I really love Louis Rossman
Legend
Also notable that GamersNexus is doing the same
I read the headline and stopped by to say I forked the repo on the phone now even though I don’t own bambu stuff.
I love that Rossman is picking a fight here. He has the resources to fight this to a trial and that alone is probably enough to make Bambu Labs back down.
They don’t have a case, the project is re-using their AGPL code. This is entirely a SLAPP threat, it only works if the target isn’t rich enough to defend themselves.
Not even that. If the target has enough $ to pay a lawyer consultation or just doesnt care as to waste time/money on fighting for that hill; because any competent lawyer would have seen that the case is bs .
If the developer wants to fight this and Rossman wants to back them, then more power to them both. Obviously Bambu shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. But it does seem unfortunate that the best case scenario would be the developer winning the right to continue doing unpaid work to make their aggressor’s products better. Perhaps an alternative would be for a more FOSS friendly printer company to offer a free replacement for the developer’s Bambu machine so that they can instead contribute to a platform where their work will actually be valued.
more FOSS friendly printer company
Prusa has helped people with their bambu printers in the past and includes profiles for them in its slicer
Bambu Studio is a fork of Prusa Slicer in the first place.
I might just have to pay for his FUTO app again and contribute to the cause.
Didn’t he drop out again? Answering my own question with a quick search, yes, he did:
2025, Rossmann left FUTO and co-founded the FULU (Freedom from Unethical Limitations on Users) Foundation, a 501©(4) non-profit advocacy organisation focused on digital ownership rights
FUTO is a bit problematic
Rossman left FUTO (unclear if it was because of their practices) anyway. Best to contribute to projects directly.
thanks
Eeeeeh, contribute to Rossman directly if you can. That whole Futo setup is sketch as hell. I have my dislikes with Rossman, but he genuinely seems to be fighting the right fight.
Can you elaborate? I don’t really follow him closely but feel like he’s fighting for what’s right. I saw another commenter said he wasn’t affiliated anymore…
There a lot going on there. This link is one of the better write-ups.
Basically it comes down to misrepresenting funding/donations. Misrepresenting licensing. And open association with tech bro fascists like Yarvin. Rossman has had issues in the past himself. Though small enough and few enough outside his association with futo to not be too problematic. Enough that I can support his right to repair work. Just not Futo.
I’m sorry, I tried to digest that write-up, but its just a spiteful personal wall of bs full of fringe leftist commentary and hate; the dude can’t hold himself from insulting anyone he names in there because they somehow don’t share his whatever perfect view of how everything is supposed to be. I can’t take this kind of bs, i didn’t even got to the third paragraph and already wanted to slap the guy and tell him to chill-dfq-off lmao.
If someone has a point, make the point, prove it, and then come up with the opinion based on that. (Like X did Y, hence X is an asshole.)
But in this case its quite clear the writeup is an “opinion first” look for proofs after situation.
I was able to read through it and it doesn’t seem to be full of opinionated hate I think. Their main criticisms of FUTO seem to be:
- their explicit disregard for the Open Source Initiative while still claiming to support open source
- how a small and quiet one-time donation to a specific contributer earns a large and reputable project a position as a “grant” without their permission (mentioning musl libc as an example)
- Eron Wolf (the founder of FUTO) having a good relationship with and platforming Curtis Yarvin, who, as the author of the article describes, a “mask-off” self-proclaimed fascist. Yarvin believes in an “authoritarian techno-monarchy” needs to replace democracy (yikes), and he also claims that black people are dumber than white people
- Doing a bit more searching and checking additional sources, yeah, this Yarvin guy really is insane. Half his Wikipedia article is just running down his beliefs, like how he thinks liberal democracy is a “totalitarian Matrix”, his defense of slavery and eugenics, and if it wasn’t clear enough, he believes WWII only started because Hitler acted in self-defense
- A debate between Yarvin and Rossman was published on the FUTO channel that essentially let Yarvin share his nutty fascist views to a wider audience (esp. with Rossman being a very public figure in the right to repair movement)
The article isn’t all negative though. They like that FUTO supports Immich and other projects like it. They also note in an update that FUTO has changed their “grants” page to make the different between large grants and small one time donations, with projects like musl libc now being smaller and lacking a large prominent logo.
Also of note, Rossman has left FUTO, as somebody else has noted. I don’t think Rossman is a bad person, I feel like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. That’s just my thoughts though.
FUTO is run by a fascist and abuses the spirit of open source.
I’m sorry your feelings were too fragile to get that far, it’s actually quite a thorough writeup.
Personal wall of bs full of fringe leftist commentary and hate.
Dude can’t hold himself from insulting anyone he names
I didn’t even got to the third paragraph
For context, these are the first three paragraphs of the article. There’s no mention of a single name, it’s basically the introduction. The third paragraph is the statement that they then are supposed to support with facts. This is standard in writing a document:
“”"
Some time ago, I noticed some new organization called FUTO popping up here and there. I’m always interested in seeing new organizations that fund open source popping up, and seeing as they claim several notable projects on their roster, I explored their website with interest and gratitude. I was first confused, and then annoyed by what I found. Confused, because their website is littered with bizzare manifestos,1 and ultimately annoyed because they were playing fast and loose with the term “open source”, using it to describe commercial source-available software.FUTO eventually clarified their stance on “open source”, first through satire and then somewhat more soberly, perpetuating the self-serving myth that “open source” software can privilege one party over anyone else and still be called open source. I mentally categorized them as problematic but hoped that their donations or grants for genuinely open source projects would do more good than the harm done by this nonsense.
By now I’ve learned better. tl;dr: FUTO is not being honest about their “grant program”, they don’t have permission to pass off these logos or project names as endorsements, and they collaborate with and promote mask-off, self-proclaimed fascists. “”"
Did… Did you read something completely different? What the hell? The only thing remotely hateful in the first three paragraphs is them using the word fascists, right in the end, and you dropped the article before giving the author a chance to support their claim? Are you 5?
Sorry, that was maybe too aggressive, but you might not even reach this text if you drop stuff the moment you read a word you dislike lmao.
Which of the poor innocent people that meany pants Drew Devault insulted, do you take issue with? Lunduke? I’ve read this article before and while I don’t remember all of the callouts, I can’t recall seeing anyone I would particularly want to defend from insults.
II don’t believe he is affiliated with Futo anymore.
Nice!
Whoa! Where’s at popcorn? 🍿
He’s not hosting anything, Microsoft is. Until they don’t anymore. Can we never learn?
Yeh I forked GitHub and later today I’ll be making a clone in codeberg and gitlab.
