3 ms·

I'm sympathetic to their goals. They want to make sure all of the hardware and software is open for their customers to be able to arbitrarily examine and modify

I'm sympathetic to their goals. They want to make sure all of the hardware and software is open for their customers to be able to arbitrarily examine and modify, which is laudable and is very much the sort of thing that 3D printer customers care about. But also they're desperately searching for a way to research and design new printers without some other company immediately selling exact clones of their devices. A "here's all the plans, do whatever you like...except making and selling our exact device" license seems like an extremely fair compromise, especially compared to the default choice of "stop being open to make cloning harder." Comments are right that bans of that sort are pretty much definitionally not "open source," and Prusa would be wrong to use that term if they went down this path. I think, though, that there should definitely be a space for companies that want to preserve their copyright but also be very open with their hardware and software. It'd just need a different word.

pen2l 4y ago
Indeed, a variety of open source models have been able to co-exist: There's the sqlite3 type of "it's all open source but you can't contribute to the code"; the conventional community-led copyleft GNU type of open source that gave us Linux; the company-led which creates things like Docker and k8s; and there is dual-licensing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing).
glenndebacker 4y ago
I don't think this has a lot to do with the open source spirit but the fact that competitors like Bambulab are eating their lunch. That seems to rub them the wrong way. I also see a lot of FUD from the Prusa community regarding that particular brand, where you can't claim it's a 1:1 Prusa clone. Even the remarks from Josef Prusa about speed or noise are targeted to the X1C or P1P printers while if you want to talk about clones and copying there are brands out there that fits the bill better e.g. Sovol 06. The part where you can only sell "consumables" that must be verified by Prusa also has zero to do with open source or freedom.
- koffiezet 4y ago
  I think their main problem is that regarding the i3 design, they are pretty much the only-ones contributing to improvements, I mean - when was the last time the community (or another manufacturer) actually contributed anything useful to the core HW and electronics design? The 3d printing space has massively changed in the last 10 years, where initially a lot of the HW improvements came from the hobbyist RepRap community. Now they come from a single company which stems from that community, and which is spending money on R&D. On top of that, people still building an i3-design printer from scratch is rare, the hobbyist design community has moved on to the Vorons, which means pretty much all printers with this design are from companies with zero community interaction, profiting from the Prusa investments. So I get why they're not happy. The only real comparison you have with Prusa is the much less popular RatRig - which is still an opensource design afaik, but I'm not aware of any clones of those.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    > I think their main problem is that regarding the i3 design, they are pretty much the only-ones contributing to improvements, I mean - when was the last time the community (or another manufacturer) actually contributed anything useful to the core HW and electronics design? There's lots of i3 clones with various changes that are open. But that it exists doesn't mean it'll be incorporated. I've seen for instance multiple i3 clone designs with multiple extruders -- one with them side by side, another one with two extruders on the X axis. There's also all sorts of construction alternatives -- wood, laser cut metal frames, etc. The issue may be that lots of the clones are mostly minor branding/advanced feature changes. Prusa as far as I know doesn't offer an IDEX printer. I'm sure they could take one of the existing designs, but perhaps they just don't want to because it's an unusual, fiddly feature.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    This is a good point. The worst thing is that the MK4 is stuck on the i3 design even though there are some nice improvements. It seems like i3 should go the way of the low cost but reliable printer. Not that the MK series should be ended, but it should really just be upgrades and price drops where possible. There is still a space for a high performance prosumer coreXY printer like the Bambu or the Voron, but Prusa dropped the ball on this with the XL where they could have dominated. The Bambu is just a massive refinement of the FDM printer. I predict the next big leaps in 3D printing will be: - Tool changers like the Prusa XL. I would have bought a MK3 sized printer with 2-3 tool heads instantly. Prusa still has a shot here. Printing in multicolours is nice. But frankly I don't care about printing toys in multicolour. I'd rather be able to design in multi materials. Imagine being able to print in PLA, PETG, TPU simultaneously reliably. - Infinite Z axis. I backed the Creality CR-30. Creality is a shit company and really dropped the ball on this. Eventually with community support and tinkering I got mine to work well. It's no where near the quality of my MK3s, but where appropriate, I can design things to work well on a conveyor belt and not bother with stopping to pull things off. Shove a box at the end, put it on the network and you have a truly automated manufacturing system. I can print 10 of something without pausing. And one failure won't effect the other 9. - Pellets instead of fillament. Easier to handle, easier to refill and makes recycling filament easier.

pen2l 4y ago

Indeed, a variety of open source models have been able to co-exist: There's the sqlite3 type of "it's all open source but you can't contribute to the code"; the conventional community-led copyleft GNU type of open source that gave us Linux; the company-led which creates things like Docker and k8s; and there is dual-licensing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing).

glenndebacker 4y ago

I don't think this has a lot to do with the open source spirit but the fact that competitors like Bambulab are eating their lunch. That seems to rub them the wrong way. I also see a lot of FUD from the Prusa community regarding that particular brand, where you can't claim it's a 1:1 Prusa clone. Even the remarks from Josef Prusa about speed or noise are targeted to the X1C or P1P printers while if you want to talk about clones and copying there are brands out there that fits the bill better e.g. Sovol 06. The part where you can only sell "consumables" that must be verified by Prusa also has zero to do with open source or freedom.

koffiezet 4y ago
I think their main problem is that regarding the i3 design, they are pretty much the only-ones contributing to improvements, I mean - when was the last time the community (or another manufacturer) actually contributed anything useful to the core HW and electronics design? The 3d printing space has massively changed in the last 10 years, where initially a lot of the HW improvements came from the hobbyist RepRap community. Now they come from a single company which stems from that community, and which is spending money on R&D. On top of that, people still building an i3-design printer from scratch is rare, the hobbyist design community has moved on to the Vorons, which means pretty much all printers with this design are from companies with zero community interaction, profiting from the Prusa investments. So I get why they're not happy. The only real comparison you have with Prusa is the much less popular RatRig - which is still an opensource design afaik, but I'm not aware of any clones of those.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > I think their main problem is that regarding the i3 design, they are pretty much the only-ones contributing to improvements, I mean - when was the last time the community (or another manufacturer) actually contributed anything useful to the core HW and electronics design? There's lots of i3 clones with various changes that are open. But that it exists doesn't mean it'll be incorporated. I've seen for instance multiple i3 clone designs with multiple extruders -- one with them side by side, another one with two extruders on the X axis. There's also all sorts of construction alternatives -- wood, laser cut metal frames, etc. The issue may be that lots of the clones are mostly minor branding/advanced feature changes. Prusa as far as I know doesn't offer an IDEX printer. I'm sure they could take one of the existing designs, but perhaps they just don't want to because it's an unusual, fiddly feature.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  This is a good point. The worst thing is that the MK4 is stuck on the i3 design even though there are some nice improvements. It seems like i3 should go the way of the low cost but reliable printer. Not that the MK series should be ended, but it should really just be upgrades and price drops where possible. There is still a space for a high performance prosumer coreXY printer like the Bambu or the Voron, but Prusa dropped the ball on this with the XL where they could have dominated. The Bambu is just a massive refinement of the FDM printer. I predict the next big leaps in 3D printing will be: - Tool changers like the Prusa XL. I would have bought a MK3 sized printer with 2-3 tool heads instantly. Prusa still has a shot here. Printing in multicolours is nice. But frankly I don't care about printing toys in multicolour. I'd rather be able to design in multi materials. Imagine being able to print in PLA, PETG, TPU simultaneously reliably. - Infinite Z axis. I backed the Creality CR-30. Creality is a shit company and really dropped the ball on this. Eventually with community support and tinkering I got mine to work well. It's no where near the quality of my MK3s, but where appropriate, I can design things to work well on a conveyor belt and not bother with stopping to pull things off. Shove a box at the end, put it on the network and you have a truly automated manufacturing system. I can print 10 of something without pausing. And one failure won't effect the other 9. - Pellets instead of fillament. Easier to handle, easier to refill and makes recycling filament easier.