With Core One, Prusa's Open Source Hardware Dream Dies

https://hackaday.com/2024/11/20/with-core-one-prusas-open-source-hardware-dream-quietly-dies/

by iancmceachern • 2 years ago

125 76 2 years ago

daft_pink2• 2 years ago

Bambu obviously killed it.

I follow 3d printing pretty close but can't claim to be an expert. With that said, I truly thought they served different consumer segments with the only overlap being those who bought a Prusa pre-assembled beleving it to be a one stop shop machine. Bambu is a black box from China for an end user with little knowledge or care of maintaining a machine themselves (down to printing replacement parts)

bmitc• 2 years ago

Bambu Labs' quality and feature set is much, much higher and larger than Prusa's, and the price is right. Prusa bet on people wanting to continually fiddle with their 3D printer, but that segment is already niche and likely dying off.

girvo• 2 years ago

the only overlap being those who bought a Prusa pre-assembled beleving it to be a one stop shop machine

Thats a surprisingly large segment of the market, though.

Kirby647• 2 years ago

Prior to Bambu, prusa was as close as you could get to “put it together and it’s ready to print” including printer profiles and such. Bambu did this cheaper and better, and much faster, so basically took that entire market from Prusa.

For anyone that wants a printer that “just works”, there’s little reason to choose Prusa over Bambu at this point.

daft_pink2• 2 years ago

I bought my Prusa before Bambu became popular, and honestly I always see Prusa’s in school's and libraries and feel their main market in the United States is in that higher end role of something that is just fairly reliable and used where organizations want to provide 3d printing where a lot of different users are going to use them.

But I regularly see Bambu winning the reviews and awards these days, and I’m not sure if I would have been aware of Prusa if I were in the market today.

I really would love a multi-tool change core x y, but it’s soooo expensive.

kiba10• 2 years ago

Bambu didn't killed its open source dream. Prusa did.

ShakataGaNai• 2 years ago

There are too many cheap clones. Too much stealing of the open source work. This isn't remotely shocking, just look at Redis, Elastic and many many others... Open Source works until it doesn't.

I don't buy Prusa because they are OSH, I buy them because they are great printers. They are an open platform, if not open source. Which is good enough for my needs. If these changes they are making will allow Prusa to keep producing world class devices at reasonable prices, then more power to them.

And yes, I know some people hate Prusa or have had major issues. But they do a lot to move 3D printing forward, rising tide lifts all boats and all that jazz. We want all respectable and reputable 3D printer companies to succeed - because then everyone wins.

delichon• 2 years ago

keep producing world class devices at reasonable prices

At the current price points can you really recommend a Core One over an X1 to someone with a tight budget? Without resorting to arguments about open platforms and the big picture?

kiba10• 2 years ago

I took a look at the price. They're almost comparable if X1/AMS combo wasn't (always?) on sale.

Kirby647• 2 years ago

The better comparison is a Core One vs a P1S/P1P. You can almost buy two P1 printers for the price of a Core One.

bangaladore4• 2 years ago

Firstly, neither of these are "budget". I think if you need a budget, you a probably best sticking to a Prusa Mini, Bambu P1s or A1 Mini.

Without a doubt. An X1 is 1k USD. This is 1,199 USD.

Truly this is a competitor to the X1E though which costs 2.5k (!!!) with basically the only notable addition being the heated chamber (which the Core 1 comes with for free).

I have multiple Prusa Mark 3s, a Prusa XL and an X1 carbon, and frankly I only use the Prusa XL nowadays (and sometimes the Mark 3s).

Bambu makes a good printer, but it has lots of annoying issues and proprietary annoyances. I also don't like them as a company, but that wouldn't prevent me from buying another if I needed and used it.

In my experience Prusa printers "just work" more often than Bambu printers do.

tourmalinetaco• 2 years ago

Why would I recommend anyone buy a printer that cannot be repaired? That’s just throwing money away and creating e-waste. Even a Prusa Mk4 makes more sense than the X1 when you consider repairability.

diggan2• 2 years ago

Too much stealing of the open source work

How do you steal Open Source? Can Pruse no longer use it themselves or something? Sounds wrong calling "companies creating products from other projects" stealing when the intention from the beginning is that others can freely use the created project for whatever.

This isn't remotely shocking, just look at Redis, Elastic and many many others... Open Source works until it doesn't

Isn't those examples that Open Source builds great software? Companies trying to wrestle control of projects after making them Open Source doesn't mean what's already there didn't have a great impact.

mschuster91• 2 years ago

How do you steal Open Source? Can Pruse no longer use it themselves or something? Sounds wrong calling "companies creating products from other projects" stealing when the intention from the beginning is that others can freely use the created project for whatever.

Thing is, the fundamentals of Open Source have changed over the last decades - and the assumptions people made Back Then no longer hold. Let me expand a bit:

Back in the late 80s and 90s, up until the early '00s a lot of popular open source software was developed by academic institutions or with scientific grants. For them, it didn't matter - the money way paid for anyway and sharing source code fits with the ideals of science. In some projects it's very clear that they have an academic history - my to-go example is OpenStack, the myriads of knobs it has absorbed over the years all come from universities wishing to integrate whatever leftover hardware they had.

But ever since academic funding all but dried up, life has gotten difficult. We got a few rockstar projects that manage to survive independently (cURL), godknowshow (OpenSSL), with consulting services (sqlite with their commercial comprehensive test suite, mysql, mariadb, psql), on corporate contributions (Linux kernel, ReactJS/Facebook), on donations (everything in the FOSS graveyard better known as Apache) or, like Prusa, on hardware they sell. The general idea behind many projects is the implicit assumption: if you use a project commercially and the developer has a commercial support platform, be so kind and pay the original developers a bit so they can improve upon the project.

The problem is when juggernauts with deep money pits, be it companies with net market values in the trillions of dollar range or companies being under influence of the CCP, come on the field and take the hard work of others to make money without contributing back either financially or with code. Legally, they are absolutely in the clear, if the project isn't under AGPL, CC-NC or other such terms. ElasticSearch got ripped off that way by AWS for example.

It's not stealing in a traditional sense, but it is breaking the ethos and expectations.

gmiller123456• 2 years ago

How do you steal Open Source?

Stealing isn't just a legal concept, it also applies (among others) in a social context where you "steal someone's joke" or "steal someone's girlfriend".

With open source the social contract is that you're going to contribute to the project if it's a substantial part of your business.

PittleyDunkin• 2 years ago

This isn't remotely shocking, just look at Redis, Elastic and many many others... Open Source works until it doesn't.

I would argue that redis and elastic are signs that open source does work, albeit not well as a for-profit business. Open source hardware has a completely different set of problems.

fragmede• 2 years ago

If it doesn't work well for such high profile names, why would we expect it to work at all for an unheard of nobody? Doesn't that mean that kpen source doesn't actually work?

kiba10• 2 years ago

Those clones that you speaks of are often of questionable quality. Unless we're talking about creality printers, which were open source(at least with the Ender 3), and are also low quality.

But my question is "what's the point?" If you have an open source project and yet the commmunity is largely uninvolved in its development, why do you even care to be open source?

Yes, freedom is important, but hardly anybody but developers take advantage of it. The most important aspect of FOSS is that it's a marker of a project/product that won't take advantages of its users with shady business practices, and that's probably the most important thing about it.

Miraste4• 2 years ago

The main issue with this move is that it's not going to cut down on clones very much. Chinese 3D printer companies already clone all kinds of parts from other companies that don't provide design files, including stuff very similar to the now-proprietary extruder. They won't need to spend much effort replicating it. The people who lose out the most are open-source hardware hobbyists.

TaylorAlexander2• 2 years ago

Prusa gave everyone permission to make copies of their i3 series machines, make modifications, and distribute modified versions. It’s not theft if you have been given explicit permission to make copies.

“You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty.”

“You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above.”

https://github.com/prusa3d/Original-Prusa-i3/blob/MK3S/LICEN...

aleph_minus_one3• 2 years ago

Prusa gave everyone permission to make copies of their i3 series machines, make modifications, and distribute modified versions. It’s not theft if you have been given explicit permission to make copies.

Indeed. But I guess Prusa also expected that people will buy the original such that this support this open-source mission can be sustained. This is where I personally see Prusa's fallacy of thinking.

rajnathani• 2 years ago

Besides Apple, which other <$2000 electronics/hardware purchase isn’t “open”? As in you can buy parts for repair/upgradability right?

nicman23• 2 years ago

this is such a bad take. there is a huge subset of the community that made contributions to 3d printing both randoms and other companies.

ie bambu pushing the slicers and printers to actually not be dead slow

guax3• 2 years ago

I don't think the cheap clones were ever the problem. Prusa changed gears more heavily when Bambu came, took the code, ideas and learnings, modified, added, closed it and held for themselves.

awestroke2• 2 years ago

Getting a bambu soon. Happy I didn't go for Prusa, as the open source aspect was the only advantage

Avamander• 2 years ago

Going for a Bambu if you valued the open-source aspect? There are a few comparisons here I won't make about how silly that sounds to me.

Novosell• 2 years ago

They clearly valued some other things higher, even if they also valued the open source aspect. There's no dissonance or contradiction in that. I went the same route they did, despite also putting some value in the open source aspect.

awestroke2• 2 years ago

As I clearly stated, the open source aspect was the only advantage they had over Bambu. And now that advantage is gone, which means Bambu holds all of the advantages instead of all advantages except one

serf• 2 years ago

I tried to stick to Prusa stuff through the release of Bambu products in order to support the notion of a group that can give-take within the OSH concept -- now they offer zero value comparably.

The Bambu products are better if you're willing to buy into proprietary stuff and you're not willing to put the leg-work into building something proper-open like a railcore.

Really sucks, but the writing has been on the walls for some time -- it has been harder and harder to find source/designs/models/etc regarding Prusa machines since the MK3 period.

antirez• 2 years ago

For people in the 3D printing space, the most important points so far are not the fact printers are designed on open source hardware, but:

1. That they are easy to fix. This is still the case with Prusa, and that's a good thing, together with their great support.

2. That replacement parts are relatively cheap. This has been an issue with Prusa: open hardware helps very little if you need to pay an unreasonable amount of money to get a nozzle and heatbreaker or so. Bambulab parts are much cheaper, even if the printer is completely closed.

3. The OSS nature & hackability of software: that, yes, mattered a lot, and Bambulab, Prusa itself, and many other companies benefitted from reliable and powerful open source software to drive 3D printers (slicers, firmware). This had the effect of accelerating the field.

A bigger danger than closed hardware is patents. Also in the field of 3D printing the feeling is that the small incentive to innovate (Prusa was really stagnating before Bambulab) was also a result of providing the same value instantaneously to all the competitors.

I believe in open source as an accelerator of society. I also like open hardware. However both open source and open hardware can fail in certain setups, and in this case it is better to move away.

skybrian• 2 years ago

Doesn't the Core One share a lot of common parts and accessories with the Mk4? An upgrade kit is promised.

esskay5• 2 years ago

It's mainly things like rods and motors from the looks of it. The electronic kits used to be the most expensive parts when building your own printer so makes sense to reuse these and just pay for the frame. It's a smart move on their part thats for sure.

solarkraft• 2 years ago

Remember that Mr. Prusa himself has an open source logo tattooed on his arm. This must hurt him as much as it hurts us. I see myself as a huge proponent of open source ideals, but the company needs to make money, so I understand this move. It feels less bait-and-switch-y than the relicensing of other prominent foss products.

kiba10• 2 years ago

I am skeptical of Mr. Prusa's reasoning for not being open source. I am not doubting the sincerity of his belief, but I think he's wrong.

The Chinese are very good at cloning. Releasing the design doesn't change this, as they don't need the PCB layout because they already have their own PCBs and have lot of people who can design electronics. In any case, there are hardly any secret sauces on a Prusa. Rather, Bambu doesn't even need to copy and are seen as surpassing Prusa in some respects(true or not).

He mentioned about keeping things secret to prevent supply chain competition. I wish I knew more about this issue, so I can't confirm or refute it, but it seems dubious to me as well.

Anyway, open source is only as good as how you use it or develop it. Prusa seems to be for the most part a closed shop, so they don't benefit from community development and seem to have Not Invented Here syndrome and allergic to using community developed solutions, except for software.

For the majority of people, the open source label signifies that you are much less likely to get scammed or get taken advantages of companies or individuals. That's probably the most important thing.

Anyway, I don't run an open hardware company, so take it with a grain of salt.

Jaecen• 2 years ago

I don't understand why Prusa thinks keeping their designs proprietary addresses the "unfair competition" problem they seem to be concerned about. Anyone wanting to release a printer can use freely available designs, like those from Voron. The openness of the Prusa Core ONE is not what would allow a competitor to enter the market "unfairly" with a competitive product. Maybe it would make sense if they were bringing some new innovations to the market, but for a catch-up product like the Core ONE restricting access feels like slighting your customers for no gain.

esskay5• 2 years ago

They're on a bit of a streak of very poor business decisions really. They did the same with the XL, they've been caught lying in marketing materials (the Mini for example was advertised as having power loss recovery at launch, which changed to coming soon, and eventually when they realised it wasn't possible was dropped entirely, about 2 years later).

On top of that there's the incredibly slow response to Bambu and the other Corexy options overshadowing them, and the stream of lies from Josef Prusa regarding Bambu labs (e.g his tweets claiming they stole code and violated the MIT license, which he's since removed from Twitter but thankfully was backed up in several reddit discussions as well as archive.org).

I've got a lot of respect for Prusa and what they've achived but they really do seem to be fumbling pretty hard. The Core One will certainly get them back in the right direction but things like cheaping out and not including a camera when its already a worse product than the one they're trying to compete with feels like an incredibly stupid decision.

It's such a cheap part to include, for some sort of comparison a Raspberry Pi Zero camera is £14 on Pimoroni and thats a consumer price. Even if it was costing Prusa £10 per camera, thats absolutely nothing.

wakawaka28• 2 years ago

This is a terrible mistake. People see Prusa as a premium brand mainly because of its long history in open source. You can buy a similar Creality printer for like $200 from Amazon vs Prusa's $800 or whatever shipped from Europe already.

Barring any overwhelming breakthrough, other brands have them beat on price and performance. Hopefully they at least keep middle of the road models as open-source for those who really value that. I anticipate that the open-source printers will outsell the closed-source ones, unless they conceal the fact that they are now closed source.

By the way Prusa, if you don't want to help the competition, maybe don't let Prusa Slicer slice for other printers. But that cat is out of the bag, and it's also probably a marketing tool at this point.

kiba10• 2 years ago

Prusaslicer and forks all benefit from the sharing of codes. Prusaslicer even copied code from Cura.

jmartin2683• 2 years ago

It’s just another Bambu clone anyway

With Core One, Prusa's Open Source Hardware Dream Dies

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