better than any company can or will provide.
That being said I’ll be making a donation to the team this week.
I've just built my first Voron. I cannot believe the quality of the machine, the design, the documentation, and the support. And all for free.
My biggest complaint are the companies which openly (no pun intended) violate open source license requirements for closed products. Anycubic is known to do this (KobraOS). It companies want to build on the backs of open source products, thats completely fine as long as they conform to the license requirements.
Thanks shouting for open source projects! Glad LDO is doing right support to them. ❤
You guys set an amazing example for all companies to follow!
I like the idea, now everyone should take this and also start donating to the FreeCad project so we can get a free and open source alternative to Fusion and Solidworks so we can keep creating the designs we print.
Good Idea. I just created a Libera Pay Account to donate on a regular basis to FreeCAD.
Freecad is so backwards feeling composted to Fusion that I'm not sure the developers care about ease of use. Tried it for a few hours a few months ago and it was hell. AND WHY ISN'T THERE A GRID?!
Onshape exists.
@@agaminbear9766 and everything you make is public property. It's a fun ToS
@@ThisisDD There's a grid, it's on the Draft workbench.
Yes they care but its architecture is impeding things, it sort of grew from the toolkit outwards when it didn't know what it wanted to be yet.
Now it sort of knows what it wants to be but how many years a redesign might take, who knows, it's an insane ton of work.
Well said! From my 17 years in this industry, I agree that a different structure for this space is needed. When I started back in 2007, I used the Creative Commons Attribution model. This was great because it allowed me to get organic and free advertising for my work and I believe that Open Source license can require this as well, but it may not be enough. My family and my coworkers were trying to force me out of giving things away for free, but I fought this and maintained this for a while. Even patenting is not safe from international parties, so the problem is hard. But the problem is hard finding a solution for software.
Software like GIMP, Inkscape and others are still around, so what are they doing right? Donation? If so, how do all of the developers or members that help build get a distribution of the donations? It would be awesome if there was some kind of disruptive gig style structure for the development of these types of projects.
I am absolutely more than happy to pay for designs I want. I also make sure to make anything I design available and I have a number on thingiverse. Regarding open vs closed source: I have become much more friendly towards proprietary hardware as long as spare parts are easy to source and at a reasonable price. Software however I have to insist on open source. I cannot abide any manufacturer telling me what I am allowed to do on a machine I paid for. If it can do it I want it to be able to do it.
Good points
I spent years of saving to buy a bambulab X1C, and it died after 3 months, apparently its a known fault, the AP board simply died. Even tho they sell most parts on their website, they do not sell the AP board which is the one i need. the reason being the firmware and sn is DRM locked.
As a designer who has only recently put out a paid STL package I've found that designing something you plan on monetizing also motivates you to elevate the design further and finish it completely with instructions, and assembly videos. With free designs I'm not willing to make an assembly video or thoroughly test them or even keep track of the files. So I don't mind or see an issue with charging for all of that extra tedious work that I would likely otherwise not do. I also thought of doing modular designs where the base model is free, but with the option of paid upgrades and add-ons sort of like a free game with in-game purchases. Designers could also start using dual licenses and outlining mod agreements where the full model is copyright protected but the components are parts friendly and individual parts public domain so that other designers could modify parts, create their own add-ons and even sell them either for full profit or have a percentage go to the original creator or have the original creator sell them for a commission or whatever
You are extremely correct here. I designed software solutions for machine operators who had a wide range of skill levels. The machines ran 24x365, except for maintenance outages. Unexpected downtime costs thousands of dollars a minute.
My supervisors never understood why it took so long for me to release a project, but it was because once I developed the basic functionality I would go back and make sure the operations could not break the solution.
That process took three are four times longer than building the basic functionality. Not to mention you had to guess what silly ways an operator would try to operated the solution.
At the same time when a solution was rush to the operating floor and the operators had trouble, supervision questioned why it wasn't safeguarded against.
We called it making the solution ID107 proof.
P.S. - I use the term solution because the solutions included graphical interfaces and hardware, as well as software.
Couldnt agree more with this comment 💯💯
Oooo I like the modular idea. Let consumers test the product and pay for add ons. Not all designs are great and not all print well. It’s good to get an idea of what you’re buying before spending money on it.
I completely agree with you . I donated to repetier when I used to use it. Since I bought a bamboo lab products I use their slicer. I have donated here and there when I felt I have used their product enough or their design enough that warranted it. So I really liked your video. But the question I have is how much did you donate now that you have this Epiphany in this video based on the the usage of orcas slicer you have been using to monetize your Channel I'm not attacking you, I am just trying to see where your level of commitment to your video as you want us as a community to commit it
Similarly, I prefer using paid models over free. You can often simply feel that there was more effort put into it, and I generally had less problems with them. If I can just download something, slice it with default settings and get a working piece on the first print and without much tinkering, then the designer definitely deserves to be compensated for his time as he had saved a lot of my time and material
Thanks for watching. I'd really love to hear your thoughts. Am I way out of line here? Or do you agree that something must be done? Let me know. I read every comment, and reply to as many as I can...
The problem is the flipside, where honest, passionate and personal messages of appreciation get demoted to something lesser than "paid appreciation", something that's also been pushed onto us here as "superthanks" and messages only being read by members vs. regular subscribers. In a community built around sharing, it'd be more beneficial if people valued donating work-work efforts for free over regular, paid contributions. You can't fix abusive behavior by evangelizing a capitalist mindset either (which at its core is opportunistic and leads to more assertiveness ("I'm supporting you, now implement that feature, or else")).
It's a society problem. People should feel secure enough and have a social safety net so that they can pursue what they love as a separate activity to their day jobs.
Some countries' cultures (ok, one in particular known with a 3 letter acronym starting with 'U') pay far too much respect to corporate success. Working hard at a day job is their narrative "Dream".... and without that dream, they have a nightmare where they can't even afford to pay for their own health. As a result people work far too hard and lose their sense of balance. Success should not be measured by how much money you can amass.
A social safety net allows culture to progress beyond this state of affairs. Yes, you still need a day job, but your success as a human can be judged on so much more as you potentially have the space and confidence to spend time on what interests you.
Sorry.. Working on open source code is... WORSE THAN SLAVERY... cause coding for free is worse than BEING OWNED LIKE PROPERTY... my gawd man are you a bot?
Also many of us are working 2 or 3 jobs to pay the bills WHILE contributing our free labour to projects we love... That's capatalism right?
I fully support the idea of giving support to the open source projects like this. I almost exclusively have relied on BTT for my controls, and amd happy to learn that they supprort Klipper as I have recently made the switch.
This video brings up my own oversight while looking into building custom printer designs. I now feel like there is plenty of opportunity for others like me to support these projects while providing equipment and services. I would love to be able to open up shop right now and be able to make and do all sorts of things to help.
Maybe a small thought someone else with the time and resources could look into or kick off: A kind of 3d printing marketplace. Not for models and such, but a place for those of us in the business of building and servicing printers to list ourselves and be found by potential customers. Personally, I would be quite interested in signing up for such a service and even paying a fee to be listed.
I appreciate the video and putting your thoughts out there, Jonathan. I think this starts an interesting discussion.
I have a few opposing thoughts that I think you'll find interesting.
Have you considered that not everyone wants to put all their time in a certain project and prefer to have it be a side hussle? And getting paid for a side project also means that people expect you to keep supporting your work. As a software developer, I actually stopped doing private projects because I don't want these kinds of expectations outside of my work.
For me, the (positive) responses of a community can be enough fulfillment and compensation to keep doing what I do.
Users on the other side should not expect everything to be free. I often like to support and donate to projects and creators I like, or buy a DLC of a game I've put way too many hours in.
Another thing, you mentioned an example that you rather have all efforts from many smaller projects being put into a single, proven project (your example used OrcaSlicer), but these smaller projects can contribute in their own way by showing the main project how to solve certain challenges. Then the main project can look at them and implement it in their own way. For this to work, projects need to be open source.
The only motivator to make free things is the gratitude of the users for that, but when it is seen as the norm, it's only a matter of time till you burn out of the lack of positive feedback. As a 3D designer, I've experienced this myself. What is weird is that up until recently, asking for money for your work was often seen as 'greedy', and the lack of support was one of the reasons I took an indefinite break. My work has racked up over 150,000 downloads over the past 6 or 7 years, and of all the thousands of people who downloaded my designs, less than 10 sent me a PayPal donation over that period. I eventually started making paid models, but I still felt bad not publishing at least one free model for each paid one. On the contrary, what Printables did with their Make system was a great decision. It often entices people to not only give back some feedback in regards to printability but to also write a few kind words, which is always welcome.
I was gonna post this as a separate comment but it seems more appropriate here. I love the 3d community from the perspective of how many things are available for free that you know took someone a long time to make. I'm especially grateful when many of the designers print it and show that it works unlike may who will upload an item that will take a long time to print and they add the comment "I never printed this so let me know if it works." It's free so I can't get mad at at the though.
The 3D community though does seem to have a fair share or people who just want everything to be free cause they honestly think that that should be the spirit of the community....or they're just cheap and don't want to pay for anything. It irks me when someone who is doing a project for free gets the shitty comments demanding that they change this or add that and wanting them to hurry up as if they don't have a life outside of that project. Then you have the makers who have a really good design that is very well made and are asking for a small amount but people will still jump all over them and say that it should be free and open source and that they should simply ask for donations and not expect anything either.
Excellent video as always! Hopefully this resonates well with people.
Something that is often not considered, if you build some one’s project and the BOM costs you X $, it costed the creator likely 10x as much just in parts/filament to get it there. Not to mention the time and effort put in to get it there. Personally 8-track has costed me ~1600 man hours and close to 5 digits and it’s almost there… but it requires time and lots of it to get new things working.
I love everyone having access to everything, but contributions help keep pace up. It’s always such a moral boost too.
The opensource community spends a lot of time to create the opensource projects we all use - sure they can do things like creating content on a youtube channel or making merch but I am pretty sure they are spending most of their free time on fixing and updating their projects. Can the community using their projects not use their skills and time to provide these opensource people with the items to make money. So if you can make a T-shirt design for merch or you know how to setup merch websites or know who to contact for merch. Can you not then trade your time to as example the orca slicer devs so that they can make money of merch but they spend their time in improving the software. It doesn't always have to be a donation of money, surely it can be a donation of time and skill too ?
That's a great point, actually. I didn't even think of that. If someone can, say, donate their time to do livestreams or exclusive resources for the designers, that's just as good. Love this comment, thanks for moving the discussion forward
This is an excellent idea
@@pierresmithps I have tried, not very aggressive, to do some trade work. I have an extremely limited 3D Printing budget, but I'd love to contribute more.
I would LOVE an official open source projects toy line! like let me have a linux tux penguin and an orca slicer orca :D would also volunteer designing for such a project :D
I'm totally down to work together to network the connections. I do need help on the web side myself but have a vast network of access to products etc. To share and benefit us all. For the programming side we can most likely use the multiple open source tools available if we connect in one space to cross platform develop as well as develop proper printing profiles for many printers that don't seem to be easily available currently. I like your video and it really is inspiring and a good topic
I love this! You hit the spot...
I just discovered your RUclips channel, and I love the video on 3D print ideas.
I fully agree that the way things are now, doesn't work, sustainably. If people aren't paid for their work, they aren't able, at least in today's society to go as far as they could, and for those who want those free models to print, and want everything for free; they're not willing to pay the price for it, and to be honest, I think they are more greedy than those asking money for what they've spent their time on!
If you're not willing to pay for it, what makes you think you'll value it?
Thank you, for posting this video, it gives me hope 🙂
Jonathan yet another great video, and thanks for the shout out 🙏 like always you are giving back to the community by supporting the creators.
I'm really glad this video was made. I'm really guilty of this as well. I've only been in the game a short time. It's made me really consider this more. Thank you.
QIDI also sponsors OrcaSlicer, but it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the video， Lacks the generosity that open source communities should have.
Your video definitely made me realize how much I, a home user, rely on the hard work of others. I made donations to several of the projects this morning. I am also a software developer, and I am going to do some further research on them and see if I have the knowledge to help out with development.
So thank you for this, it made me think.
Waw... You surprized me. And I started to think about it. I'm a Linux System Admin for more than 15 years now. And this aspect of giving money for some project was already ringing the bell. But when you explained that devs are afraid of asking some donation, I just said 'WTF !' Yes I agree 100%. They just have to ask and explain why they need some help. Some of us will start paying to become a patreon, make some donation. Our community is huge and we can help them to just help us. Honestly, I paused my 3D Printing for almost 2 years now because of technical issues, but in a near future I hope I will restart and at that time I will donate. Thanks for this message !
You're absolutely right and has made me think about how much work people have put into products that I'm using. I will be donating or paying developers from now on. Thank you for this video.
I’m soooo glad to hear… and me too!
There are open source licenses that can limit commercial usage and they could require them to pay for whatever it is. This is one of the better ways to make money but not go close source. Another thing to do is offer pay support options which is often popular in some areas of open source but not sure how useful that would be in the 3d printer space
Oh, that's true. But, if you're building upon a FULL open source license, can you change the license on your derivative work? i.e. if your project is based on ERCF, which is already open source... I'm not sure you can do a "non commercial" license no matter how much you change it... can you? I'm not an expert
@@thenextlayer yes it is an option but I wouldn’t say it’s simple. I work in the tech industry and specifically in open source software and there are multiple examples recently of companies doing this but all were not received well when it happened. You can look up hashicorp changing their licenses across their software though mainly terraform is the most popular and also look at redis. If the project is based on another project then it would depend on what that license is and gets more complicated
@@thenextlayer Depends on where the line is drawn between a derivative work and "new" work. For derivative work it depends on the original license, some licenses allow it (MIT license, public domain, creative commons zero, unlicense) some others don't, typically all proprietary licenses, the GNU GPL which is very well known in the open source software world or the Creative Commons SA. The GNU GPL is well-known for being the foundation of the linux ecosystem which is solidly rooted in free software by sheer inertia from the GPL.
However if the work is "new" (or can be argued as such) you can do whatever the hell you want, but you have to have a solid case and not encroach on any patents.
But that's all theory, in practice there's the question of nationality and enforcement, China is famous for not respecting "western" IP and does not enforce anything on that front, and does not really cooperate with other countries that report exported counterfeit goods, at worst the chinese shop will close its doors and reopen under another name on another platform, or just sell via dropshipping only.
@@thenextlayer If you are forking a project, you usually need to maintain the same licensing. If you are creating related but not derivative work (like a ERCF accessory) it does not. ERCF uses GPL3 license I believe, which does stipulate that any derivative work (forks) use the same license. But if you create an ERCF accessory that isn't a modification of current ERCF components, you can list it under a different non-commercial license.
You can change the license status as long as you are the only GPL license contributor.
Otherwise, It isn't easy.
If others contribute to your project, you have to respect their rights. So, you can only assume the rights given to you by the open-source license.
Up until now I've always offered my models for free, but I always wirte something like "if this model provided value to you, please consider donating a dollar to my paypal" and to this day, in over 8 years, I have not gotten a single donation, even for models i spent way more time on that I would like to admit.
Thank god for prusas and bambus reward system, which at least got me some rolls of filament.
Cults 3D really did a good one in offering paid models but it never took off and got basically rejected by the community. I bought multiple models on their side to help other creators out but at the same time its not feasable to pay for every model you download.
But knowing that not a single person who downloaded my models went through and donated even a single dollar really shows that youre right. We should donate more to makers and open source projects.
I agree. I have posted models that got thousands and thousands of downloads. Out of all those, only one person donated $5 and asked me if he could use one part of one commercially. By starting to upload to makerworld at least I could turn downloads into a new printer to keep me motivated.
At first its fun to see people download tad use your designs, but downloads alone dont replace the filament I spent protyping, the time I invested in fixing and testing the model.
I would not mind an occasional cup of coffee in return for some of my models so to speak.
Good video. This is a problem that the open source software world has faced for a long time. I've been using and in some cases contributing to open source software for ~40 years. I was lucky enough to be paid by a large company to do so for several years.
You hit the nail on the head when you said creators need to offer a way for people to give money. My day job is for a team at a large tech company that provides a tools for readers to give money to support small local new publishers. One of the things that is really clear from that work is that if you don't ask you don't get!
You are 1000% right, Jonathan. And I felt as bad and self-incriminating as you must have felt before producing that heartfelt video. I just donated to Orca (even though I don't prefer it), to Klipper, and to Octoprint. Thank you for adding the links to make this possible. For the price of a spool of filament (that I never think twice about spending), I was able to contribute in a very small way to some of our unsung hero's and included mention of your video in my note to each. I've already paid Josef through my MK3S!
Thank you for the reminder. You're a mensch.
Wow, I’m really touched that the video had the intended impact on you! Thanks for supporting creators!
How did you donate to klipper? their page just lists corporate sponsors?
But that's the typical trajectory of new technologies - enthusiasts doing volunteer work for the community, and then giants arise from that. Home computers were exactly the same.
@@kloakovalimonada You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain…
I feel like in recent history raspberry pi is on this path
This is basically how all of these big cloud companies like AWS has been built.
@@norwik because during the pandemic they had to prioritize business and contracts? Sure buddy.
As an artist, I feel like that's what AI is doing to us too.. scraping every last art piece that humanity has made so that a few can become billionaires.
@@gw1814 yeah no 💩 Sherlock.
And know tell me how they ended up in this situation?
I not saying that Eben Upton didn’t have made great foundation for successful product but without community around it we wouldn’t have raspberry pi 5 or so many projects that evolved into something worth buying and it would ended up being a yet another single board computer.
Let that sink in 😉
Just saying 🤷♂️
I just got into 3D printing and I want to pay for all the free models that I use by also creating and publishing my own free models for everyone to use. Yeah I'd like money for it, but I don't need it and for me it feels like the beginings of the internet.. most people just upload stuff for free to create this awesome community where you can do awesome things even without money.
Fuck patents, just share everything freely so rich people are not able to steal it for themselves. How else we gonna evolve as a society?
Thanks for starting the conversation about this important challenge. I think that you hit the nail on the head when you pointed out that a paradigm shift on what it means to be free and how to demonstrate our respect for it holds the key to changing the course that we are on.
I'm not entirely sold on putting pressure on individuals who do not contribute (monetary or otherwise) to open source projects they find useful. It might turn away people who do not necessarily have the ability to contribute yet. They could, in turn, end up contributing to the project or its community in a big way later if you just let them do their thing without any pressure.
I sort of have been in that situation except my eventual contribution (both time and monetary) wasn't big. I could have easily decided it wasn't for me though if there was any pressure for me to make any sort of contribution at that time.
I'm in the exact same boat, but for VR. I've been developing unique, valuable, and educational VR experiences for years, and still only have 3 Patreon supporters. Yet I keep pushing, because it's fun and I'm passionate about getting the VR content out there for people to enjoy. Bringing back places to visit in VR that don't exist in real life anymore. It would be great to have the support so that I could travel to more places to scan, and dedicate more time to building VR experiences. I have a ton in my head. Thanks for putting out this video, and hopefully people will start to acknowledge and support more original creators who are pushing the technology forward.
I think it's amazing that Gina Häußge is supported by the community enough to be able to work on OctoPrint full time.
I absolutely feel you! As a mostly user of open-source projects, I really, really should support these projects more. So, first of all, thanks for the wake-up call.
But I would like to point out, that you're focussing quite a lot on the creators. And while I, too, think that it would create a much more accepting culture if every single creator had a "donate" or "buy me a coffe" thingy, there is also the other side. Us users and consumers. I don't want to transfer the responsibility to the creators. As with everything big and important, everyone of us needs to change. And even just a little helps. So I think that everyone should actively go and try to support all the things they enjoy or help them. Be it a software, a youtube channel, a podcast, someone creating just the best instructions... Go and try to give them money (or something equivalent) and if you cannot find a way, ask them for one!
I will try my very best to do this myself and started today with another donation to Gina. And thinking of other stuff: this podcast I really enjoy listening to. They should absolutely get some love and money.
As for the "stigma" part: I don't really like that. There are people who cannot afford to support. And this should always be okay. Having food for your family should be more important than supporting your slicer developers. And sadly those stigmata work best with people who already don't have that much.
So my opinion is that everyone whoi can afford it, should support more, just for the sake of doing "the right thing". Not because there's a batch or an award to it.
So again, thank you for this non-technical video! You certainly made my day a little better.
Good video Jonathan :) I appreciate that you included me, my Fenrir CoreXY, and Ymir CrossXY projects which I definitely love doing but I would love to do even more on. I think I have over 700 Fusion 360 hours on Fenrir, and probably around 300-400 on the Ymir project so far, and there will be a lot more on both. And that's not counting the hours thinking about them, doing research etc. Lol.
Thanks for all you do for the community, man! I hope you can one day do it full time!
@@thenextlayer Thank you :) Yeah, hopefully one day. :)
Are you paying for Fusion 360?
I feel many things you talked about. I think it’s a fine line between keeping things open source and free and also have people be paid for their hard work!
I love about the community that there’s so much free stuff for everyone to enjoy but if I were spending tons of time on something I’d also get some money out of it (and maybe go full time and put more effort into the project)
I think the middle ground is where we need to go and as a creator you should talk to community and find a way that works for both sides. If you’re doing good work people are usually happy to pay
Great video!!
I havent been apart of the 3d printing community all that long, but the more i got into building my own printers and using other products etc the more i wanted to give back. I think thats why i spent alot of time on the BTT Eddy guide and put alot of attention into helping develop a new toolhead and probe stuff etc.
The downside is the more attention i give, the more people track me down and demand i practically be sitting around waiting and ready 24 hours a day to help them with firmware issues or updates to CADs etc.
Its a bit of a juggling act. That being said, the community is great, the amount of open source projects out there is great and i can see good things coming.
If you cant donate time or contribute to a project, a cup of coffee goes a long way!! ❤
I am conflicted here, I'm a mechanical designer by trade and a maker/designer/inventor/RUclipsr in my spare time, i want to go full-time on the maker part, but again I'm also aware that turning your hobby into a job can kill the motivation, we make something in our spare time, to make it fun, without deadlines, bosses and so on. so is it worth it?
i have had a donate button on my social medias for years, never got anything in that way, and i get it, because you are right, im not happy asking for donations, i find it weird for different reasons, like, its not that hard the things i do, what do the people get in return, can i even make something just for patrons and so on ... i come from Reprap age (im 42) and i help people all the time, for free, make a quite stl for a random dude, a short video on use of fusion and stuff like that.
but on the other side, i think i have only once donated to a guy that designed a vertical windmill i made a version of, so the culture is not really in me either, and its not the money, i have more that i need, and still i don't see how a donation will help others, well maybe i do, but more i dislike when people say "your support to this channel help me make this happen" because i think, "what, i do most of the same things and pay myself", it's the subscription that gets me most, paying regular for something that is free, seems weird.
but paying one time for something i do alot, i buy woodworking plans, stl files to print, access to online tools and configurators, that works for me.
but you do have a good point, not in the shaming companies or people (yea your ideas where shaming people also, but them not having the mark of a payer)
but the good things were, we overlook the opensauce products that pave the way. like octoprint, voron and so on.
i'll try to donate more, I am sure even if they don't need the money, they will get a moral boost that might turn into something that fuels the passion and makes them continue.
It is true there are people that can create amazing art or have amazing ideas and even make amazing systems but they don't know how to build value in their work. They need to learn how to ask for respect because respect will not come if is not demanded. So I think there should be free level and that should be basic and if someone would like something advanced they need to pay respect and support this creators of important blocks that are making progress in this industry.
you are absolutely right, but you took too long to make your point.I was about to quit the video after 10min. The first 3rd of the video is way to redundant and your message might get lost because of it, which would be a shame cause it's a good message.
I totally agree. Let's start a movement. The community should sponsor a product or software every month
That's what I was thinking. I'll try to budget a few dollars a month and rotate who it goes to. So, Orca one month, Klipper the next, etc. And maybe a portion of that donation budget will be monthly subscriptions to creators who are constantly putting out great products.
Thank you. We are many who don't think enough about this, so thanks for reminding us - with such a well formulated video. I recently donated to OpenSCAD and was appalled to see that I was one of around 230 donators. That's an insanely low number!
I fully support that 3D companies must be more transparent with their donations and support, because it's clear that too many of them don't support anything but themselves.
I´m only 15 but I absolutely love 3d printing! I wanna build a Voron soon and when I do, I will make sure to calculate 30 bucks more to donate to Klipper, Voron and OrcaSlicer! Thank you for this video reminding me of it!
I love designing for 3d printing. I wish I could dedicate my time towards it. I've grappled a bit with the thought of how I could make money from it, to sustain myself. I often think about what I could create, if I could give it the same time and dedication I give to my day job. I work in the video game industry for my day job and have been in it for close to 20 years now. The amount of worlds I've helped craft. I want to bring that to the world of 3d printing.
I hear what you are saying and I fully appreciate what drives it. One thing you have to be very careful of when implementing any of your suggestions around creating that social stigma is that all of your suggestions are catalysts to creating a highly toxic community. This in turn causes contention and the falling apart of the community at large, thus doing more damage to the project that anything else you might have tried ever could. The only solutions that are going to work long term must be based on positive encouragement, and never negative stigma or shaming. Otherwise people will stop participating, and even choose never to get involved to begin with after browsing the community posts or hearing of its reputation. Yes, projects and the people behind those projects need more support. Yes, we need to find ways to do that, but those methods we adopt MUST BE positive encouragement only or you will do more damage than good in the long run.
I just became a member because of this video. This has been a BIG criticism of mine of the ENTIRE open source "community". Communities thrive by supporting each other in practical economic ways. Not just by giving away their labor for free. Too many of the entitled mindset have entrenched themselves in this arena. Demanding of others blood sweat and tears for their own personal gain. Taking advantage of the talent and kindness of great minds. Thanks for this video.
Wow, thank you! Appreciate it, and I assure you that your support of me will go towards featuring MORE open source projects people can support :)
You are 100% right! We also have to think of the burnout that these people will incur by using their "free time" to make something that those of us in this community LOVE so dearly.
So I recently got into the community and picked up my first printer. Of course with that came massive amounts of research because it’s simply the way I am, which in turn has had me come across quite a few of your clips. I am someone who has extremely limited subscriptions and such connected to my RUclips, honestly it’s just something I never did myself and of course should be better about. That being said, this video was spot on and immediately had me pushing the subscribe button to show the small amount of support for someone actually speaking out that has the voice that can reach so many members if this community. It wasn’t just the way you said the things you did, but how you were very tactful about how you approached each level and area of the community and how you articulated your words to make sure you weren’t coming off as attacking or accusing anyone. There is always a way for things like this to be handled, and sadly thing will still probably be taken out of context or assumptions made that were not true, but I just had to let you know I appreciate that you did this and hope that more people can take some steps to at least start to remedy these issues. Open source is absolutely amazing and truly ground breaking, but there are those who take advantage of it and sadly those who don’t receive credit for the massive amounts of time and energy they contribute to projects that make companies millions. I learned a little bit of time after picking up my Adventurer 5m the whole situation with Flashforge and Klipper. As well as the insulting response they then proceeded to do to feign transparency. While I absolutely love my printer, it’s truly disheartening knowing the amount of work that was used and the money I paid for my printer did not go to those creators in any way. Though thankfully, there are ways I can personally remedy that at least in some way myself, it’s still nuts to think of the number of units they have sold and the number of consumers who have zero knowledge of the entire situation as well. Anyways !! Sorry for the ridiculously long winded comment, but thank you again for taking the step forward and making this video, and also for the content you put out that we all get to enjoy and helps me further develop in this community. HAVE A GOOD DAY SIR !!
The entire point of open source and community involvement is nobody is getting paid. if you feel a certain way after completing a project from an open source group that you feel did a good job? Then go donate. BUT the proper thing to do is get involved, participate and give back in the form of time and effort. Iterate a version of your own etc. Even shelved ideas can help others with theirs.
I didn't start supporting creators until just recently because I realize how helpful it can be. I agree that there needs to be a paradigm shift in how we think about all the free things we use.
I must admit, I have been struggling with a tension between my desire to create things that I feel should be free, and my physical needs as human developer and the endless hunger of a complex engineering project like metal and ceramic desktop 3D printing....
its good to see this space getting a little attention.
I will certainly take your advice from the end of the video and be more forward about how much this has cost me, and what its likely to continue to cost if it is to be completed.
with peace and love, i'm going to say that, yes, your heart is in the right place. but as someone who's been involved in the open source community since probably before you were born, i'm not sure you really understand it. i too am a business owner who is self employed, and i understand the value of work, but if the goal is to make money with your time then start a business. i'm totally on board to starting a merch shop as most of them are print on demand and have little to no investment cost. but that's not the point of open source. i'm in the tech field and make money with my time, but i also dedicate many hours into passion projects and helping with development on other open source projects and ask for nothing in return. in short, i think you really need to sit down and think about what open source means to you. and if it's 'how can i make money or support my family with it?' then you need to sit and think about it longer. i'm not going to tell you what open source actually IS all about, because you need to make that journey yourself. on a side note, not everyone CAN afford even a dollar to donate. some people have to scrounge just to get a used 3d printer or the parts for it. so i don't really agree with you making statements that people can at least afford to 'give' when many can't. that's also why libraries and maker spaces exist for offering the opportunity to people who can't afford to have access to these services. i try to support my favorite makers on patreon as best i can by at least giving 1$ to each one every month if they have that level available. but if you try to support 100 makers that's 100$ every month and some months even i have to dial back on a couple of them for a couple months. in any case, i appreciate where your heart is and by taking the time to mention the topic and some of these projects you've already probably supported them more than you know. cheers!
My opinion is Ko-Fi and patreon to the rescue.
If every user contributes just a dollar a month for the projects they love, then 10k users supporting a dozen projects they love, it would foster so much innovation.
I imagine that another way of paying can scare people. It does me. Ko-Fi? Patreon?
I just stick to Paypal. And even with that, sweat breaks out when I donate to a shelter. Or when I touch the wrong button in my games.
Like I'm going to be scammed or something. I don't mind paying but I'd like to be sure it's safe.
I think you are voicing what many have been thinking for some time, thank you for saying it out loud
I'm absolutely stunned by some of these infos and completely on your side of this. I hope this video really blows up and maybe you could convince other creators to do similar videos to make the community more sensible to this topic.
You and me both! and thanks for the kind words
This is right on point. If you can’t make enough off of what you do then it doesn’t get your full attention. In this context the stuff that the open source community has then is no where even close to what it would be if it was something that people paid for.
I find this video fascinating, because... I just got my first 3D printer and am currently trying to wrap my head around this whole 3D printing community / industry. Beyond all the terminology, jargon, and fundamental technical understanding that I'm trying to learn and get up to speed on, there's also all the basic etiquette & ethical considerations that have been confusing me, but this video brings me a lot more clarity in that department. Or, maybe not "clarity" but an understanding that the etiquette & ethical considerations are not only unclear and murky to me as a newb in this world, but also to longtime "veterans" of 3D printing.
There seems to be a lot of overlap and back and forth between the open-source / info-sharing view of the world and the capitalist / entrepreneur view of the world within the current 3D printing community, and it's interesting. From the outside looking in, it feels like seeing a bunch of goats and coyotes all mingling together inside one enclosed pen.
First time on this channel, came from youtube recommendations. Not gonna lie, from the title, I thought this will just be a video whining about some kind of minor issue and making it sound big. I thought I'd fast forward a bit to hear what it's about and close it in a few seconds, yet here I am, after I watched the whole thing from start to finish, and I 100% agree with what you said. Even your recommendations on how to change this situation are really on point. Thanks for making this video.
This video is great. I know that I haven't done a great job at contributing to the projects that I use, but specifically for 3d printing I haven't used much yet. One thing that I know most open source teams will say is that even if you can't put in money for some reason, helping with documentation, development or even just reporting bugs is often very helpful for the overall health of the project. I absolutely plan on donating to the projects that I use, especially as I just completed my first and not likely to be my last voron build.
I am still very new to printing but when I figure out what I need to use and get enjoyment from this as a hobby for myself and my daughter I will more then gladly contribute what I can.
You present some very interesting ideas which I wholeheartedly support. My current situation, being retired and living on a totally insufficient and fixed income, restricts me from monetarily supporting development in the 3D printing community. It is frustrating and unfortunately not conducive to moving forward with my desire to support the 3D printing community. I am limited to liking and subscribing videos, if that really helps. I urge everyone who can to pitch in, even a token amount, to those who dedicate their time and efforts in moving the 3D printing community forward. Thank you to those intrepid individuals and best wishes.
You can contribute in lots of ways that aren’t monetary, such as helping out on discord!
Yeah, as @thenextlayer says, there's a lot of ways of contributing. For me and my projects, it's not mainly money that motivates me, but the support, enthusiasm and interest in my projects that keeps driving me forward, but the money helps in regards to getting the parts I need for the projects, filament, keeping my printers running etc.
Really enjoy this take, had to watch it and go meditate on it at first because initially I didn’t agree. Being newer to this 3d printing thing one thing we constantly run into is people trying to patent things and models that are and have been out there in the market for ever. But I also agree there needs to be a model where creators can do what they do best and create
As someone who has designed several items, it is very rewarding to see people download my work. I have included a Ko-fi link on my pages for donations and tips, but it seems to deter people, rather than attract. At the same time I am guilty of not donating as well.
Exactly. I think this needs to be a major CULTURAL shift in our community, more than anything. I've talked to a lot of people in preparation for this video, and most of them tell me that even though they have a donation link, nobody donates. That has to change... b/c we're all "willing" to donate (as you'll see in the other comments)... we just don't, because our culture makes it really easy and comfortable to forget.
@@thenextlayer You have some very good points, however I think there are a lot of open-source developers who do their projects for as you said the love of the project and to have new challenges. But, I also feel you are making a very valid point, if you develop and sell a commercial product that relies on a OS project or needs an OS project to function then you are hounor bound to support those OS projects.
The Voron kits are a good example they would have no business without the Voron project, there should be an expectation that a percentage of their profits should be paid into that project so the next versions can be developed.
Equally as users if we use open source projects or designs and we find them useful we should help fund those projects, other wise like so many others they will wither and die.
This was a video that needed to be made, we all need to reflect on our own actions and maybe its time to name and shame the commercial companies who are not supporting the open source community developers.
You're maybe "guilty" of not donating but you've also made free models, right ? If everyone did that we wouldn't have that debate, you're fine :)
@@4nto418 I do have free designs, I don’t create many, as I’m still learning CAD. There are only 2 that I hold back and would like to charge for. The reason for that is that it is targeted to a specific group of individuals and if it was released into the wild, someone with more time on their hands would start making these in bulk, making a profit off of them, without me seeing a dime. I did have them posted on cults3d for a short time as a paid design, but they don’t collect or pay taxes, which puts that all on me. I have yet to find another way to list it would be better. I don’t have enough designs to warrant a store on like Etsy, so I don’t know what to do with it. Currently I don’t have enough spare cash to turn on the printer and test the prints I currently have. Half the time I have to release my designs into the wild without printing them myself, so can’t really justify changing someone for it. Rambling post, but it’s just to say it’s complicated out here for small designers. We stand on the shoulders of so many to achieve what we do, but still don’t know what to do with it all.
I am retired and on a limited income, but I donate for stuff I actually use. I agree in a culture shift toward donation. I disagree with commercializing the community so that part time contributors can make greater and better things. That is like taking free and open source Linux and turning it into Red Hat at best or Windows at worst.
I think the sim racing community does this in a very nice way. Many things are free but if you want to push things to the limit you have to pay. Some of these mods charge and i happily pay it.
I do think the answer is to be more out there or even kind of paywall better tutorials or something. Klipper is a fucking fantastic software i tried for a little bit and didn’t even know their patreon was so low. and companies should also be ashamed.
Good video!
I've been following you for quite a while, and another fantastic video. I do however have one comment regarding creating the stigma. Specifically I am talking about that for instance on the Voron discord, there could be people having a different color or whatever. The problem isn't that it shows people that can afford to pay, but don't. No, the problem is that some people, like you mention students, of elderly, or just people that are out of luck in life and go paycheck to paycheck and got a second hand 3d printer from someone - if more and more people start paying, then it will quite quickly become that the non-paying color is the "poor person color". That creates not the stigma or "could pay but isn't", but "poor person". I bet some would just quit the Voron discord, effectively making the Voron discord an elitist club of "have money". Don't get me wrong, I really loved the video and agreed to most parts of it, including putting up donation links, extra material on Patreon, etc. Another thing that I'm not really that happy with is the reason of the donation. If the donation has a progress meter, then it becomes a "must". When I pay a donation somewhere (I have in the past and will do it again), I do that for the work that has been done, not paying for what will or may come in the future. If I pay something that makes the donation meter go from 25% to 26%, then that obligates the developer, as we are effectively pre-paying for development. Without the donation meter, it's simply a donation, but with the meter it is paying for work done, and some parts of the world actually have different rules for donations that are paying for something specific, as opposed to just a donation. Also, without the donation meter, if someone just decides to stop the project, they are not obligated to release anything afterwards, but what if the meter is at 26% - should they ... repay the people donating? TL;DR: Great video! Agree with most! Keep up the good work!
Open source was NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE A BUSINESS MODEL. Some things are not about money. It really shouldn't be that hard to understand.
Somebody had to say it, youre right
True; but also, Open Source was never supposed to not be a business model. If people can earn their living and still contribute to the community, then why not?
This is spoken like someone who has never committed to open source themselves. No some things are not about money. However, a persons time is needed regardless to move projects forward. If an Open source package becomes popular enough and people rely on such a package, It effectively becomes a full time job for at least one person. Now they have to worry about working on a project and working their day job. Maintainer burnout is a real thing and has been a huge issue in long lived projects.
@@vanmuscari3569 That makes no sense.
@@ernststravoblofeld What doesn't make sense?
Great points being made here. As a creator myself, I know how frustrating it is when other people hijack your hard work, take credit, and then get paid while you get nothing. It's happened to me a lot. People who are innovators deserve recognition.
My view, coming from another group that died (3D printed ecigs).
These projects you mention all suffer the same flaw, on the ecig community DIDN'T before the powers that be demonized ecigs and added shipping restrictions and such.
I joined many 3D printed ecig group buys back in the day. The designer (I was one) was able to contact the vendors that made the PCB's (Evolv and YiHi primarilly) to get group discounts, then McMaster and others for hardware. Since most hardware can 100+ a box and you used 5.... This let us pool the money and as a group more easily afford the things we wanted to build.
The designers or others would get all the stuff together (we all paid various ways) and included not only moey for flat-rate boxes to us, but extra for the time, effort and designs (HINT... totals were posted so everyone saw who hadn't paid yet, and why orders weren't placed, so math made figuring out "tips" easy.
Instead, in 3D, I've even kept my distance recently as the price of boards went up, BigTree is charging a pretty good amount per and if you just want 1 to play with.... NO GO. Back in the day, I got YiHi boards FREE, Evlov...FREE, all I had to do was prove I was designing. That 1 aspect. Second aspect.... I got paid from some companies for making a model based on their hardware.
THIS is where I'd suggest change starts. If programmers and slicers don't talk to a board..... it dies, the saem as chips that suched never got MOD's drawn up around them.
As it is, the RUclipsr selling the board get's his/hers, but the people that made that board wanted, desired, easy to use as a printer....
Ultimatly ecig ended up the same way.... too many of us got cloned by the country now making everything and without the little money that made ir worth hours after work... We stopped.
3D is there now, where cheap knock off beds are sold on Amazon to the point those give the original a bad name. Knowck off hot ends and the like take away money from creators, eventually those creators will also stop. Consumers know this, deep down, but they will always buy the cheaper item, working against their own interests. Far as I can see on Amazon, with fake rewie scores and clones, all round crappy products.... the DIY aspect of 3D is in trouble, a lot of trouble. Open souce let cut rate scammers make crap, RUclipsrs helped em sell it.... There's you 3 that need to work together.... Designers, RUclipsrs and vendors. If one sells out, roast em online. Stay honest and work together, there's home.
Donating just $5 to your favorite project will make a difference for that project if everyone did it. Some of the projects I love have patreon or the like style support options and I happily use them. I enjoy their service and can donate monthly without having to remember to do so. In total I send out about $100 a month to a handful of projects/creators, and it's still less expensive than the cable television I haven't had for almost 20 years.
As a retiree, living on a fixed income, I do donate what I can to the "resources" I use most, when I can. But most times, I just do not have the funds I would like to have to help others.
I'm a retiree trying to build the next great thing. It's extremely hard to get the funds to build something (I can't even afford the better printer I need), and I'm sure if I get successful enough it's going to be copied so much I won't see a dime, and I'm still wracking my brains on how to make money at it. I have some ideas because there's a long tail to what I'm designing, but the core should always be free.
Ender 3 is a cheap printer and can print fast and with decent quality, very near to Bambu printers. But I do not know your situation. May be you print on a plywood printer build on bolts from hardware store and furniture guides. Then I guess Ender 3 is the printer you want and cannot afford. This is understandable.
@@enosunim I have a used TronXY X3s bed slinger that I have repaired to functionality but it's slowly wearing out. I used it to iteratively design mechanical parts and enclosures. It's done a good job designing my scaled down test prototype. Now I have to work on my full sized model and this machine is wholly inadequate.
I want something much faster, and I also need a minimum 500mm bed to fully realize the design, so I've got my eyes on a RatRig that I can't afford.
Oh Tronxy is for real men, I have one with 300x300 in a box, will tinker with it when I will retire I guess. I heard people just screw it to a brick wall to stop it bouncing all over the place.
Yes if you need large bed it is some core XY machine for sure.
@@enosunim Yeah my biggest complaint with the bed slinger type is the 2 Z motors get out of sync if you breathe on them. Lucky for me most of my designs are wide but only a few cm tall. There's so much tallness on this thing but it's barely useable.
You've done an excellent job of articulating exactly how I feel about almost all open source projects, not just in the printing space. There's been quite a few licensing changes from projects such as Terraform, Redis and the ELK stack because hyperscalers like Amazon etc just take open source projects and make an absolute bucketload of money without contributing anything back.
Thank you for speaking up, I'm so happy to hear someone else think that and say it out loud - I'm convinced about open sourcing everything I do and rely on tons of open source tools to make them, and I want to donate to those who made these tools as soon as I can afford to. I'm really glad to hear this encouragement from someone with a larger audience, kudos.
Thanks for a much needed wakeup call. Sent mainsail a coffee after watching this. I frequently throw 3 euros worth of filament in the bin from calibration prints and temp towers. why shouldn't I throw 3 euros the way of the developers. Unfortunately most of the other opensource developers don't have a ko-fi, gofundme or patreon so I don't have any way of directly supporting them
never mind, just seen some links in the description. Klipper, mainsail and fluidd all donated now :) thanks
I just entered the sport and the open source community is already vastly better and more beneficial to my experience than the large company whose printer I bought. Thank you for this insight.
We have been there, where the hardware and software for 3D printers only came from companies that paid salaries to their staff.
That was before the 3D printing patents did run out.
The result was, that more or less no private person could afford a 3D printer, because they costed ten thousands to hundred thousands of dollars.
All right, it's time to find a good balance.
Just donated to the Orcaslicer project. Have many bills to pay so klipper and mainsail will be next! Thanks for calling out this issue!
One really cool way is to let subscribers vote on a few options to decide the project's next upgrade and give them early access to it.
WE NEED A CULTURE OF SUPPORT AND DONATIONS.
The issue here is that nobody donates, even when they do have the spare money.
People are selfish, we need to teach that donating to engineering projects like these is the way to progress, that also is the way to say thank you.
I've had the same thoughts as you, that these projects deserve donations, that they deserve support.
So far I have just been searching for ways to make money so I can donate to them, I want to make my own business so I can be able to donate to those projects that need so much support. I'm still very young and live on a low-income country but I'm working on it.
But the best answer is to find a way to make people more willing to donate to these projects.
Hey Johnathan, this is a great video and you're right, I haven't donated nearly enough back to this community that I've been in since April. The few that I've supported I've found on Thangs but that's because I want to use their designs and the like. I had no idea about all these other things that folks have like Klipper or even Orcaslicer. I totally didn't even think about that. So I'll be throwing out some funds their direction as well. You entire video is reminding me of a reel I saw recently about homeless though. A man was walking around a city with a sign handing out flyers saying "F*** the poor" and was hated by nearly everyone who saw it. He followed that up with the exact same looking sign that said, "Help the poor" and no one batted an eye. I see a lot of relation here. So I'm just saying that this is just the right video to call a lot of people out.
I agree.
It was Gina's big donate button and the very well explained reason for it that first got me thinking about this. She got my first ever lifetime subscription.
Then I immediately switched to Klipper/Mainsail and don't use Octoprint anymore.😂.
I can tell you from personal experience that the amount of compensation I've received for my OctoPrint plugins is nowhere close to the amount of time and work I've put into them.
Well said. I am guilty of this, using and not giving, I'm going to change this now. Some ppl in this world struggle to even afford a very low end printer and they should feel no guilt in using with little or no donation. Thank God I am not in that income bracket and I will make an effort, starting today I will give more. For instance I use and love Orca and haven't given at all to them, I'm going to change that today.
Props on the vid. Seems like a very hard one to make.
I was constantly flipping between "stop treating the devs/contributors as children" and "do you just want cooler stuff so you want them to be better funded?"
One should be rewarded for their work IF they want to be.
But hours of contribution and dedication might not qualify as work to some of the developers.
Man it's confusing haha.
You've hit the nail on the head, this video is so well said, I want to make this my full time career, I have so many ideas that I know would benefit greatly to those that seek 3d printing as a means to manufacture their products. But ultimately I don't have the time to build out my ideas for commercial gain if I know they are not going to be profitable, so I just keep to myself and use for my own benefit. Yes it may seem selfish, but I only have 24 hours in a day, a full time job, a full time business, and a being a father and husband to provide for a family. Exhuasting myself bringing my ideas to the world will only bring me personal satisfaction, and unfortunately that doesnt pay the bills.
THIS! I hope you’ll set up a Patreon or something.
Love the video, im pretty new to the printing community but was amazed at the free. Like you said on the 11min(ish) area. I think and again its my opinion but this is a generational thing. Us that are older 40+ typically grew up without the tech that is soooo abundant and free or cheap. We knew what it was like to not have that ability. Now thats not bad or good but its just different. Im with you on something i immediately thought coming into this as a hobby. And its the development side "ie." CAD/CAM. the design side. If it was cheaper for proper software more could learn the creative side and i dont think would have much problem with paying for other files. Lots of people who, me included, dont have the education on fusion or whatever so its hard to justify the price tag for that stuff. But i do because i want to and am able to. Some are not. Besides my process in this is there to help my fabrication side of my business which is metal and welding. But another thing i think would be awesome for people like me....that value yalls videos for the knowledge and content. I think these others you mentioned that are up and coming or mi g ht not be big would be collab videos showing off or talking about the new stuff. Get others to see the people and companies behind these. Im all about the little guys and trying stuff that might not be the mainstream. Lots are, but might not know about them because they only get mentioned here or there and then its out the window. But thats just my two cents. Love the videos man keep it up!
i totally agree with supporting those open source projects, and people that want to do it as their fulltime work should be able to do it
BUT you have to be carefull to not force people that want to continue doing it as a hobby to feel obligated to invest more hours into a project than they are comfortable with, people that want it to stay their hobby do it for fun, and so it should stay fun for them (they still doesn't mean they shouldn't be payed for their work, they still deserve compensation for their work) and not being foreced to do something also gives them freedom to choose if they want to rather spent time with their family to do so, and if they want some "alone time" they can invest it in a project
or tl;dr with supporting a project financially comes for (some) people the entitlement of (faster) progress, that should ne kept to a reasonable amount (i mean being like "I payed for that, where is my update, i want it now" isn't grat, but also getting like a lot of cash withe no progress in sight is also not good, but then donating is still voluntary)
One big issue i have with the video is, that at 11:27 you say "you don't advocate publicly shaming people and people should never feel pressured to donate or contribute if they don't see value in a given project"
but then at 12:08 you suggest people have to post a screenshot of a donation when requesting a serial number for a voron
that feels a bit like "publicly shaming people" on the discord and "Forcing people to pay" so they don't get shamed, also appears a bit like virtue signaling like "look at me i donated to support that project"
or at 12:22 "a special role in the discord for supporters to apply social pressure to those asking questions without that role"
in my oppion those supporter roles purpose should be to give appreciation to supporters and not shame non supporters, and shaming people for not supporting the project that have questions is in my opinnion also not great, some of them are new to the subject, they don't know if it is something for them, maybe they don't even feel like a part of the community yet
shaming them for not supporting them may deter them from being part of the community and it feels like a bit of gatekeeping
keeping it a "shamefree" "non gatekeeping" community is healthier for most people involved and people that see value in a community feel more insentive to support such projects than people that feel forced by strangers to pay for something that is advertised as free
DAmn that was eye opening, thanks! I'll surely start making donation
I am super new to the hobby, so far I haven’t printed anything that either I have not designed or paid for. I will have to learn more about the software and hardware side of things to know who to give credit to. Look forward to learning more and “doing the right thing” to try to make a difference in the hobby. I think that discussions about this kind of thing are important.❤
5:33 It doesn't make you a greedy capitalist, if anything quite the opposite. Fair compensation for workers, labor surplus value, ethical attribution, those are all very leftst spectrum things. It'd be greed on part of corporations to expect you to work for "exposure" or free, no pay, and work harder extracting the value out of you. Just look at the great resignation backlash after pandemic. People are finally learning what labor value really means.
New patron here. Fairly new to 3D printing. I totally agree with the points you make and hope more people will contribute to those building the foundations we all enjoy or in some cases rely on. I do have a comment on the video, though. I joined your Patreon because you do an outstanding job of making this all very approachable. This video...not so much. The somewhat click-baity title with no indication of what it's really about likely casts a wider net to bring in more viewers. But you scripted for a very sophisticated portion of the community. In this video, unlike most of your others, you mention and talk about the problems that all these projects are facing without any context. What are these things? What the heck's a Voron? I felt that even just a sentence or clause for each project ("Voron-the blabetybla that lets you ...") would have helped me better understand the nature of the larger problem. Full disclosure: I'm an X1 Carbon rider, so most of it seemed like the more fidgety, kitty stuff I wouldn't deal with anyway. So yeah...just my thoughts on that.
This got me, I make use of Orca everyday for business use so thought it was only fair to sponsor the project
Love seeing Nadir in this video, that guy is a champ and makes such amazing mods.
Agreed.
For things like Klipper, it makes financial sense to send a small amount of the sale as a donation to the main project. Without Klipper being free, your alternatives become expensive software, out-of-date software, proprietary software, or just plain bad software. By supporting Klipper, you ensure that one of the cheapest and most reliable software that exists currently for this use case, is improved further.
I ❤it! Nicely said and you definitely gave me something to think about. I agree 100% and have decided to regularly support people developing the tools I love. Thank you again. 😊👍🏼
I whole heartedly endorse your video's sentiment & intent. I fully support Open-Source foundation principles & ethics. Over the years, I contribute to small projects when I can. Patents are important, but they have been abused in many cases over the last 100 years, usually when multinational corporates swallow small or medium companies. One of my daughters works in gaming software, usually for indy game developers. But eventually they get offers they cannot refuse, which you cannot blame them of accepting. This normally ends with the original developers leaving when as the environment that enabled them to create the software they develop disappears.
I think that donating should always stay voluntarily but I do agree with you. I myself have made costs in maintaining my own project and I've also put in a lot of time in Happy Hare development (though not by a long shot as much as Mogieuk). I think that contributing to the community can be done by donating, but also by putting in the work. I think the discord role could be a good take on things. People pay for skins all the time because "What's 2 bucks anyway and it looks fun". Therefor I don't think it's unwillingness to donate but just a hassle to do so. For reference: My video has 11k views with the project having at least a hundred builds by now without a single donation. I'm not begging for it but to be honest, I did secretly expect a couple of dollars...
Thanks for the video!
Bingo… ERCF and happy hare should have a Patreon… and everyone working on it should get a portion relative to their contributions
@@thenextlayer I mean. I wouldn't say no to that. 😜
It's 'open source'. It's in the name. The market will decide if open source is the way forward.
Thank you Jonathan for this video. I agree 100%, that's the reason I've been donating $5 recurrently every month until now. But you're absolutely right: I forgot that klipper and mainsail are also open source software that I use with my printer every time. So, due to your pladoyer, I will start and donate them $5 each every month as well. And of course slicers, but there it's a bit more complicated, since I switch between prusa and superslicer (oh yeah, I still like it, although it's a bit behind, but I'm confident for it to catch up), and sometimes orca (not so fond of it, never got used to the UI). So I think my choice here goes to superslicer (a pity you didn't list it as well), just so it has a better chance to catch up. :)
I designed some mods for the FLSun V400 (Euclid probe adaptor with an automated arm to deploy it just like some corexy printers have, an status led adaptor for the toolhead, the needed software mods too...), and I posted some of those ideas on early stages on several forums. I got many DM's DEMANDING the source files and the CAD files, telling me that the 3D printing community's spirit is based on that and telling me I don't belong to this community if I did otherwise. Never shared or published those mods again, even though I finished them and got them working on my machine just because of the frustration those DM's made me feel.
Yeah, I have had the same happen, people demanding source files, I have also have people tread me like I was owing them stuff where they demand a certain change by a timeline, like !I need XY part to work on my printer, have it done tomorrow!" really kills the joy.
I watched this in hopes of the host addressing his own mistakes with contributing to the community. I only watch sparingly because of his continued innuendo jokes that keep me from sharing their videos with my daughter. Its commendable to promote supporting open source by at least tipping when you use open source software. This channel did a fantastic job speaking for 20+ minutes about something important to this community without one single ugly joke. We want more videos without stupid jokes please.
I'm here to learn and grow. I hope people like this channel realize they can get more followers by also growing and moving beyond immature jokes.
Support open source. Be kind to everyone.
Love this as a discussion. As you said, there are successful open source projects that have found ways to monetize. That of course comes with risk and investment. So if someone has a great idea and wants to do something like have a support model or whatever, or priority contributions it can work.
It’s not wrong - it’s choice. Sometimes a hard choice. People giving vs keeping it behind a gate is that choice that is the open source community IMO.
Again, great topic and some interesting ideas.
I personally think one of the easiest ways to have an open source project have good incentives to pay is "Pay for the build, or get it free if you know how to compile it yourself". Software stays completely open, but if people don't have the knowhow or the time to compile- they can get it that way.
Love this video. I recently bought an A1 Mini and as something at an act of penance, I sent $5 to voron. I’m not particularly interested in building a voron, but I recognize how important those projects are to me in an indirect way.
I'm kind of amazed how many people think everything should be free. I once read a review of an app on the Apple App Store that said something like, "I don't know. $3.99 seems like a lot." This, for the one-time purchase of a quality app that somebody certainly spent months creating. So I like your idea to normalize the notion that people should contribute to projects from which they receive value. This is also one of the reasons why I've chosen to buy Prusa printers, because they support open source.