> You can also find a thriving ecosystem of low-cost derivatives like the Ender series. In many cases, if not most cases, these clones and derivatives contribute basically nothing back to the original project and, at the surface, appear to add dubious value to the ecosystem as a whole.

What an unnecessary jab at the Enders. This person needs a serious financial privilege check.

In the third world the only printers that are affordable are the clones and the Enders, the "good" stuff is usually marked to 2x the price on top of 2x import tariffs because Prusa and Bambu Labs don't have official channels here.

Why would they care about a lower regional pricing for third world countries when they are selling as fast as they can produce? Screw poor people.

How could someone reporting in the industry be so blind about this.

let's not exaggerate

so far as I can tell, all of their software remains freely licensed on github, but not 100% of their PCB designs