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this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Early on this seemed a pretty simple case of corporate misbehavior, but as with most issues that blow up on social media as cartoonishly simple battles between Good and Evil, additional details reduce that comfortable clarity. Since the service Bambu Studio connects to isn't required to run the software, their claim that keeping the service proprietary doesn't violate the AGPL might be valid after all. This would justify their objection to Jarczak publishing a fork that connects to the service without authorization.
I doubt that this will change the main discussion tho. No amount of information matters when people only glance at an issue long enough to swipe left or right and keep doomscrollin'.
But how the slicer connects to their propriatry cloud service is under the AGPL. That is the part that has been copied.
Due to the original Slic3r software being AGPL and Bambu studio being a copy of Slic3r it is also under the AGPL.
So Jarczak has only copied code that is under the AGPL. As mentioned in the article, the only bit of security bambu had was a name in the commands sent saying that the command came from Bambu Studio, it wasent encrypted, it wasent locked down it is right there in the code.
Now, Bambu could change their security to have a proper auth handshake with the cloud services, that would lock this method off because it wouldnt matter if the code is out in the open for all to see, you would still need to log in. But Bambu didnt do this, they just tried to legally gag someone instead.
That is why people are up in arms.
Sorry, I misstated the article - yes, what Jaczak modified or forked seems to be a networking plugin. What I get out of the article is that Bambu says the plugin is "separately delivered" software which they claim means it doesn't fall under the AGPL. The way I interpret it is that there's an unresolved dispute whose technicalities I don't know enough about to have originally taken Jarczak's side on. Maybe you do but for now I'm going back to being neutral. I agree putting pressure on the guy if they have no grounds for it is wrong - if that's what they did.
LawfulMasses did a video covering this exact question a week or two ago and explained the relevant details in what seemed to be a fairly clear manner. Keeping in mind that he is a lawyer but is arguing in favor of consumer rights and the AGPL so there may be a valid counter argument.
I don't think I would be doing a disservice to try and summarize what he stated in the video, but my takeaway was that the plugin was an attempt to dodge the AGPL, but the AGPL specifically has measures for that kind of tomfoolery.
Video if anyone is interested.
https://youtu.be/0tdZ5Z7nRDY
It is kind of amusing how, "You guys are knee jerking your reactions instead of looking at the issue carefully" gets the knee jerk upvotes here.