At FOSSY 2026, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) presented an ongoing violation of the Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3) involving 3D-printer software from Bambu Lab. Bradley Kühn, Karen Sandler, and Denver Gingerich discussed the circumvention, which is precisely what the AGPL was designed to prevent.

Kühn, an activist for over 30 years, noted this moment offers more activism opportunities than he has seen in his career. Over the past six to eight months, SFC has engaged with an entire community of enthusiasts on freedom-centric topics. The opportunities are difficult but provide ways for activists to get stuff done.

Kühn and Gingerich did a crash course in 3D-printing history. The hobbyist field started as a curiosity, and early builders founded companies now selling printers. Like Linux, 3D printers remained a hobby long enough that the hobby culture could not be eradicated by venture capitalists.

A key tool is the "slicer," which turns 3D models into 2D slices. Alessandro Ranellucci created Slic3r and chose AGPLv3 to avoid issues like Bambu Lab's. Kühn noted around 18 active forks, with Prusa Slicer being the most well-known.