Why bambu_networking violates the AGPL in Bambu Studio (opens in new tab)

A more credible source from Prusa (the company behind the source slicer that bambulab forked)

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/josef-prusa-warns-c...

The situation is interesting and kind of a grey area. The way they structured the network code as a plugin that downloads after first run is obviously to avoid violating the AGPL license, but if you don’t install it, large parts of the slicer are inaccessible. So it’s not at all like a normal plugin.

Edit: a more direct source. https://x.com/josefprusa/status/2054602354851254330

Software licensing disputes have almost nothing to do with the technical mechanism that loads the code into RAM. The court will look at the totality of the facts: what is the product, how is it normally operated, who is selling it. There's a lot more common sense involved than programmers like to think (but it's not completely about common sense).

For example the Nvidia driver gets to ignore the Linux kernel license because even though it links with the kernel, when considered as a complete package it's not a derivative work of the kernel. It is its own product that can be plugged into various kernels such as Windows and Linux, and the small adapter layer for each kernel doesn't change that.

Some German court even once interpreted GPLv2 to prohibit tivoization.

The networking code is not some 3rd party content that happens to be loaded. It’s an integral part of bambu studio, and if you don’t install it, large parts of the apps functionality won’t work.

By a common sense view it is not a plugin at all, it’s part of the app that they have structured in a weird way to try to avoid the obvious license violation.

IIRC the difference is the effective requirement of having it for the intended function of the software; To whit: Printing to a Bambu printer. It's a legal gray area but the general legal consensus as I understand it is that the dynamic loading is enough most of the time up to the point where it's a requirement for functionality.

Of course, IANAL and just a random passerby with a SUPER rough understanding.

This is not like a web browser, Bambu Studio requires the networking plugin to function, it explicitly depends on the services provided by a specific plug-in therefore it's not a plug-in at all, except in name.

What you're describing is probably a gray area, the closest example I can think of is the Wordpress plugin ecosystem (GPLv2+).

AFAIK, the code of the network "plugin" is dynamically loaded, but the version string is hardcoded in Bambu Studio. The analogy is not exactly right IMO; the browser is not restricted to a specific website or a specific version of that site.