Cloning the MakerBot Is Legal, But Does That Make It Right?

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/08/tangibot-makerbot-clone/

by replicatorblog • 14 years ago

30 51 14 years ago

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

"The decision to manufacture in China has also raised eyebrows. Will TangiBots be produced in a Foxconn-like factory..."

My impression is that Foxconn is a much nicer place to work in China than most other places, so... for the sake of the employees I hope so?

Anyway, if Makerbot feels threatened by this they should probably take a good look at how Redhat operates. A piece of hardware should not be their only product. The fact that these new guys are catching flak from the community at all suggests Makerbot already has at least part of this figured out though.

ori_b• 14 years ago

More to the point, anything that can be trivially and legally copied should not be their only product, be it hardware or software. Open source is great -- I love it, write it, and have contributed -- but on it's own, it's not a viable business model in the long term.

anigbrowl• 14 years ago

Knocking the price from $1800 to $1200 looks pretty innovative to me. I would like to buy a makerbot, but the price has been too steep for me to indulge my curiosity - I'm not a whiz at 3d modeling and there are other things I like to spend money on.

mchusma• 14 years ago

Of course it is both legal and right. Don't make things open source then expect them to not be cloned. The benefits of open source are that it is not only makerbot that is contributing to the design it is the community. The downside? The community owns it.

PeterisP2• 14 years ago

It is legal and right to clone it, manufacture it and sell it. However, I do see a moral issue in asking MakerBot community to donate a lot of money for this.

crazypyro2• 14 years ago

Why? He is offering the same product for 500 dollars less, making it more affordable and accessible to a larger audience.

brador• 14 years ago

I'm all for driving the price down on 3d printing hardware and getting it into more hands but the way he keeps saying trust is ringing my scam alarm.

$500k is enough to retire on for some.

Zuph• 14 years ago

I think Phill Torrone hits the nail on the head: The problem isn't that the's copying a device, it's that he's relying on the trademark of the original developer to sell his "new" version, without substantially describing how he's going to improve the device, while maintaining the high quality and solid support of MakerBot.

PeterisP2• 14 years ago

If you drop $600 off the price, many customers would see that this is better for their situation even with worse quality and no support.

The world is not really changed by innovative, excellent things - the world is changed only when these things are made cheaply and accessible to the masses.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

My reply to Phil is that MakerBot says "It uses the same plastic as Legos" in all of their videos. This is true only in the most technical sense. Both use a type of plastic called ABS, but the formulations are very different and more importantly neither the strength of the parts or the surface finish are of equal quality. Still they leverage all the good will Lego has built.

ptorrone7• 14 years ago

makerbot has never said "LEGO clone" or "LEGO knock-off". the tangibot did say "same quality as makerbot because it's a clone", "makerbot clone" and "makerbot knock-off". stating a fact like it's the same plastic is different than saying a complex machine is the same quality because it's a clone, the tangibot did not demonstrate that.

keep in mind, this was before the tangibot creator updated the kickstarter and also was asked by kickstarter to make it clear it's not violating rule # of kickstarter:

"A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project." (they also say "No "fund my life" projects.).

just to be clear, open-source hardware makers, at least every single one of them i know and work with don't have any issues with someone making their design and making it more low-cost.

if kickstarter had viewable revision changes i think this conversation would not be about people saying open-source doesn't want to be open-source.

jerrya2• 14 years ago

$1200 is pretty sweet compared to $1800, but I am already concerned that someone making copies is already behind the curve compared to the original inventor in terms of the innovation I appreciate.

Cf. cheap PCs to the ones you specify in your business.

Consider which manufacturer is likely to come out with the next best model, and will upgrades be easily available or supported for your model? I already wonder if a MakerBot will destroy itself soon after I build it, they all look a bit on the flimsy side.

I would probably be persuaded by better customer service, better support forums, and the knowledge that one provides jobs in the US would all work to overcome that price differential.

But it is a hell of a differential.

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

Additionally, the more Makerbots/Makerbot-clones consumers have, the larger your potential market for future versions. Even if the Tangibots are equal to the Makerbots in terms of build quality, the Makerbot people presumably have a leg up when it comes to inventing the successor to both. If more people out there are using these style 3d printers than before, then the number of people who might buy the next should be larger.

jerrya2• 14 years ago

That's an excellent point. While it will definitely take some sales away from the original Makerbot, it will also definitely increase the size of the entire market, all of whom will now have Makerbot knowledge and be eager to see what Makerbot's next product is.

In certain circumstances, if Makerbot is constrained by cash or production volume, they might even see this as a good thing that lets them redirect their flow into a newer, better product. (I hope!)

tzs• 14 years ago

> The decision to manufacture in China has also raised eyebrows

I bet that pretty much everyone who has done so publicly has done so via a computer or other electronic device that is substantially or completely manufactured in China or at least is full of parts that were so manufactured.

DrStalker2• 14 years ago

I'm always amazed by the way people think of things manufactured in China, especially people who still consider it to mean cheap and inferior. It's true China makes a lot of poor quality crap cheap, but they also make really high quality products if you're willing to pay for it instead of going to the cheapest bid.

martey2• 14 years ago

Isn't this an ad hominem? It would be relevant if you could prove the commentators had a choice between purchasing devices made in China and identical but more expensive devices made in different countries, but there is no way that you can know this.

In the comments for the Kickstarter project, Strong suggests that the sole reason that he is able to offer his TangiBot at a cheaper price point than the MakerBot is by moving manufacturing to China. While you might disagree that this is an issue, that does not mean that others' concerns are irrelevant.

DrStalker2• 14 years ago

If you buy a Makerbot what do you get other than the device itself? There needs to be some sort of value-add when you sell opensource products otherwise anyone with a better production infrastructure can undercut you.

ef4• 14 years ago

> “I’m disappointed that you’ve chose to knock off/copy a respected industry leader, and undercutting them, therefore starting a race to the bottom.”

I sincerely hope we do get a "race to the bottom" on 3d printer prices, the same way we've had one for microprocessors and bandwidth.

We all benefit immensely from that kind of competition.

crazypyro2• 14 years ago

I couldn't believe this was an actual quote. Isn't this great for everyone except maybe maker? The consumer definitely benefits if the product works the same and costs 500 dollars less.

cube132• 14 years ago

Only if that type of competition results in better products. If it's just cheaper products, there's no real gain.

And that's where I have a problem with this. Sure, it's completely legal. But it doesn't seem ethical to just take someone else's work wholesale and profit from it.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

Good points, but the MakerBot is completely open source - so it is ethical, as long as he releases any improvements.

Also, isn't equal quality for a lower price, better?

avolcano• 14 years ago

"No real gain?"

Of course there's real gain! Imagine small colleges, hacker spaces, and even more individuals being able to afford these things. That's a MASSIVE gain. Increasing access to this kind of product is almost, if not more, important than improving the actual product.

Imagine a world in which there had never been a computing race to the bottom. Maybe every computer would be a supercomputer, sure, but then none of us would be able to afford our own computer in our own homes!

philh• 14 years ago

Cheaper products are available to more people to do cool things with.

Better products are also good, of course. If we have to trade off "the rate products improve" verses "the rates products get cheaper", I don't know what the optimal trade is, but I'm pretty sure it's not all on one side.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

That is the best comment I've read on the matter. Great point. It will be unfortunate for MakerBot, but will hugely benefit everyone else.

martey2• 14 years ago

Torrone’s primary frustration was the over-reliance on the MakerBot trademark — the one way open source projects can protect their brand — and the good will that is associated with it. [Editor's note: Strong has since removed much of the "MakerBot" language from the Kickstarter page.]

I wish Kickstarter had an easy way to see the changes that project owners had made after the project had begun. Looking at the project's comments, it seems that Strong was opposed to removing the mentions of MakerBot (claiming that he was simply "comparing" his product to it), but changed his mind earlier this week.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

Great point - would be hugely valuable for people planning projects as well. http://kicktraq.com is at least starting to head in that direction making it easy to see activity by day - so you can start to see the impact of social media.

ptorrone7• 14 years ago

+1 the first version of the kickstarter is completely different than what's there now.

i'm a backer of the tangibot, but you can't view the revisions.

samroesch2• 14 years ago

As I noted above:

According to the license, "You must attribute The MakerBot Replicator to makerbot (with link)."

"So it's ok (and actually required) for him to mention MakerBot at least once, "(but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.)"

I don't think Matt suggested that MakerBot endorsed it in anyway, he just attributed the design ALOT!

mxfh• 14 years ago

I was quite surprised the Makerbot is that expensive these days, until Is saw it was the price for the heavily upgraded ready-to-print machine.

Together with some friends I built a 1st generation CupCake Makerbot about 3 years ago, the cost was less than $1000[1], only $750 for the most basic kit [2]. It took a while to assemble, but it was worth actually building it with your own hands and seeing for the first time to finally print something. Yet there were setbacks in the process, but the makerbot staff was always helpful in finishing the project. I assume the just can't provide that level of support for kits at the scale they are now.

If makerbot would offer an unassembled kit again they could beat that symbolic price again any time and show what the extra work is actually worth.

[1] http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2010-06/making-makerbot

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20100110133658/http://store.maker...

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

This is a really good point. In an effort to have a more durable, packaged product, MakerBot has effectively abandoned the low end of the market. They're basically "Innovator's Dilemma"ing themselves in the space of a few short years.

MBCook3• 14 years ago

They stopped offering kits when they stopped making the Thing-o-Matic. Tons of people complained, but on the Google group they explained the real reason: price.

At this point, they can build the machines much faster, and that makes them cheaper. Instead of having to measure out that each kit get 4 of these bearings, 2 belts, 78 screws, 107 nuts, etc, they can just keep them all around the shop and save all the time from that portioning.

I learned quite a bit assembling my ToM. If you consider that the Replicator has a larger build envelope, a better extruder, improved ease-of-use, and the LCD interface... the $1750 price isn't too bad. The dual extruders is pretty good at $2000.

That said, it's not cheap. If I was starting out again today, I'd probably try making some sort of RepRap Mendel. I still love Makerbot, but the ability to save around $750-$1000 would be too compelling for me.

They've moved up in the market some. They seem to be targeting professionals that could use a basic 3D printer more than they used to, and DIY hobbyists less.

drone3• 14 years ago

Don't forget the cost of supporting people when they make a mistake putting it together, or having to send out another package to someone half way across the world because you left one bolt out, etc.

MBCook3• 14 years ago

I'm pretty annoyed with it, even though it's fully within their rights.

I have a Makerbot Thing-o-Matic. I would love a Replicator, but it is very expensive. There are cheaper printers out there (especially as a kit), but Makerbot makes a good quality product.

The thing that annoys me more than anything else is the laziness. Makerbot's stuff is open source, but do you have to build a perfect clone? All they did was replace the two laser etched Makerbot logos with their own. They didn't change the dimensions, they didn't go with a different extruder, they didn't round off corners, they didn't use a different color of plywood.

It just seems so lazy to me, like they're not even trying. It's neat they offer an acrylic case, but that's not the one they're showing. They're showing the perfect clone.

I completely agree with the quote in the article that says they're over reliant on the Makerbot name. The announcements I saw didn't say it was a new 3D printer based on a Makerbot, they said it was a Makerbot made by a 3rd party.

Just one obvious enhancement would have made me so much more comfortable with the idea. The Kickstarter page lists a few simple ones (FCC certification, replacing a few plywood bits with plastic bits), but you can't tell that from looking at it.

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

Ripping off Makerbot? Please. Makerbot uses plenty of Reprap-derived technology, and how much money did Bri pay for that?

$0, since it was all open source.

soup10• 14 years ago

Wait, so open-source isn't all sunshine and rainbows and intellectual property laws have a purpose? That's crazy talk, lets go back to discussing how corporations are evil and selling things for more than they cost to make is greedy.

drone3• 14 years ago

An unspoken issue here, and one often facing the industry I'm in presently (I'm not going to mention what it is, as I don't want to attract any flak down the road, given I run an OSHW company at the moment) - is that it's easy to take a design that's been proven, and sell it for less.

It's easy to attract a large segment of the market over to your, near clone, of that product for less. You don't even have to make it in China - you're one guy with some outsourcers that'll do everything for you - you can just lower your margins. The problem now becomes that you need to sustain that business. You're not making enough margin to hire a handful of additional engineers to design the next generation products while you sell today's. You're making a comfortable living for you - while driving the innovator you just copied to lower their margins and lay off staff. (Or, exit the market entirely.)

Copycats of OSHW at cheaper prices who don't innovate new capabilities harm the market in the long run, but make today's customer happy. It drives OSHW vendors out of the market, and forces new players to make a choice between open-sourcing and facing massive margin pressure, or come out closed-source and ensure they have enough breathing room. Of course, it's a false dichotomy: we've been copied several times, but focus on extreme customer service, and way out of our way warranties to differentiate ourselves, while also continuing to invest in new products. But, we're also in a much smaller niche.

That being said: I haven't followed Makerbot in a while - how much new R&D do they do? That is, have they been coming out with systems with newer capabilities and competing aggressively, or have they largely been resting on their laurels?

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

This.

So there is this story of Fry's electronics.

Back in 1985 there were a half dozen electronics stores in the Bay Area, Quest, JDR, Quemont, Jade, Sunnyvale Electronics, just to name the ones I remember well. And along came Fry's and said "Gee we can sell electronics like groceries, buy them in bulk, sell them for a few % margin, and then put a lot of high margin items in around that to make up the difference. And it was a huge success (for them) and soon people would just go to Fry's to get their electronic components and tools because they had everything and it was cheaper besides. All the electronics stores went out of business, unable to compete at the margins Fry's charged.

Then Frys decided it was too much trouble to sell components, and moved toward more high end stuff. That completely destroyed the eco-system in the Bay Area for parts. Sure you could go to a surplus place and get a part if they happened to have it, but if they didn't they didn't and it wasn't like they would restock. The surplus places are at the whim of a manufacturer dumping their leftovers.

Radio Shack had also moved on so here we were, engineers in the Bay Area ordering resistors from a company in Minnesota (Digikey) with a turnaround time of days rather than minutes.

Of all the things one can hate Fry's for, this for me is the top one. They came in, destroyed a market that had been around for decades and then left behind the burned rubble.

One of the survivors was Jameco, they have been coming back now that Fry's has left the market. And even Radio Shack (which is also selling OSHW in the form of Seeed Studio stuff btw). But man it sucked during the down time.

MBCook3• 14 years ago

They've been doing quite a bit. In the year and a half since I purchased my Thing-o-Matic, they've come out with three new hot ends, the Replicator, and dual-strusion. The Replicator is supposed to be easier to calibrate and easier to use. It also uses accelerated printing by default, which is a nice improvement.

From what I've seen, they are definitely continuing to work hard. They probably could have kept the Thing-o-Matic as their top machine, or just done a much more minor upgrade, and been safe for an additional 6-12 months. It's only now, 6+ months after the Replicator came out, that I'm starting to see posts about other commercial 3D printers (i.e. not DIY kit like a RepRap or Printbot).

Good luck with your business. Makerbot's customer service has been excellent the few times I've had a question. If you were to buy a Tangibot, I wonder how much support they will offer directly vs. having to ask the community. Of course in that case, you're really no worse off than if you sourced & built a printer yourself like a RepRap.

drone3• 14 years ago

That's good to hear - there's always the risk that someone is going to come along and say "Well, but they hadn't done anything in a while!" As long as they keep investing and pushing the envelope, the copycats shouldn't drag them down too far - 3D printing, especially, is a huge market right now.

Not in the market for one myself, still prefer subtractive machining, but I imagine, like most new and small companies, support will be hard for Tangibot at first. They'll either get it and move ahead, or struggle under the weight of success (should they succeed). An interesting experiment will be to see whether they meet their goal, now that they're making the news.

wmf• 14 years ago

It seems like profitable open source hardware relies on a sort of essential hypocrisy: while a project makes its cred off "maker" and "open source" buzzwords it fails as soon as someone actually uses that openness.

ptorrone7• 14 years ago

open source is fueling many great kickstarters:

http://blog.makezine.com/2011/10/20/how-open-source-hardware...

tangibot's issue(s) were not about open source at all.

ptorrone7• 14 years ago

hey folks - this really was not about open-source or open-source hardware, but did start some great conversations. it was about a self described "clone" and "knock-off" fund-my-business asking for $500k on kickstarter. there was some open source hardware discussion shrapnel, it's good that it's being talked about regardless.

everyone who does open-source knows a copy of your design/code is going to happen, and it's encouraged.

1) the tangibot kickstarter when launched used the makerbot name dozens and dozens of times and said specifically it was the same quality because it was clone. you can say it's like-something, but not lean that hard on someone's trademarked name and brand for a $500k kickstarter. open-source hardware is great, copy it! just don't use someone's trademarked name as a way to assure quality and support. at least ship or show something and prove you're comparable.

2) the tangibot kickstarter at first said it was to fund a business, that's against rule #1 of kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines

rule #1 on kickstarter: "A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project." (they also say "No "fund my life" projects.).

tangibot has since completely changed the kickstarter and it's $500k better than it was when it was launched.

if kickstarter had viewable revision changes that would be helpful right about now.

polemic• 14 years ago

How is this different from cloning (for example) open source licensed software?

There is plenty of OS philosophy that says that even people who clone and close-source the technology bring ancillary benefits to the project - for example by driving market adoption of a similar platform (and thereby attracting users looking for the similar-but-free option).

Presumably MakerBot chose their license with eyes wide open. That the project has been successful enough to spawn TangiBot is purely a sign of MarkerBot's success, not of dirty dealings on Matt Strong's part.

Cloning the MakerBot Is Legal, But Does That Make It Right?

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