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

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Right-to-repair feud gets aggressive.

Bambu Lab vs Louis Rossmann
(Image credit: YouTube)

More people are taking a stand against Bambu Lab and its opposition to open source firmware, as Louis Rossmann posted yet another YouTube video taunting the 3D printing juggernaut into taking legal action. In the video, he stated the contentious fork of OrcaSlicer-BambuLab was now hosted on his own FULU (Freedom from Unethical Limitations) Foundation GitHub. This is the version of OrcaSlicer that promised to restore the direct cloud connectivity that the company stripped away in early 2025, a move that many in the 3D printing community saw as the first step in locking the garden gates for Bambu Lab users.

Bambu Lab, a company with estimated revenue approaching $1 billion USD, threatened Independent developer Pawel Jarczak with a cease-and-desist over the free program. He then took the project down.

Rossmann, an advocate for Right to Repair and fully owning the products one purchases. He offered $10,000 in legal aid to Jarczak if he would keep his code posted, and encouraged his 2.5 million YouTube followers to contribute to the cause as well. Gamers Nexus followed suit by also hosting Jarczak’s OrcaSlicer-BambuLab code on its GitHub and pledging an additional $10,000 to the legal fund.

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Jeff Geerling, a respected Open Source software engineer, fan of Raspberry Pi’s, and owner of a Bambu Lab P1S, posted a YouTube video to his one million subscribers the same morning, saying that he would not purchase another Bambu Lab printer after this incident.

Jarczak was crowdfunding a modest $500 donation to buy a Klipper-based 3D printer for project testing. Despite Jarczak’s insistence that his fork relied entirely on publicly available AGPL-licensed code from Bambu’s own repository, he expressed no desire to tangle with the massive 3D printer company and took down the software.

Snapmaker has since stepped in with a donation of a Snapmaker U1 tool changer, which runs open-source Klipper, for Jarczak’s continued work. “We support creators, developers, and makers who contribute to the mission of democratizing the art of creation, develop open-source projects, and push the boundaries of 3D printing and maker hardware,” Blayne Sapelli, Snapmaker’s Head of PR, told Tom’s Hardware in a Discord private message. “We welcome them into our ecosystem and have provided machines, financial support, and engineering resources to a wide range of projects. You can expect to hear much more about these efforts in the near future.”

Bambu Lab maintains that this whole issue is a matter of structural vulnerability and stability for their cloud servers. In a blog post titled “Setting the record straight on Cloud Access and Community,” the company attempted to clarify its take on software modification. The company admitted that Bambu Studio is an open-source project under the AGPL-3.0 license, which is free to modify as users see fit.

“At the same time, a license for code is not a pass to our cloud infrastructure,” the company said. These are two separate things, and the company insists that Jarczak’s fork crossed the line by injecting falsified identity metadata into its network communication. “In simple terms: it pretended to be the official Bambu Studio client when communicating with our servers.”

The post closed with a reminder that Bambu Studio can be run in LAN Mode or Developer Mode for those who do not wish to interact with its cloud network. They also invited the community to participate in its “Bug Bounty Program,” which rewards users for reporting security vulnerabilities in either its hardware or software through the proper channels. The amount of the rewards was not listed.

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Denise Bertacchi
Denise Bertacchi
Freelance Reviewer

Denise Bertacchi is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering 3D printing. Denise has been crafting with PCs since she discovered Print Shop had clip art on her Apple IIe. She loves reviewing 3D printers because she can mix all her passions: printing, photography, and writing.

39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Crazyy8
    So Bambu Lab doesn't want people to use their servers without their permission? That seems reasonable enough. As mentioned in the article, you can always use the LAN only mode or dev mode, or you can agree to Bambu's terms of service and be able to use their servers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're worried about security and so you're using the modified slicer, your data is still going through Bambu's servers, just without their approval.
    Reply
  • H4X0R
    Crazyy8 said:
    So Bambu Lab doesn't want people to use their servers without their permission? That seems reasonable enough. As mentioned in the article, you can always use the LAN only mode or dev mode, or you can agree to Bambu's terms of service and be able to use their servers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're worried about security and so you're using the modified slicer, your data is still going through Bambu's servers, just without their approval.
    You need authorization via their servers on setup. Also, these printers weren't originally purchased with this requirement. Bambu Labs wants to push it's subscription model to every device. They changed the terms on users after the sale, binding them to a pricing model they didn't anticipate upon purchasing.
    Sauce
    Reply
  • wakuwaku
    Crazyy8 said:
    So Bambu Lab doesn't want people to use their servers without their permission? That seems reasonable enough. As mentioned in the article, you can always use the LAN only mode or dev mode, or you can agree to Bambu's terms of service and be able to use their servers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're worried about security and so you're using the modified slicer, your data is still going through Bambu's servers, just without their approval.
    People are not really pissed off that Bambu Labs are pissed off about unauthorized use of their servers. People are pissed off that Bambu Labs is misusing the Law to go after those people. You can preach all you want about using LAN or Dev mode, but going offline doesn't shield you from Bambu Labs going after you using American laws. They can still sue you and put you into prison as long as you use the software that they are threatening against in the first place, regardless of using your printer online or offline.

    Why don't you learn how to read and understand the situation before commenting. Maybe you people will understand the world better instead of staying in your caves.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    H4X0R said:
    You need authorization via their servers on setup. Also, these printers weren't originally purchased with this requirement. Bambu Labs wants to push it's subscription model to every device. They changed the terms on users after the sale, binding them to a pricing model they didn't anticipate upon purchasing.
    Sauce
    And now, almost 18 months after that article...no subscription.

    It states right there...
    https://blog.bambulab.com/updates-and-third-party-integration-with-bambu-connect/
    We want to make it absolutely clear that all of these claims are entirely false:
    Bambu Lab will remotely disable your printer ("brick" it).
    Firmware updates will block your printer’s ability to print.
    AMS functionality will be restricted, and the use of third-party filament will be disabled.
    Bambu Lab firmware contains trojans or backdoors for unauthorized remote control.
    The printers have a timed killswitch that disables them after a certain period.
    All 3D files printed are monitored, duplicated, or stolen.
    A subscription will be mandatory to use your printer.
    Reply
  • Crazyy8
    H4X0R said:
    You need authorization via their servers on setup.
    Sauce
    No? I used to own a Bambu Lab A1, and I had the option to entirely skip going online when I first set it up. I checked the Bambu Studio wiki, and there's the option to not install the network plugin when setting up the software, meaning it can't connect to the internet, meaning no authorization. You can still slice files and export them to an SD card, then print off the SD card, all without going online.
    Bambu Studio start guide: https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/software/bambu-studio/studio-quick-startBambu Lab A1 start guide: https://csm.bblcdn.com/hub/dd4cc05f25b442ccaeca5e4101f90c29.pdf
    Reply
  • S58_is_the_goat
    H4X0R said:
    You need authorization via their servers on setup. Also, these printers weren't originally purchased with this requirement. Bambu Labs wants to push it's subscription model to every device. They changed the terms on users after the sale, binding them to a pricing model they didn't anticipate upon purchasing.
    Sauce
    Do tell when this subscription service is coming...
    Reply
  • chaos215bar2
    H4X0R said:
    You need authorization via their servers on setup. Also, these printers weren't originally purchased with this requirement. Bambu Labs wants to push it's subscription model to every device. They changed the terms on users after the sale, binding them to a pricing model they didn't anticipate upon purchasing.
    Sauce
    And also the "LAN only" mode still requires all prints to go through proprietary Bambu software. Software which claims it doesn't communicate with Bambu, yet according to complaints I've read, has previously ceased to function when Bambu servers were unavailable.

    I was willing to give Bambu some benefit of the doubt when they first locked things down since they had been in the news recently for some concerns about unauthorized remote access — even though this was never the right answer.

    After Bambu's lying blog post making false claims about these legal threats, I'm done. The company and its leadership has shown its true colors, and they're absolutely as unethical as anyone ever imagined when they first changed their terms. I will never, under any circumstances, buy any product from Bambu again. And I will make sure everyone I know who's into 3D printing knows exactly why they shouldn't either.

    Gamers Nexus also forked this repository, by the way.
    Reply
  • chaos215bar2
    S58_is_the_goat said:
    Do tell when this subscription service is coming...
    Just use your critical thinking for a moment.

    All the reasons Bambu has given for locking down its printers don't stand up to scrutiny. The blog post I linked above literally lies about license terms.

    Does this mean there will ever be a paid subscription? Maybe, maybe not. But Bambu certainly has some agenda here.

    Are you really comfortable with a company like this sitting between your computer and the printer you bought and paid for, with the power to shut off access, restrict prints, even to intercept your work if they so cared, at a whim? I'm not.

    At some point you have to wake up and realize the company does not have your best interests at heart. Ideally that happens before they've gotten you completely dependent on their ecosystem. Continuing to support a company operating in such an obviously unethical manner only hurts the entire 3D printing community they've stood on the backs of to get where they are.
    Reply
  • hwertz
    chaos215bar2 said:
    And also the "LAN only" mode still requires all prints to go through proprietary Bambu software. Software which claims it doesn't communicate with Bambu, yet according to complaints I've read, has previously ceased to function when Bambu servers were unavailable.

    This is the issue right here. People aren't looking to use their cloud for free. They want to print without having to load stuff onto an sdcard and shove it into the unit, while using the software of their choice. The printers could do this when customers purchased them and this was taken away with a firmware update.
    Reply
  • helper800
    USAFRet said:
    And now, almost 18 months after that article...no subscription.

    It states right there...
    https://blog.bambulab.com/updates-and-third-party-integration-with-bambu-connect/
    Do you believe that this company is above lying? They have before. All the changes to their terms are leading to something perfectly set up for a subscriptions service. Does this mean they definitely will? No, but users would be naive if they were to think it would not happen just because they said they would not do it. Do you see Louis and Steve as completely off base?
    Reply