Polish developer Paweł Jarczak forked OrcaSlicer and got a cease-and-desist from Bambu Lab. Louis Rossmann amplified the story. But the real issue isn't about open source at all. It's about cloud authentication and the product-as-service trap we all walked into.
Hi, my name is Tom Smykowski, I'm a staff full-stack engineer. I build and scale SaaS platforms to millions of users, working end-to-end from system architecture to frontend to mobile. On this blog I explore how technology decisions affect developers and users alike.
If you've been following the 3D printing community lately, you've probably heard about the Bambu Lab controversy. The story sounds simple: a developer forks an open source project, a company sends a threatening letter, and the internet explodes with outrage.
But after digging through the details, watching Louis Rossmann's video, and reading Bambu Lab's official response, I'm left with more questions than answers.
The surface story is straightforward: Paweł Jarczak modified OrcaSlicer—an open source tool for Bambu 3D printers—by forking and republishing it. This is exactly what open source licenses allow.
Then Bambu Lab sent him a message demanding he stop. The company that sells the printers essentially told a developer to stop using open source software the way it's meant to be used.
Bambu Lab claims their issue is with forks connecting to their cloud while "impersonating" Bambu Studio. But here's the twist: Paweł didn't change anything in how his fork connects. He just forked the existing code.
This means Bambu Lab released open source code that automatically creates the very problem they're complaining about. And that raises a much bigger question about the product-as-service model we've all accepted.