I have a Creality K2, and I’m trying to get creality to recognize that they have to release all relevant source files for the klipper install on the printer.
I can’t imagine how it’d happen, but I just want to verify Creality does not have some special licensing agreement with the Klipper folks (how would that even be a thing, there’s no assignment of copyright in PRs, so they’d have to get everyone who ever contributed to agree).
Basically, Creality appear to be deliberately violating the GPL - the extensions to klipper they wrote to allow the filament changes that is the major feature of the K2 are implemented in compiled cython files, and only distributed as shared object files:
I can’t see any way you could possibly think these files aren’t clearly under the GPL as part of klipper, but I’d also like to have someone else at least agree before I begin making even more noise at creality.
I have been concerned about this as well, and I do agree that they would be violating the license if they refuse to provide the full source code to anyone they’ve distributed the object code to (effectively anyone, as they publicly offer downloads of the firmware images). Klipper is licensed under the GPLv3 without any sort of linking exception, so those modules are derivative works.
That said, I haven’t asked them yet, as I haven’t had the time to draft the sort of e-mail that I would hope has any chance of a productive response. Have you asked them, and they’ve explicitly refused?
I did find another thread about the K1 (Creality violating Klipper license?), and specifically this post by @koconnor confirming no dual-licensing had occurred, at least at the time of that post. When I last checked, it looked like the K2’s Klipper is an older version, likely the same codebase as the K1, so I’m guessing nothing has changed.
Given their behavior, it is likely that only legal action will bring about change. This is complex, tedious, and expensive, and may ultimately be futile.
Users and buyers of such products have the most power:
Stay informed.
Politely but assertively highlight their shortcomings in direct contact.
I get that, I’m asking principally to have all my ducks in a row, such as it were, before really start making a lot of noise about the issue.
If nothing else, I’m a cranky old man enough that I’m willing to not let them fob me off with “we don’t have that”, and I will email anyone at the company I can find about the issue.
My main advice, especially if you intend to be persistent/noisy, is to be consistently polite. If you don’t have a lot of experience with the cultural divide, I recommend learning a bit about the differences between your culture and the typical culture in China. One idea that can be very important is the concept of face, as in “saving face”, and essentially always allowing a graceful way for someone to save face, even if you think they’re doing something wrong (which seems potentially likely to come up in this situation).
More generally, I’ve found that this tool, which is based on Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and his team’s related research into cross-cultural communication issues for multinational businesses, can be a handy jumping-off point for anyone otherwise not very familiar with some of the potentially relevant cultural factors. You can click the category headers under the graph to get longer descriptions and sections talking about the cultures being compared to try to get a sense of nuance that could prove helpful.
In my experience Chinese companies aren’t exactly hostile to open source, they’re just largely ignorant and unconcerned, at least the people you’re likely to end up talking to. Sometimes the people you end up talking to are even willing to put a decent amount of effort into looking into it, but obviously they might be less willing if you offend them in the process, and may become more hostile in general if most people contacting them offend them. (This is why I haven’t written them myself yet, I haven’t had the time and energy to put the effort into it that I’d like to, and I expect it to be a slog.)
It’s too bad Naomi Wu (a.k.a. sexycyborg/realsexycyborg) got her “wings clipped” and no longer has an active online presence. I don’t know if she still has any contact with Creality, but she was a big part of Creality embracing proper open source compliance years ago, as you can see with her video about the Ender 3 getting OSHWA certification.
This got flagged and removed for I hope a simple use of a word for ‘excrement’, and not for any other reason. I’ve modified it to be more polite.
Maybe ask that Trump impose tariffs on them or punish them for what they are doing. They are all dumping their stuff here anyway at unreasonably low prices, trying to destroy any competition, all while stealing the hard work of others.
Maybe make some noise to Elon and DOGE about it. Now might be a great time to do this. There needs to be a renaissance of 3d equipment mfg here in the States, and starting by punishing these companies for their actions could be a good start. They are indeed stealing, and it’s not a question. It is wrong, and it needs to stop immediately. Period.
The idea of spending time to understand why in their culture they think it’s OK to steal, and asking oh so nicely ‘oh pretty please stop stealing’ is what is offending me, but I would not flag a post for someone expressing themselves. If it annoyed me, I would simply ignore them.
I don’t know if she still has any contact with Creality, but she was a big part of Creality embracing proper open source compliance years ago, as you can see with 