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Selling any parts or upgrades by third parties will be heavily limited by the BY-NC-SA 4.0. You could not build the printer and use it in a small company office

Selling any parts or upgrades by third parties will be heavily limited by the BY-NC-SA 4.0. You could not build the printer and use it in a small company office. The non-commercial clause is not only unnecessary (who is going to mass market it?), but license also means firmware is proprietary software, it absolutely is not Open Source. Sad to see even seemingly user approached projects building on foundations they misuse the terms of.

slow_typist 1y ago
Of course you could use the printer commercially. You mustn’t sell it. Using the printer is not sharing it’s design.
pessimizer 1y ago
It's horrible and useless. An "open source" printer should allow someone to open a factory and mass produce them. I shouldn't have a dependency on the designer on something marketed as open source. That's no different than normal. You could never reasonably prevent people from making one-offs anyway, not that it's cost-efficient, or would ever be worth doing. Attribution license it. Name it TheOpenPrinter@Patreon.com and force manufacturers to engrave it on each one. Don't pull nonsense. Crowdfunding imo sounds like they're planning to be unsuccessful at actually making them, and just to make a living off failing to make them for a year or two. How about just getting the design tight, modular, and small-shop ready, and not even attempting to mass produce them? Leave that to the experts.
- drekipus 1y ago
  would using some sort of GPL allow for that?
  - mrsssnake 1y ago
    As with anything GPL would allow others to use your soft (of course if you sell or give it them first) as they wish, but additionally "locks it open" so they must sell/give on the same rules too.
- rixed 1y ago
  An "open source" printer should allow someone to open a factory and mass produce them. No? That's only according to your definition of open source. There are others, some restricting competition, some restricting certain usage like military, some restricting certain countries... We can argue about those restrictions, but such a bold claim as "it's useless" sounds impulsive (my first though was harsher).
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    > That's only according to your definition of open source No, words mean things. Open Source precludes restrictions on field of use or commercialization, and no credible organization (OSI, DFSG, FSF, Creative Commons, any of the BSDs) claims otherwise.
    - rixed 1y ago
      OK I see where you stand. Like you, I do not like to see some product being touted as "open" just because you can see some lines of code that are made unusable by not providing some important missing pieces, or obscured, or for whatever other mechanism. Words have indeed a meaning, but that meaning is not purely decided by some organisation, steering cometee or authority, but by what idea they evoque to those who use them. Refer to the old debate about "free software" vs "open source" [0]: almost the same technical definition, but quite different meaning. Most "fake" open source products are produced by companies who are fundamentaly unwilling to cooperate because they want to keep the possibility to milk customers once they have succesfully attracted investors. I might be wrong, but I have the feeling that this is a very different scenario, if only because the potential for becoming filthy rich by selling printer parts seems slim. I believe they genuinely want to empower users, without working for free for some industrial company that could just exploit the design without contributing anything back. Empowering the user meets the definition of open source for me. I wish we would not be so harsh against good-spirited creators because they miss to check all the boxes of the official definition of open source (tm). Maybe I'm too idealistic, wouldn't be the first time. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
fruitworks 1y ago
You could sell parts anyways and violate the license.
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  "Open source" =/= requiring breaking the law to distribute the thing in question Otherwise, how does it differ from the regular HP/Brother printers, in that regard?

slow_typist 1y ago

Of course you could use the printer commercially. You mustn’t sell it. Using the printer is not sharing it’s design.

pessimizer 1y ago

It's horrible and useless. An "open source" printer should allow someone to open a factory and mass produce them. I shouldn't have a dependency on the designer on something marketed as open source. That's no different than normal. You could never reasonably prevent people from making one-offs anyway, not that it's cost-efficient, or would ever be worth doing. Attribution license it. Name it TheOpenPrinter@Patreon.com and force manufacturers to engrave it on each one. Don't pull nonsense. Crowdfunding imo sounds like they're planning to be unsuccessful at actually making them, and just to make a living off failing to make them for a year or two. How about just getting the design tight, modular, and small-shop ready, and not even attempting to mass produce them? Leave that to the experts.

drekipus 1y ago
would using some sort of GPL allow for that?
- mrsssnake 1y ago
  As with anything GPL would allow others to use your soft (of course if you sell or give it them first) as they wish, but additionally "locks it open" so they must sell/give on the same rules too.
rixed 1y ago
An "open source" printer should allow someone to open a factory and mass produce them. No? That's only according to your definition of open source. There are others, some restricting competition, some restricting certain usage like military, some restricting certain countries... We can argue about those restrictions, but such a bold claim as "it's useless" sounds impulsive (my first though was harsher).
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  > That's only according to your definition of open source No, words mean things. Open Source precludes restrictions on field of use or commercialization, and no credible organization (OSI, DFSG, FSF, Creative Commons, any of the BSDs) claims otherwise.
  - rixed 1y ago
    OK I see where you stand. Like you, I do not like to see some product being touted as "open" just because you can see some lines of code that are made unusable by not providing some important missing pieces, or obscured, or for whatever other mechanism. Words have indeed a meaning, but that meaning is not purely decided by some organisation, steering cometee or authority, but by what idea they evoque to those who use them. Refer to the old debate about "free software" vs "open source" [0]: almost the same technical definition, but quite different meaning. Most "fake" open source products are produced by companies who are fundamentaly unwilling to cooperate because they want to keep the possibility to milk customers once they have succesfully attracted investors. I might be wrong, but I have the feeling that this is a very different scenario, if only because the potential for becoming filthy rich by selling printer parts seems slim. I believe they genuinely want to empower users, without working for free for some industrial company that could just exploit the design without contributing anything back. Empowering the user meets the definition of open source for me. I wish we would not be so harsh against good-spirited creators because they miss to check all the boxes of the official definition of open source (tm). Maybe I'm too idealistic, wouldn't be the first time. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

fruitworks 1y ago

You could sell parts anyways and violate the license.

DaSHacka 1y ago
"Open source" =/= requiring breaking the law to distribute the thing in question Otherwise, how does it differ from the regular HP/Brother printers, in that regard?