And many people warned exactly this would happen. Bambu introduced a closed system into an open source hobby and the parallels to home ink printers were pointed out immediately by the community. Bambu essentially announced this would happen. I‘ve been saying this for years.

And what a community to do it to. The FUNCTIONAL diy techie 2a hippe crowd that strives for freedom.

Like in what universe would somebody with a brain think "ah yes, let me try to pull a fast one on this group, nothing can go wrong"

I don't have a printer, but I'm well acquainted with the people who do have printers, and from all walks of life. That is not a "take it and roll over" crowd.

You might as well try to sell Vietnamese children full priced nikes.

yeah, a lot of PR effort for Bambu while the reality is slightly different.

An example: they say: we didn't patch the security hole (the user agent "chech") because the user experience would have been affected blablabla...

Well, they introduced this security hole on linux BECAUSE they deployed the new mandatory network "plugin" (that you are forced to use because: it's automatically installed and it's mandatory to print even locally) without providing a working solution for all their linux customers when deploying it.

Yes! They didn't implement a real authentication solution for their own linux implementation AND they didn't answer to their linux customers who had the software broken for MONTHS.

And them providing this user agent hack solution months later allowed anybody to understand how it worked without retro engineering their network plugin (something the article forgot to mention but it was the main attack vector of bambu against the developer threateninghim to go to federal jail, something they also forgot to mention).

Great user experience mindset here. Breaking their printer to introduce a mandatory connectivity plugin (reminder: linux is officially supported on the marketing pages) and threatening those who try to fix it using just what the license allows them to do.

I suspect the DDOS attack they had on their cloud service is more linked to their change of mind regarding this mandatory network plugin.

It could be all the linux client trying to download their network plugin but failing and retrying in loop. That wouldn't surprise me following the user agent choice.

Or people unhappy. After all, they changed the terms of the contract after users bought the printer. Really a Dark Vader style of user experience here!

If you want to avoid this kind of amateurish/parasitic behavior, buy the original: Prusa.

I've one printer from them since many years that I upgrade each few years. Currently, I'm waiting for a sale for the upgrade kit to the Core+

nEuTrAl JoUrNaLiSm

Important to note that the license they release their software under explicitly allows users to do exactly that

Fully agree. This has been discussed for years and most Bambu costumers basically said the risk of your printer being essentially disabled by an update over night was worth it for the quality and low cost of the printer.

A part of me expects Bambu costumers to take this with dignity and move on. They knew the risks after all and are in no position to throw a tantrum after shitting on Prusa for years.

But a different part of me rejects costumer responsibility. It‘s almost always used by bad corporations to shift the blame on the little guys. I want them to fight this. To cause a shit storm that scares off other corporations from trying something similar. It‘s kind of entertaining too. I‘m not gonna lie.

I don't know. I switched jobs somewhat recently (sw development, tech sector) and my new set of colleagues are all Bambu shills. This sort of stuff apparently doesn't have the reach it should.

GOAT

Archive.is is sketchy

Works with 3rd-party JS and frames disabled. Archive should work?

Prusa MINI

Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2

Anycubic Kobra S1

Qidi Tech Q2

Creality has gone IPO and AI, aka down the same path as Bambu. Maybe an old reliable used ender 3, but I wouldn't but anything new from them.

Speaking of, plenty of old reliable mk3s out there.