Prusa's New Open Community License (OCL)

blog.prusa3d.com

Feels like this is a reasonable compromise for them. They can release the source for their machines while still remaining in enough control to allow them to stay in business. It's similar to the Business Source licenses that we have seen from software companies recently. Not Open Source or Free but better than a lot of other manufactures. Does this leave the Voron as the only Open and Free design that is being built in quantities?

Yeah, I'm curious how Prusa will go about enforcing this license and how it will play out for them overall, especially more that they're pursuing patents.

Voron isn't quite the only open printer. There are some others that are loosely based on/related to Voron, like Micron and Salad Fork, plus Ratrig which has a very different lineage.

This license is so laughably bad I had a hard time writing a parody of it [1]. It's not open source, it doesn't accomplish any of its goals, it's not novel in any way. It's a joke, a smokescreen for Prusa and it won't do anything to save him from competition. Good luck, Josef. I'd encourage everyone else to avoid this like it's radioactive.

[1]: https://github.com/theacodes/socl

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