alt Hacker NewsNothing in Prusa's OCL stops anyone from cloning and selling their printer.
It only stops the honest people from doing that (and possibly much more, like manufacturing and selling replacement parts or mods).
Creating 3D models from existing products is relatively fast and easy. The hard parts have always been the actual design process, materials selection, and setting up the supply and manufacturing chain.
Prusa took what was practically a non-issue (cloning of their modern printers which have multiple custom parts and are overall not easy to clone cheaply anyway) and used it to restrict the freedoms of end users and small businesses while crying about how they are the victims.
I lost a lot of respect for Prusa when they came out with the OCL.
A damn patent would have been both more effective and less restrictive for reasonable commercial purposes.
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Can you explain how releasing model files under a restrictive license vs not releasing model is a net restriction of the freedoms of end users and small businesses? The impression I'm getting is that if they locked away those files and never released them, you would have nothing to complain about.
This is like complaining about Valve letting game developers generate free Steam keys (=Valve doesn't get fees) that can be sold on other storefronts with the caveat that the developer must sell the keys for at least the same price he set on steam. Being allowed to sell those keys is a sign of goodwill, but the goodwill is conditional upon the source of goodwill not destroying itself. If you buy a game on the Humble Store, Valve won't get a single cent, most of the money goes to the developer, and yet Valve still has all of the ongoing infrastructure costs.
What you’ve said is true but also misses the point. Licenses have never been about stopping bad actions because a bit of text can’t prevent someone from buying materials and building things, just like a speed limit sign has never stopped someone from speeding (unless they crash into it).
They ARE however deterrents to bad actions from less-than-scrupulous entities, and enforcement mechanisms against fully-unscrupulous entities.
I suspect (but will admit I am just guessing here) that Prusa would prefer not to get to the enforcement stage because it is both costly and annoying, but having that in your back pocket is, sadly, necessary in a litigious society with some number of unscrupulous actors, and the deterrent effect alone is likely enough to achieve most of their goals.