Open Source in 3D Printing - Copycats, GPL Violations, and China

Open source in 3D printing is a contentious issue. In this video we cover the history of why the open source movement was created, and then we talk about how this relates to the consumer of 3D printer open source products. tl;dw Innovation is good, Knockoffs are bad. Don't buy clones/knockoffs.

Addendum to the video: I’m not innocent. I have purchased cloned products in the past, If you watch my early videos I even talked about my cloned products in a positive light, but that was before I gave it any serious consideration. I just thought I was being a smart shopper. I realized my error, and I’m not supporting copycats anymore. You shouldn’t either. Nobody wants to be the sucker paying too much money for a product. Everyone sees it as being in their self interest to buy clones, yet the fewer people who buy the expensive genuine versions of the products the slower the innovations will be released until they will stop coming altogether. That goes against everyone’s self interests. In effect, if you proudly support copycats, you are not yourself a thief, but you are definitely leeching off the good will and stand up behavior of those who supported original creators.

Marlin Firmware - AMA: https://youtu.be/qnRg-hivUwE

A YouTube user named Chilternflyer gave me a list of innovations he thought Prusa was responsible for. Here I addressed each of the items in his list:

-Laser filament sensor: Not Developed by Prusa First seen in a post by a DIYer who modified a mouse sensor to accomplish this task: https://hackaday.com/2016/12/08/this-old-mouse-keeps-track-of-filament-usage/ -Mesh bed leveling: First seen implemented in Marlin firmware not developed by Prusa. https://plus.google.com/113825989556871863845/posts/YvXpQNAqd6f ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKhn5IcVvAg