The most trustworthy reviews are always those where the reviewers just bought the products.

So much this. One reason why there are so super few honest Bambu Lab reviews out there, they understood how to do PR through influencers and used their VC money to send thousands of devices everywhere for basically free (and keep doing so) to build an overly positive lifestyle image. Those few who do actual deep dives and get cut off from new free devices simply drown in the masses. Meanwhile their printers melt themselves and the A1 Mini apparently likes to catch fire.

Anycubic is a whole different beast, they've known to basically steal stuff for many years (like when they took Prusa's first-gen MMU design and successfully patented a slightly different design). Shit like this is one of the reasons Prusa is meddling with new licenses in the first place.

Creality now went IPO and is blasting every corner of their products with AI. Elegoo also already broke licenses to close off their devices.

Pretty sure vendors like Snapmaker, Sovol or QIDI also have done a sufficient amount of shit.

Capitalism will always be a shitshow like this, and it's annoying. Ethical or even lawful behaviour shouldn't be something you have to be able to afford, it should be the fucking default because it's made free and beneficial to everyone.

Yes they can. But, most open source projects don't have that kind of money. Lawyers ain't cheap. And location of the lawsuit matters too. It's really hard to sue a Chinese company in China.

I wish the EU (and US) would block the sale of products that violate GPT3 licensees.

That's the easiest solution I see to this problem.

I've looked into this from a UK perspective, partly because I'm in the market for a new 3d printer. Usual disclaimer that I'm not a lawyer, this is just a summary of what I found in my research, it could be completely wrong.

You can usually sue a company in a local court if they do business in your country, enforcement can obviously be an issue but if they have a local warehouse it can be enforced there.

In the UK there is a specific small claims track for small IP claims, it's not expected for you to have a barrister, and cost orders are rare, so if you lose you don't normally have to pay the opponents costs. This court can still grant injunctions, such as requiring them to release the source code, or preventing them from selling any printers.

The customer probably has standing to bring a claim as a third party beneficiary, this doesn't seem to be entirely settled.

Bambu sponsorships are a fucking plague.

I want to get into 3D printing before it’s outlawed and I’ve been gravitating to Bambu because I’m novice enough that marketing works. Where should I be looking? Price is a consideration but not my first.

if open source were actually socialist then capitalists would be banned from using GPL software

It's DRM'd bullshit that gives a big fat 🖕to the entire open and collaborative spirit of 3D printing. The hobby was built on open source and open hardware (see e.g. RepRap) and Bambu is trying to destroy that.

I don't give a fuck how good the print quality and whatnot is; It could give you a handjob with every print and it would still be completely categorically unacceptable!

Try printing something that looks like a gun part and ATF will knock down your door.