State of Open Source
re: the blog post from Jo Prusa about open source
I think we can all agree, as a base line that Open-Source hardware is a good thing for the whole community. It lets designers and manufacturers benefit from each others innovations directly, and it gives consumers/users the freedom to modify our printers just how we want them. We all like to customize our printers, swap out nozzles, hotends, extruders, build plates, etc, etc, all this is possible only via open source. Not to mention all the advances with Marlin, Cura/PrusaSlicer, OctoPrint that have put incredibly powerful tools in the hands of everyone, for free. I don't think I'm exaggerating too much when I say that the 3d printing arena would look completely different if the RepRap community hadn't embraced open source so eagerly.
Now, as someone who's been a software developer for awhile now, and as someone who's very passionate about FOSS, seeing Prusa talk about wanting to move away from GPL put a pit in my stomach. But, he's right about hardware not being the intended use-case for GPL. If you read the text of the license itself, it describes itself as a license for 'software and other kinds of works', with emphasis clearly being on software.
However, if the terms of these GPL licenses are making it harder for players in the 3d printer space to work and collaborate in good faith, maybe something does need to change. I think the best solution would honestly be to keep the GLP licenses in place, and create a 'Free Hardware Foundation' that is funded by the community itself, and who's sole mission statement is to legally enforce GLP's 'share-alike' clauses. For those who don't know, GPL/GNU requires derivative works to ALSO be open source, it is illegal to modify GLP licensed software and then close it off. There have been a handful of instances in recent years where an entity like this would have been very useful.
However, I'm well aware that the idea of funding a foundation like this only thru community support may be a pipe dream. A more effective solution may very well be to write a new (copyleft) license, that manages to give the developers of new technologies the protections they need to keep themselves afloat, while preserving the rights and freedoms of the community to use/modify/iterate on these new technologies.
I think the most important sticking point is that if anything does replace the GNU, that the license remains open source and/or copyleft. It would be a tragedy to see the hobbyist 3d printer world to become a series of walled gardens, instead of a real, complete ecosystem.
Still, I want to hold out hope that there are good actors making decisions at Prusa, E3D, Ultimaker, Voron, and countless other organizations helping to keep the 3d printing community open and healthy. Change can be good, but hopefully any changes that are made to licensing agreements are made with *everyone's* best interests at heart.
RE:
It's got to be pretty frustrating for the people at these companies to put all the work and resources into developing and producing quality products, and then have to compete against their own products, but more cheaply and shoddily made. I think JP is right that the industry needs an open source license that is better suited to hardware, maintaining the end user's right to repair and upgrade their own property, while also not giving away the store to the competition.
Of course it's only a license and some companies/countries do not and are not going to respect the license. But having a license that's more applicable would be a good start. Breaking away from the GPL might also be a challenge depending on at what point it could be determined there's nothing of the original Mendel left in the Prusa.
Beyond possible complications of getting their products extricated from GPL, there's also nothing stopping Prusa from just writing their own hardware license instead of waiting for some industry group to agree on something. If it works and makes sense, expect to see others adopt it or something similar.