Open Source Project Shuts Down Over Legal Threats from 3D Printer Company Bambu Lab

Source: Slashdot

Background

The free/open‑source project OrcaSlicer is a popular fork of 3D‑printer slicing software originally released by Bambu Lab. On Tuesday, independent developer Pawel Jarczak shut down the project after receiving legal threats from Bambu Lab, as reported by Tom’s Hardware.

Jarczak’s fork allowed users to bypass Bambu Connect, a middleware application that limits OrcaSlicer’s access to remote printer functions for security reasons. In a note on GitHub, Jarczak said Bambu Lab threatened him with a cease‑and‑desist letter and accused him of reverse‑engineering its software to impersonate Bambu Studio.

Bambu Lab’s Position

From a Bambu Lab blog post:

Bambu Studio is an open‑source project under the AGPL‑3.0 license. Anyone can take its code, modify it, and distribute it… That’s what OrcaSlicer does, and 734 other forks do as well. We have no issue with that and never have. At the same time, a license for code is not a pass to our cloud infrastructure… Our cloud is a private service. Access to it is governed by a user agreement, not the AGPL license… The modification in question worked by injecting falsified identity metadata into network communication. In simple terms: it pretended to be the official Bambu Studio client when communicating with our servers… If this method were widely adopted or incorrectly configured, thousands of clients could simultaneously hit our servers while impersonating the official client.

OrcaSlicer Developer’s Response

Jarczak countered:

“User‑Agent is not authentication. It is only self‑declared client metadata. Any program can set any User‑Agent. The User‑Agent construction comes directly from Bambu Lab’s own public AGPL Bambu Studio code… So on what basis can anyone claim that I am not allowed to use this specific part of AGPL‑licensed code under the AGPL license…? My work was based on publicly available Bambu Studio source code together with my own integration layer.”

He added that Bambu Lab “contacted me directly and demanded removal of the solution.” When asked to publish the private correspondence for transparency, the request was denied. Bambu Lab also referenced legal materials and indicated that a cease‑and‑desist letter had been prepared.

Jarczak voluntarily removed the repository, stating that the removal should not be interpreted as an admission that the legal or technical allegations were correct. He said he had no interest in a prolonged dispute over that implementation.

Aftermath

YouTuber and right‑to‑repair advocate Louis Rossmann reviewed the correspondence and pledged $10,000 for legal expenses if the developer restored the code online. In his video (over 129 k views), Rossmann said:

“I think that their legal claim is bullshit. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

Rossmann has not yet launched a crowdfunding campaign, but commenters have expressed willingness to support the cause.

References

• Tom’s Hardware article covering the dispute.
• Bambu Lab blog post (quoted above).
• Slashdot coverage: [Read more of this story at Slashdot].