If you’ve been following the Bambu Lab open source issue lately, you’ve probably noticed the serious tension brewing between the company and the open source community its software was built on. As a small business that prints on a Bambu P1S every day, we’re paying close attention — and we wanted to break it down for our customers and fellow makers in plain English.
What Happened?
It started when a Polish developer named Paweł Jarczak built a fork of OrcaSlicer — a popular open source slicing tool — that allowed users to connect to Bambu’s cloud without going through Bambu Connect, the company’s proprietary middleware. Bambu Connect was introduced after many users had already purchased their printers, restricting how third-party software could interact with their own hardware.
Bambu Lab responded by threatening Jarczak with a cease-and-desist letter, accusing his fork of impersonating Bambu Studio and violating their Terms of Service. Jarczak shut the project down.
Why the Bambu Lab Open Source Fight Matters
Here’s where it gets important. Bambu Studio — the official slicer that ships with every Bambu printer — is itself a fork of PrusaSlicer, which is a fork of Slic3r. All three are licensed under the AGPLv3, an open source license that requires any derivative software to also be released as open source, with full source code available.
In other words, Bambu Lab built their product on open source software — and is now using legal pressure to restrict others from doing the same.
The Software Freedom Conservancy Steps In
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit organization that legally defends open source licenses, launched a formal investigation into Bambu Lab and confirmed two specific AGPLv3 violations:
- Bambu has been distributing a proprietary networking library called
libbambu_networkingalongside Bambu Studio for years without releasing its source code — a direct violation of AGPLv3 requirements. - The legal threats against Jarczak themselves constitute a violation, as AGPLv3 explicitly prohibits imposing further restrictions on rights the license already grants.
Following the SFC’s announcement and significant community backlash — including public support from prominent YouTubers and Joseph Prusa himself — Bambu Lab backed down from its legal pressure against Jarczak.
What Happens Next?
The Bambu Lab open source dispute isn’t over yet. The SFC has launched a project called baltobu (short for “Bringing Affero Licensed Things Onto Bambu Users“) to reverse-engineer Bambu’s proprietary networking components and maintain open forks of both OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio. A community fundraiser of $250,007 is underway to fund long-term dedicated staff on the effort.
The SFC has also announced a standing committee launching in mid-2026 to bring together 3D printer manufacturers, users, and open source licensing experts to address software freedom in the 3D printing space going forward.
Our Take
For us, the Bambu Lab open source situation isn’t just industry drama — it’s about the freedom to use the printer we paid for.
We run our business on a Bambu P1S and we love what it produces — you’ve seen the creatures. This situation doesn’t affect our day-to-day operations, and we’re not going anywhere. But we believe in transparency, and we think our customers and fellow makers deserve to know what’s happening in the ecosystem behind the hardware.
Part of that transparency is being honest about what we want as owners: the freedom to decide who — and what — gets to talk to a printer we paid for. So much of what makes this hobby thrive is the ecosystem of third-party creators building tools that extend what our machines can do — aftermarket screens, monitoring add-ons, alternative slicers, and more. We’d like to keep the option to grant trusted third-party vendors access to our own hardware when we choose to.
A perfect example is the Panda Touch — a third-party touchscreen that adds standalone control and features our P1S didn’t ship with. We’ve put it through its paces and genuinely rely on it (you can read our full Panda Touch review here). Tools like it exist because the ecosystem has been open, and being able to use them on the printer sitting in our own shop matters to us.
None of this is about picking a fight. We love our Bambu, and it earns its keep every day. But openness is what let desktop 3D printing explode in the first place — and as owners and makers, we’d like to see that spirit protected, not quietly walled off.
We’ll keep watching how the Bambu Lab open source story develops. In the meantime, the creatures keep printing. ⚡
Sparx-Worx covers the 3D printing hobby from the perspective of people who actually print — articulated flexis, multi-color designs, and everything in between. Browse our designs and follow along at sparx-worx.com.