Quick Summary
• Chinese 3D printer manufacturer Bambu Lab sent a cease-and-desist letter to Polish developer Paweł Jarczak, forcing him to remove a fork of OrcaSlicer that restored cloud printing features the company had locked to its own software. Within days, YouTubers with audiences in the millions had pledged $20,000 in legal defense funds, rehosted the code, and…
Additional Context
Chinese 3D printer manufacturer Bambu Lab sent a cease-and-desist letter to Polish developer Paweł Jarczak, forcing him to remove a fork of OrcaSlicer that restored cloud printing features the company had locked to its own software.
Within days, YouTubers with audiences in the millions had pledged $20,000 in legal defense funds, rehosted the code, and announced they were switching to rival hardware. The dispute began as a narrow technical argument but has since drawn in a non-profit legal organisation with a track record of suing hardware manufacturers over open-source licence violations.
Jarczak’s public response, posted after Bambu Lab refused to share the full correspondence. Image via Paweł Jarczak/GitHub.
The Roots of an Open-Source Clash
Bambu Lab’s own slicer, Bambu Studio, is a