On April 1st we posted a video on our YouTube channel calling to arms in the community to stand up for our rights under the GPL V3 license that Marlin is licensed under. These 3D printer companies have been holding the source code back from consumers and community members like us have been stuck picking up the slack to put out firmware for the end users of these machines. Effective immediately all affiliate links to offending machines and brands have been removed from our YouTube channel. We will not be featuring any of the offending company machines on our videos until they comply with the license of the firmware they are using and provide the source code for the machines.
This movement was kicked off by us but we have setup a separate site for this so anyone can easily join in and this is not taken as a marketing stunt. Everyone at TH3D deeply appreciates and abides by the GPL license. We cannot drive sales for companies that are breaking this license.
For the sake of everyone in the community, not just our customers, we will continue to put out GPL compliant firmware for machines in the future. These machines will not be reviewed until they are compliant.
As of right now the companies in question are:
- Anet
- Creality
- TronXY
- Zonestar
Wanhao was originally telling us that they would not release their source for the i3 Mini but the owner (Gary Chen) quickly made that right so they are in good graces now.
You can follow the progress by visiting the site here: http://www.3dprintergploffenders.com/
