How do you guys feel about crowdfunding plugs?

[TheRealRocketBurns]

I am currently a student working on building an incredibly low cost 3D printer. I feel that it would be of interest to this community, but I am worried about overstepping my boundaries if i put a link to a crowdfunding page. How do you guys feel about something like this?

[Xenocrates]

Personally, I like seeing projects as they mature. If you post about it before you start your campaign, make it open source, and make most of your stuff posted here be actual technical info and real experience rather than marketing fluff, I wouldn't mind it nearly so much as say, the Tinyboy post, which has been left up in "show us your machine". But put it in the right place, and be willing to talk about more than just "if we reach X goal, Y feature will be unlocked" or "Give me money to create an empire of printing fit to rival Makerbutt" if you want to get much positive response out of people here

Please note though, I'm not a moderator, just a guy who's relatively new here.

[Captain Starfish]

I don't get my panties in a bunch over links anymore. Most forums have that many ads anyway to pay to keep them running that I've kinda grown blind and I'm happy to ignore all of it.

Suggestion: post a buildup thread in the "other machines" section and make it more a technically interesting writeup than just a "HAY GAIZE I JUST MADE SUMFINK IT R ORSM BUT GIVE ME MONEY LOL" spam drop. No feathers ruffled and might turn into more visits too.

[Jimustanguitar]

It's only the members who aren't part of the community and whose only post is the link to their promotion that get on my nerves. The, 1 day old registration, 1 post only, "hey guys, check this out" from a stranger is what always irks me. You're in the clear in my book

I've got my own potentially crowdfunded printer in the works.

[TheRealRocketBurns]

Thanks!. (Will edit with more details later, on my phone now. Still have a few questions)
EDIT:
Okay, finally have a real keyboard. So I will definitely be talking about it here, it does have interesting technical details (the z axis was actually partially inspired by the Max V2!)

"HAY GAIZE I JUST MADE SUMFINK IT R ORSM BUT GIVE ME MONEY LOL

I was going to word it just like that All jokes aside, i see where you are coming from. I will post a thoughtful and technical write up. it is quite interesting of a design. Xenocrates put it quite eloquently:

Personally, I like seeing projects as they mature. If you post about it before you start your campaign, make it open source, and make most of your stuff posted here be actual technical info and real experience rather than marketing fluff, I wouldn't mind it nearly so much as say, the Tinyboy post, which has been left up in "show us your machine". But put it in the right place, and be willing to talk about more than just "if we reach X goal, Y feature will be unlocked" or "Give me money to create an empire of printing fit to rival Makerbutt" if you want to get much positive response out of people here

All of which I agree with. I would be shooting myself in the foot to go closed source. Plus I value this community, you guys are awesome, helped me so much with my MAX

Looks like open source will be the way I go. Does the GPL non-commercial share alike count as open source?

[johnoly99]

any NC license, unless it's licensed that way due to prior art and other open-source 'bits' being used in it which may require the NC clause, are not Open Source licenses. Here's a great link as to what I feel is the best description of what open source means:

http://www.oshwa.org/definition/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Xenocrates]

I feel that while an NC clause feels good, because others could not legally make money on it, there are a few problems with just sticking it on:

Copyright does not, by and large, cover physical, functional objects. It covers art, music, movies, and some other categories. Physical objects were intended to be covered by patents and so on. This is far from absolute, and I am not a lawyer. But if someone else is selling printers built from your designs, while the shop prints and CAD files could be copyrighted, it's much harder to claim copyright based control on physical things (DMCA anti-circumvention aside, as it's an abomination)

Most people who have the capabilities and the time to manufacture your design will either have their own product line, or will be basically ethical/moral, and will either not build your thing, or will ask you about building your thing on license, as then they can potentially use trademarks/branding. Those two are big avenues of control (Claim the name of your design, and then knock-offs will have to use a different name, and won't cannibalize your sales as heavily)

Those people who lack the scruples to you know, not rip you off, will largely ignore that you've marked it as non-commercial, leaving you very little further ahead. For example, Look at E3D's hotends. They are under an NC license, which makes it slightly more troublesome if I say, had wanted to mass produce my PT100 Volcano blocks before E3D's became available (Due to it being a derivative work), even if I had only asked for costs. And yet, Amazon, Ebay, and Alibaba are filed with knock-offs and imitations, some of which it seems like they didn't even look at E3D's prints to produce. Heck, MatterHackers has the CleanTip stuff which is a fancy coated version of the E3D parts, without attribution (I'm not sure if they worked out a side deal with E3D or not though)

Then look at the Taz, or the Max. Both are open source, largely without pesky NC clauses, and yet there are almost no known knockoffs. Complex assemblies are less likely to be knocked off, and when it comes to printers, I've yet to see one that isn't a complex assembly. Not to mention the amount of inventory and work required to begin production, which may be wasted if they get shut down for trademark violation, or if they get enough bad reviews that people stay away from them. I also think fewer people would want to buy printers from resellers, as they are more expensive items, and they may desire to not add a middleman to the purchase.

Weigh things out some on your own. But no matter what you do, please do allow derivative works. That's the magic which let's people make and post upgrades/mods, and admit to making them, such as for the Trick Trucks.

[TheRealRocketBurns]

I feel that while an NC clause feels good, because others could not legally make money on it, there are a few problems with just sticking it on:

Copyright does not, by and large, cover physical, functional objects. It covers art, music, movies, and some other categories. Physical objects were intended to be covered by patents and so on. This is far from absolute, and I am not a lawyer. But if someone else is selling printers built from your designs, while the shop prints and CAD files could be copyrighted, it's much harder to claim copyright based control on physical things (DMCA anti-circumvention aside, as it's an abomination)

Most people who have the capabilities and the time to manufacture your design will either have their own product line, or will be basically ethical/moral, and will either not build your thing, or will ask you about building your thing on license, as then they can potentially use trademarks/branding. Those two are big avenues of control (Claim the name of your design, and then knock-offs will have to use a different name, and won't cannibalize your sales as heavily)

Those people who lack the scruples to you know, not rip you off, will largely ignore that you've marked it as non-commercial, leaving you very little further ahead. For example, Look at E3D's hotends. They are under an NC license, which makes it slightly more troublesome if I say, had wanted to mass produce my PT100 Volcano blocks before E3D's became available (Due to it being a derivative work), even if I had only asked for costs. And yet, Amazon, Ebay, and Alibaba are filed with knock-offs and imitations, some of which it seems like they didn't even look at E3D's prints to produce. Heck, MatterHackers has the CleanTip stuff which is a fancy coated version of the E3D parts, without attribution (I'm not sure if they worked out a side deal with E3D or not though)

Then look at the Taz, or the Max. Both are open source, largely without pesky NC clauses, and yet there are almost no known knockoffs. Complex assemblies are less likely to be knocked off, and when it comes to printers, I've yet to see one that isn't a complex assembly. Not to mention the amount of inventory and work required to begin production, which may be wasted if they get shut down for trademark violation, or if they get enough bad reviews that people stay away from them. I also think fewer people would want to buy printers from resellers, as they are more expensive items, and they may desire to not add a middleman to the purchase.

Weigh things out some on your own. But no matter what you do, please do allow derivative works. That's the magic which let's people make and post upgrades/mods, and admit to making them, such as for the Trick Trucks.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of that. I will be trademarking the name, so no worries there for me. I am talking with a patent attorney I know today just to discuss my options, but my gut tells me just to put it under this licence:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is still technically open source (http://www.oshwa.org/sharing-best-practices/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), but attribution is required and derivatives must be put under the same licence. I really do support the OSH community and would love to see people building off of this design and modifying it, and the attribution and share-alike clause should keep the more unscrupulous people away while still allowing people that believe in this technology to do whatever they like with it.

[mhackney]

John's link hits it on the head with easy to understand language. I've waded through more "open source" licenses than I care to remember.

@Xenocrates - there is a Design Patent that covers the physical design/appearance of an object. The classic Coke bottle had such a patent.

The challenge with disallowing NC open source is that you, as the inventor, spent lots of time designing and perfecting not only the object itself but the manufacturing processes to fabricate it. Then, a Chinese company comes along and uses the "design" but with inferior materials and machining and finishing processes. These are CRITICAL to the success of the product but the Chinese knock off is only interested in something that looks like a high quality product that they can sell cheap. This forum is filled with questions and comments about various "Wow, this Chinese clone of XYZ is 1/2 the price of the real thing. Is it any good?" and to make matters worse, they even name the inferior product the same as the quality product. The example of E3D hot ends is a good example. The market is so small and the basic human nature of being drawn in by a seeming "bargain" insures that the low quality products make enough money to offset the manufacturing investment. There should be some way to classify the materials, manufacturing and finishing processes as part of the open source license and require derivatives to either follow those to the letter or if they modify them, explicitly state that the process is a derivative or different materials are used (for instance). That way, consumers can compare apples to apples - it is not just the visible design of a product that defines it but also the materials and process used to fabricate the product.

As it is now, if the inventor goes completely open source (i.e. does not have a non compete license), inferior products can be brought to market at much lower prices and the inventor's product is, in my opinion, tarnished when consumers buy into those inferior versions and then post on the public forums "My XYZ hot end jams every time I print pink PLA." when in fact the real XYZ will print pink PLA beautifully. The NC clause currently is the only way to maintain quality control over your design. We need an alternative.

[Polygonhell]

I've always been of the opinion either it's open or it isn't.
To the point I don't like the viral aspects of the GNU license, and only really think in the software space at least only the BSD/Apache style licenses are really "open".

But at the end of the day closed source/open source/NC whatever, a designer can do what they feel is best for them and their product, and I don't really understand the bitching about it. NC/Closed source won't protect your product from cheap Chinese copies, if it's popular enough, someone will try and make a buck off it.

I do understand some of the anger at people claiming to be "open source" as a marketing ploy, then not releasing useable artifacts to meet the letter of the law, and there is some of that in the 3D printer space.

[TheRealRocketBurns]

On phone now, so this will be quick, but i will most definitely be going open source!

[KAS]

I've never been one to purchase something just because it was open source or not. Most people just bitch about it because they think they have a voice that needs to be heard. ( like what I'm typing )
I'd say design something you wholeheartedly believe in and support it through any issues if and when they happen.

Also don't expect to close-source something while using materials that are easily accessible, aka aluminium extrusion and china cloned electronics.

On a side note anyone see this open sourced E3D printer? http://bigbox-3d.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Polygonhell]

On a side note anyone see this open sourced E3D printer? http://bigbox-3d.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People have early units and feedback seems positive, there are a number of things I like in the design, I just wish they'd copied the independent heads of the BCN3D for dual extrusion, but I don't believe any of the opensource firmwares have working support for it.

[Neptune]

On a side note anyone see this open sourced E3D printer? http://bigbox-3d.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People have early units and feedback seems positive, there are a number of things I like in the design, I just wish they'd copied the independent heads of the BCN3D for dual extrusion, but I don't believe any of the opensource firmwares have working support for it.

Thought it looked great until I saw the build volume, which wasn't as big as I expected. For its size, I was expecting something in the 400mm on all sides at least not 200mm+. Its also a bit pricey comparably.

[TheRealRocketBurns]

On a side note anyone see this open sourced E3D printer? http://bigbox-3d.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People have early units and feedback seems positive, there are a number of things I like in the design, I just wish they'd copied the independent heads of the BCN3D for dual extrusion, but I don't believe any of the opensource firmwares have working support for it.

Thought it looked great until I saw the build volume, which wasn't as big as I expected. For its size, I was expecting something in the 400mm on all sides at least not 200mm+. Its also a bit pricey comparably.

Yeah, except for the dual extrusion the Rostock seems like a lot more bang for your buck, at least that's been my experience! Also, update on the crowdfunding campaign, will be launching soon, within weeks!