Solidoodle again appears to violate GPL V3 licence (Page 2 of 3)

Bump.

Bump.

Can we clarify the question?

Is this what you mean? Can someone make a list of questions, and we'll be glad to answer them.

Bump

Bump

Bump.

We are already in compliance.

At this point, what people want is for Sam to disclose how long we *might* have been out of compliance. Or what Sam meant by supporting the open source community.

It is already firmly established that we comply with the license at this point. If there is any doubt to that effect I can send pictures of the line guys shipping the license notifications.

Anything that ships with a motherboard gets the license.

We're not out to hurt anyone. We have literally no motivation to be disingenuous about the license. The information is clearly stated on our website. A quick google of "Solidoodle License" also yields clear information about the license, as well as source files. The motherboard itself has license information written on it.

We have never lied about the authorship of Marlin.

The entire source of this is that people were worried that we were not sending out physical references to the license information with every printer. We do that.

As for the other questions, I'll see if I can get Sam to answer those. But for the time being, I shall re-iterate:

We are in full compliance.

Bump

The reason for bumping is awareness. A subpoena wouldn't help there.

Solidoodle is a company that willfully disregarded licensing requirements for years, only coming into compliance when enough people complained about it. Sam, their CEO, has said they "love and support the open source community", but failed to provide examples when asked.

To me, that is something that should factor into a buying decision. If I knew then what I know now, there's no chance I would have purchased a Solidoodle.

As for open source being taken seriously, Marlin/Sailfish/Printrboard/Sanguinololu/RAMPS/Rumba/Melzi are all open source, and comprise over 90% of the controller/firmware market. Without them, 3D printers would not be anywhere near where they are today. Do you think Solidoodle could have hired a PCB engineer or a firmware engineer in their early days? No way. I doubt they could have purchased a copy of Altium.

Hobbyist 3D printing is where it is today due to standing on the shoulders of giants like Joem, Erik, and Kliment, just to name a few. Willful disregard for the credit and licensing of their hard work should absolutely be something a consumer is aware of when choosing a printer to purchase.

Partially compliant (Sanguinololu schematics for the reworked/rebadged SD motherboard are where ?)

And only compliant because Someone yelled. Same way they only became compliant with the Printrboards after much public commentary. Took weeks of a thread here before they suddenly came into compliance. The lack of GPL notificiation was raised back then, and ignored.. until the latest round.. when again, after a few weeks, they 'suddenly' where in compliance and making statements about loving and embracing Open Source (but only after they are caught out multiple times about not correct loving or embracing it... ) So the only things that have been bought into compliance, are the things that strangely have been vocalized publicly. And not once, but multiple occasions. Not a single act of compliance has been bought about by Solidoodle preemptively or of their own accord. It is only after pressuring them.

I find it difficult to award a gold star for compliance when essentially, I have been acting as Solidoodles Compliance Officer... I raise it, ride it, push it, and voila... they'll fix it.... and then act like its always been that way I mean... 2.5 years to start complying with the little slip of paper inside the printer when it ships!?!??! And then making statements that 'you've checked and they are there' whilst not offering any apology to the community or explanation as to why they were never there in the first place.........

As for why it matters - If you have actively or otherwise do contributed to Open Source, you'd understand why its disheartening when people use the work that has often very little in the form of requirements to comply with for commercial gain, and then play games about it. I'm sure you can feel it starts to appear borderline deceitful when it happens repeatedly from the same organisation.

Overall - it also seems a long long way from 'loving and embracing' open source when until a few weeks ago  they didn't even comply with the most fundamental GPL principles. And then there was the time before that they didn't comply either. Oh and the time before that, that they still aren't compliant for, over the Sang's.

*shrug*

Hazer, that's great that you chose to release work without a license. That's something I've done myself as well.

However, in this case the authors have released it under a license, a license which in the case of Solidoodle, hasn't been honored. That's a bit like agreeing to do some consulting for xxxx dollars, and then at the end of the contract the company deciding not to compensate you.

These authors chose the licenses they wanted to use. Solidoodle had a choice: Use the open source hardware and firmware while honoring the license, or don't. They picked a third option (use the work, don't honor the license) and that's what people have problems with.