Now, there is some unclear legality around the distribution of plug-ins to a standalone software package. Are you allowed to distribute a GPLv3 plug-in to a proprietary program, like a GPLv3 plugin for Visual Studio? Maybe. Are you allowed to sell a proprietary plug-in for a GPLv3 software, like a paid plug-in to Emacs? Again, maybe.
However, the chances for both go down significantly if the "plug-in" is distributed by the same company as the software itself, and if the plugin is critical to major functionality of that software.
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
For example the Nvidia driver gets to ignore the Linux kernel license because even though it links with the kernel, when considered as a complete package it's not a derivative work of the kernel. It is its own product that can be plugged into various kernels such as Windows and Linux, and the small adapter layer for each kernel doesn't change that.
Some German court even once interpreted GPLv2 to prohibit tivoization.
By a common sense view it is not a plugin at all, it’s part of the app that they have structured in a weird way to try to avoid the obvious license violation.
Of course, IANAL and just a random passerby with a SUPER rough understanding.
What you're describing is probably a gray area, the closest example I can think of is the Wordpress plugin ecosystem (GPLv2+).
https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/josef-prusa-warns-c...
The situation is interesting and kind of a grey area. The way they structured the network code as a plugin that downloads after first run is obviously to avoid violating the AGPL license, but if you don’t install it, large parts of the slicer are inaccessible. So it’s not at all like a normal plugin.
Edit: a more direct source. https://x.com/josefprusa/status/2054602354851254330
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.
AI-generated text is worth skepticism, but humans can be idiots and spout nonsense too.
Sure, but anyone posting chains of incredibly long LLM generated tweets can safely be ignored as an utter moron.
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 file linked in by OP, is the main argument by Pawel Jarczak why his fork does not violate any copyright laws (may it be written by/with help of AI or not).