The Life and Death of Open Source Companies
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Armin Ronacher ☛ The Life and Death of Open Source Companies
Since I've had to leave the printer at home over the holidays, I've been engaging in related activities like reading up, creating models, and exploring the slicer software. Emotions surrounding this printer are charged. If you step into the wrong parts of the internet you find a lot of hate. Some of it might be warranted, but others just feels incredibly out of proportion. I've noticed a fair amount of controversy surrounding the printer online, largely centered on its Chinese origins, its optional cloud service, and its impact on the Open Source 3D printing community. I won't talk much about the China part [1] here, but I do want to talk about the cloud and license aspect.
The reason I even write about this printer is the licensing situation and a bit of a rant about Open Source communities. Here is what I believe is currently happening, and I'm saying this as a person that knew next to nothing until a few days ago about 3D printing: Bambu Labs is making some other players in that space reconsider Open Source.
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Drew DeVault ☛ Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate
Armin Ronacher uses Prusa as a case-study in why open source companies fail, and uses this example to underline his argument that open source needs to adapt for commercial needs, namely by adding commercial exclusivity clauses to its licenses – Armin is one of the principal proponents of the non-free Functional Source License. Armin cites his experience with a Chinese manufactured 3D printer as evidence that intellectual property is at the heart of Prusa’s decline, and goes on to discuss how this dynamic applies to his own work in developing a non-free license for use with Sentry. I find this work pretty interesting – FSL is a novel entry into the non-free license compendium, and it’s certainly a better way to do software than proprietary models, assuming that it’s not characterized as free or open source. But, allow me to use the same case study to draw different conclusions.