posted in Technology
An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1089390/46116614cc74b814/
As somebody who doesn’t currently, and has never owned a Prusa printer - this sort of thing is why people pay a premium for Prusa printers.
There are other, less expensive printers that are open source. I have no idea why people pay premiums for Prusa.
I pay a premium for Prusa because I like their philospohy of making as much of it as possible in house, and their general openness, not just in code, but in how their business functions.
My first 3D printer was a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic. I’m very willing to spend if I think it will benefit the entire ecosystem I’m interested in.
Also, with Prusa, I get to feel like I’m DIYing it, but with great and detailed instructions, and an all-in-one parts sourcing. They are also great at supporting their devices after the fact, which is sometimes necessary, because they often come out a little too hot.
Replying to @greybeard@feddit.online
Doesn’t Prusa rebrand OrcaSlicer though? How is that in-house? Why not just support OrcaSlicer and build their configs into it as a first-class citizen?
Other way around. PrusaSlicer came first. It was originally a fork of Slic3r, then Bambu and OrcaSlicer forked it. Prusa certainly has back ported some features from OrcaSlicer, which is the way open source should work. Everybody wins.