SFC to launch a multi-pronged effort against Bambu
TL;DR: The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has officially launched an investigation and a multi-pronged counter-offensive against Bambu Lab for AGPLv3 license violations and aggressive legal behavior toward open-source developers. ‼️
https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-printer-agpl-violation-response/
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) released a statement confirming that Bambu Lab is in violation of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv3). According to the SFC, Bambu has failed to provide the complete corresponding source code for Bambu Studio by pairing the slicer with a proprietary networking library (libbambu_networking). Additionally, the SFC condemned Bambu's recent "scare tactics" and legal aggression against open-source developer Paweł Jarczak (creator of OrcaSlicer forks) as a direct violation of AGPLv3 terms, which strictly forbid imposing further restrictions on users' rights.
Instead of waiting for slow-moving legal action, the SFC is taking a community-first approach and has announced the launch of Project Baltobu:
Reverse-Engineering: A community effort to reverse-engineer Bambu’s proprietary networking libraries to create a fully open-source, drop-in replacement.
Orca Slicer Support: Taking over the canonical maintenance of Paweł’s Orca Slicer fork under the SFC umbrella to shield volunteers from Bambu’s legal threats.
Viscose: An active, fully-liberated fork of Bambu Studio to give consumers a better, entirely open software alternative.
The SFC is also establishing a standing committee for 3D printing software Right-to-Repair and is actively fundraising to dedicate a full-time staffer to hold Bambu Lab accountable.