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joshuaissactoday at 11:11 AM3 repliesview on HN

> They have no rights to prevent people modifying and using AGPL software however they want.

AGPL software can be used and modified within the limits of what the AGPL permits. People can do that with their Bambu software running on their own hardware.

That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer). The AGPL specifically mentions this scenario in section 6. There are open source alternatives to that like the third-party Bambu-Farm and bambuddy that people can self host instead.

Interestingly, Bambu's own initial approach to the AGPL was more in line with "modifying and using AGPL software however they want" (and potentially violating their section 6 obligations), until customer backlash forced them to adhere to the terms of the licence.


Replies

bigiaintoday at 11:37 AM

Id Louis Rossman's YouTube rant is correct, nobody involved here modified the AGPLK software. They just used a version of the AGPL software from before Bambu Labs changed the auth code.

While I agree that the AGPL does not grant users any rights to Bambu's cloud service, sending DCMA nastygrams to people hosting copies on old versions of their software isn't the right (or even legal) way to enforce that. And since Bambu choose to build their products and software stack on pre existing AGPL code, they've backed themselves into a corner a bit with other options. They can add new auth to new versions of the code (which is stringer than just hardcoded useragent-like strings in the code) but they'll then have to release the source code to their new version - exactly like the original authors who chose the AGPL intended.

Topfitoday at 3:10 PM

If I just build the software from their repo without any modifications, getting an identical result to what I can download via their website, would I be allowed to use the service? If not, why not? If yes, what if I made a modification? How much may I change and where was this ever codified? What about using an unmodified, prior version of the source code to build? Why would that not be ok?

barnabeetoday at 12:13 PM

> That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer)

As I said, I believe people have a right to "adversarial interoperability", so I respectfully disagree