Principally if you sell a device with a certain functionality and you later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft. It does not matter the slightest bit whether you break into someone's house to physically alter the device or whether you remotely install a malicious software update to do that.

But what's even more insane here is that some people are claiming that BambooLabs would somehow have the right to do this, because while BambooLab might not have the right to limit the hardware they already sold (which they did and these people just pretend did not happen) they have the right to limit their printer client software under the license conditions they impose on it from the beginning, when their printer client is literally a modification of AGPL licensed software. The entire point of the GPL is to prevent people like BambooLabs from doing exactly this. The AGPL is literally the single license with the most restrictions on BambooLabs to ensure that the users of the software — the customers — do not have any restrictions in what they can do with it.

Some people are seeing this situation and just decide to side with the company against their customers on imposing restrictions on an already sold product after the sale and they are literally making shit up to justify it.

Edit: For people who do not know what this is about: Someone modified AGPL software to reenable features of these 3D printers that BambooLabs stole after the sale and BambooLabs sent a legal threat to them to stop distributing the software.

I did a ton of research because I didn't understand what people wanted here, and this is what's going on:

Right now, Bambu have adjusted their system into two modalities:

* "default" or "Cloud" mode, where you get an app, remote monitoring, but you have to use Bambu Studio or Bambu Connect to send prints. They implemented this by adding cloud auth to their "internal API;" the client application has to get a token from Bambu's servers, even if the request it eventually makes is a "local" one.

* LAN / Developer mode, where the device displays a token and you put it into your app. This disables all of the remote monitoring but in exchange, clients can send prints locally.

What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time. This isn't actually possible, so this plugin approximates it by emulating the interface to the cloud authentication to make the "Bambu Network" cloud RPC calls from a local slicer (one of these calls is a local_print call, so ostensibly this allows you to send prints without running them through the cloud, although with all of the online functionality still enabled and required, this seems like a pretty brave thing to trust).

Personally, I find the Bambu reaction distasteful, and there's an argument that the offline mode only exists due to similar outrage, but I don't see the current system as particularly bad and find the appetite to restore "untrustworthy" cloud functionality a bit amusing.

I'm not sure why their entire domain has been excluded from archive.org but you can still see the original post for now: https://blog.bambulab.com/firmware-update-introducing-new-au...

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Critical Operations That Require Authorization The following printer operations will require authorization controls:

Binding and unbinding the printer. Initiating remote video access. Performing firmware upgrades. Initiating a print job (via LAN or cloud mode). Controlling motion system, temperature, fans, AMS settings, calibrations, etc.

Other vendors take note !

Local network support tends to look like a convenience feature until it disappears. Then it becomes obvious that it was part of the ownership model.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8

Wonder how Bambu can prevent this kind of forks, where no code - just instructions to AI on how to build a network plugin from scratch.

I thought that was the point, that people didn't want to be tethered to their servers?

To me, this is an obvious security risk. These printers are often used in labs, startups, engineering teams, and potentially even government environments. If print data, models, logs, or usage patterns are routed through a company controlled infrastructure, that creates a real opportunity for corporate espionage or data harvesting.

I would not be surprised if Bambu Lab eventually faces the same level of scrutiny that Huawei network devices did.