Let's not speak in absolutes like that you (absolutely) "could not" do this. Most matters depend on the specific context of the situation.
The example you mention about a browser and JavaScript on web pages is a very different situation. A browser can be used to interpret and render any number of web pages and is not in any way tied to a specific web page.
This situation with Bambu is not at all the same. Bambu Studio and their networking plugin are very tightly coupled, to the point that they share in-memory data structures. There is no generic plugin architecture; it's a one-to-one interface where the AGPL side of the code explicitly names, downloads at runtime, and is versioned alongside that networking plugin. Most of Bambu Studio's major features beyond generating sliced gcode do not work without the plugin.
Yes, carving out a chunk that you wish to keep proprietary and then dynamically loading it into AGPL code to try and circumvent the AGPL license's explicit copyleft features is an AGPL violation. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins for one fairly clear explanation of this.
It is kooky that you think some conspiracy nonsense about Bambu being a Chinese company and so something from Josef Prusa, is better than a detailed (if AI-written) analysis of all the ways that Bambu's networking plugin is a tightly integrated component of the AGPLv3 Bambu Studio from the creator of the only reimplementation of that plugin that exists/existed who is the direct target of Bambu's recent legal threats.
I understand that filter, I think, but unfortunately your filter is failing you here.
The original post was replaced by Hacker News, and was originally a long post on Github - https://github.com/jarczakpawel/OrcaSlicer-bambulab/blob/mai... - detailing how tightly integrated Bambu's networking plugin is with their "forked from the community, long standing AGPLv3" Bambu Studio. That Github post is from the creator at the center of the current debacle, who is probably the foremost expert on Bambu's networking plugin that exists outside of Bambu at the moment since he reimplemented it from scratch.
There were no long LLM generated tweets in the original post. I agree that Prusa's tweets seem like a weak and conspiratorial argument about Bambu being a Chinese company and so something. They seem like a distraction and it's a shame HN changed the original post. Surprising they can even do that.
The AGPLv3 violations here are pretty clear. Bambu's networking plugin is a tightly integrated closed-source carve out of AGPLv3 code they forked from the open-source community.
The original post that this commenter objected to, which has now been replaced by Hacker News with a tweet from Josef Prusa with none of the same technical detail, is from one of the primary players in this whole debacle. Here's the original post: https://github.com/jarczakpawel/OrcaSlicer-bambulab/blob/mai...
jarczakpawel@ (on Github) reimplemented their network plugin and was targeted with over-inflated legal threats (like Section 1201 claims about circumventing access control, which it did not do) and forced to take down his implementation. What he did is provide an open implementation of their closed source network plugin based on their open-source, AGPLv3 Bambu Studio.
This was not some random "AI slop post". This was a (seemingly AI written, yes) summary from the creator at the center of the current debacle, who seems to be the best non-Bambu expert we have on Bambu's networking plugin.
Josef Prusa's tweet is not at all equivalent information. Prusa's tweet seems to be little more than some conspiratorial thoughts about Chinese law and Bambu being a Chinese company. Does that play in? Maybe, I have no idea one way or the other, but it says nothing about the AGPL violations or the technical details of how tightly integrated the plugin is with Bambu Studio.
This sounds like pro-Bambu wishful thinking rather than an informed opinion. On what basis do you believe proprietary plugins or libraries are allowed under any conditions by the AGPLv3? And if you want to counter that you didn't say "under any conditions", I agree, but that means we need to discuss the particulars of this case to decide whether it's allowed or not.
Bambu took existing open-source, AGPL slicer software for free from the rest of the community and then has continually snubbed that open community by not giving back, or only giving back when they can maintain ultimate control to later decide to be less friendly to their users.
Sorry, no, they can build their own slicer from scratch (hah, good luck) or play by the license. Their networking plugin is tightly integrated with the AGPLv3 Bambu Studio. GNU's stance on plugins is fairly straightforward, and this is not at all a borderline case where the plugin interface is limited: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLPlugins
This is nonsense. AGPLv3 is GPLv3 with an added term that extends it to SaaS/network hosted software as well as software distributed in binary or source form. What are you suggesting the AGPL allows that GPL does not?
AI-generated text is worth skepticism, but humans can be idiots and spout nonsense too.
It seems like you’re making the same faulty assumption that a lot of libertarians do, which is assuming that just because that is possible and perhaps even economically incentivized, it will happen automatically and immediately to meet demand. Libertarian analysis often just ignores the longer scale passage of time and that institutions - even small businesses, a kind of local institution - take time and human effort to create and maintain.
It all discards way too much of the real world complexity to human systems. Analyzing economic systems in only short (quarter/year) time scales without looking at how one quarter or year affects the ones around it is a massive assumption that I don’t think most people generally have nearly enough respect for.
The example you mention about a browser and JavaScript on web pages is a very different situation. A browser can be used to interpret and render any number of web pages and is not in any way tied to a specific web page.
This situation with Bambu is not at all the same. Bambu Studio and their networking plugin are very tightly coupled, to the point that they share in-memory data structures. There is no generic plugin architecture; it's a one-to-one interface where the AGPL side of the code explicitly names, downloads at runtime, and is versioned alongside that networking plugin. Most of Bambu Studio's major features beyond generating sliced gcode do not work without the plugin.
Yes, carving out a chunk that you wish to keep proprietary and then dynamically loading it into AGPL code to try and circumvent the AGPL license's explicit copyleft features is an AGPL violation. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins for one fairly clear explanation of this.
Or you can read the Software Freedom Conservancy's take on this exact controversy, now one day later, in which they are unequivocal that this is an AGPL violation: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-p...