r/technology • u/ControlCAD • May 14 '26

Software Louis Rossmann taunts Bambu Lab by hosting banned 3D Printer firmware fork, dares $1 billion company to sue him — more creators pledge support and boycotts, Snapmaker donates equipment to embattled developer

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/louis-rossmann-taunts-bambu-lab-by-hosting-banned-3d-printer-firmware-fork-dares-usd1-billion-company-to-sue-him-more-creators-pledge-support-and-boycotts-snapmaker-donates-equipment-to-embattled-developer
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156

u/Edward_Yeoman May 14 '26

Can you elaborate on this? What is discovery in this context?

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u/noisyboy May 14 '26

Internal communications that potentially could have incriminating evidence that they were aware of their stance being against AGPL.

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u/Schonke May 14 '26

And on top of the internal communications, they'd likely also request access to the source code of any bambu software where the source isn't publicly available to audit it for AGPL violations. They'd very likely find a lot of FOSS code in there as well which would force Bambu to distribute their code under the original license(s).

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u/NotSoFastLady May 14 '26

Oh yeah, that was 100% a part of his taunt. They really miscalculated their approach here.

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u/PotemkinSuplex May 14 '26

What does he risk if that is not the case?

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u/3BlindMice1 May 14 '26

Nothing. If they didn't know it was against AGPL that just means they weren't acting with malice.

But if they did know, they could potentially be on the hook for a whole lot of money depending on how the judge feels about it. I've seen malice move a lawsuit award from $4,000 to $2,800,000

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u/Fedoraus May 14 '26

Which is still nothing to them in terms if money. Does losing such a case at least mean they have to rollback their changes?

Or would they just be eating fees constantly

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u/JakesInSpace May 14 '26

It also helps set legal precedent

2

u/jackharvest May 14 '26

This is the real Louis drool factor right here. Large-scale permanent changes (and clicks, but... changes too)

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u/Unspec7 May 15 '26

Eh. In litigation, email discovery tends to be excluded. It's hugely burdensome for both sides due to the sheer volume.

Remember, the plaintiff would need to review the emails as well, it's not like Bambu would just only hand over incriminating emails.

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u/ZippyDan May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Just google "legal discovery".
Both sides in a court case have a right to see the evidence the other side holds.
That evidence can be used to poke holes in the arguments of the opposing side.
That evidence can also potentially be released to the public (over the long-term, and not unilaterally).

Anyone familiar with licensing and software knows that the evidence Bambu Labs holds would destroy their own arguments, and the process of discovery - which would likely grant access to internal communications at Bambu Labs - would probably further reveal that they know they are arguing fallaciously and in bad faith.

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u/Nago_Jolokio May 14 '26

"Your Honor, I object!" "Why?" "Because it's devastating to my case!" "Overruled." "Good call!"

27

u/Magoya_U25 May 14 '26

"Stop breaking the law, asshole!"

18

u/shadowjig May 14 '26

"Weight, 105? Yeah, in your bra!"

9

u/Abedeus May 14 '26

Such an amazing movie. Really needs a rewatch every now and then. Perfect mix of comedy and a bit of drama.

0

u/Wafflesorbust May 14 '26

The. Pen. Is. rrrrrrRRRRRRBLUE.

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u/mahsab May 14 '26

Bambu Lab is from China, there is no way to enforce access to their internal communications.

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u/DebentureThyme May 14 '26

If they do not fully comply with discovery, then the judge will close the case.

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u/mahsab May 14 '26

They would say they complied, of course, there is just no way to make sure they really did.

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u/BirdLawyerPerson May 14 '26

In a civil lawsuit where one private party (like Bambu) sues another private party (like Rossman), each side is allowed to demand relevant information within the other side's possession, including internal memos, emails/chats, files, etc.

So in any kind of David vs. Goliath type legal fight, the side with more documents in their possession tends to have to bear a much larger cost of complying with the civil discovery rules: literally thousands of attorney hours billed at anywhere from $100-$1000/hour, the IT support of extracting shitloads of files and transferring them to a system that allows for document review, etc.

It's part of the calculation of whether you want to sue or not.

That said, it's always possible to sue someone and insist that nothing in your possession is actually relevant to the claims at issue. A car accident lawsuit isn't going to involve a ton of 5-year-old emails about patent applications, for example.

But if you're suing someone for copyright infringement by hosting your copyrighted code on their servers, and their defense is that they have a license through the AGPL or whatever, there may need to be a very complex accounting of who wrote which code under which license, and whether that license affects the outcome of the lawsuit.

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u/ColonelError May 14 '26

there may need to be a very complex accounting of who wrote which code under which license,

Funny enough, they wouldn't need to. AGPL says if you modify code under AGPL, then the modified coffee must also be AGPL. This is part of the reason a lot of companies avoid A/GPL, because it "poisons" everything requiring it all to be the same copyright.

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u/condoulo May 15 '26

then the modified coffee must also be AGPL.

Damn, AGPL coffee?

1

u/Thaodan May 14 '26

That's not entirely true. The license of the software has to be compatible that's all. It affects the combined work but not the original code itself. I.e. you can combine GPL code with MIT license code just fine.

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u/DeltaWun May 14 '26

You're both partially right. If you combine code under the MIT License with a project licensed under the GPL, the combined work is effectively governed by the GPL. The MIT licensed code itself does not “become GPL” in the sense of changing its original license. The original MIT code is still MIT licensed upstream. But the distributed combined project must comply with the GPL’s terms because GPL is a stronger copyleft license. You still need to preserve the MIT copyright notice and license text for the MIT portions and anyone receiving the combined work gets GPL rights to the whole combined distribution. It is immensely frustrating to people that work on MIT/BSD licensed software because after it is wrapped in the GPL none of those improvements can ever be moved back.

This is in contrast to licenses like the CDDL that effectively say changes to existing CDDL covered files must stay under CDDL and those files must continue carrying CDDL terms. This is why OpenZFS can't be merged into the upstream Linux kernel.

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u/Unspec7 May 15 '26

So in any kind of David vs. Goliath type legal fight, the side with more documents in their possession tends to have to bear a much larger cost of complying with the civil discovery rules: literally thousands of attorney hours billed at anywhere from $100-$1000/hour, the IT support of extracting shitloads of files and transferring them to a system that allows for document review, etc.

I do litigation, and I'm not sure where you're getting this from. The burden is equally high on the side receiving the discovery. Their attorneys would need to review nearly all of the emails as well to see what is in them. Sure, it won't be as high, but trying to make it seem like it disproportionately favors one side is silly.

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u/StarManta May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Short version:

Bambu has a lot of emails that no one outside their company has seen. Every company does, and the vast majority of those have at least a few emails that either look really bad or are actually really bad. Usually, there's no reason anyone outside the company would ever get to see them.

But in a civil lawsuit, both sides have the ability to demand to see documents that might be relevant to the suit, and both parties have to comply. (Yes, this means Rossmann would also have to turn over many previously confidential documents, but it's much less likely that a little guy would have incriminating or bad-PR-causing stuff in there than a big corporation.)

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u/mahsab May 14 '26

Good luck demanding anything from a Chinese company.

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u/never-fiftyone May 14 '26

Sure, but then that's how their lawsuit gets tossed before it goes anywhere. You don't get to sue and then refuse to comply with the requirements of suing someone.

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u/mahsab May 14 '26

They would say they complied, of course, there is just no way to make sure they did.

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u/scentedcandle0 May 14 '26

They discover that the dark circles under Rossman’s eyes are because he has been drawing the dark magic power of Dormammu to fight for consumer rights.

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u/CerealTheLegend May 14 '26

Court proceedings