Originally shared by Anthony Bolgar Here is a little public service announcement.

Controllers Smoothie
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Originally shared by Anthony Bolgar

Here is a little public service announcement.

Since Smoothieware/Smoothiebaord is Open Source, most people just assume that the derivatives and clones are also Open Source. This is not the case with the MKS Sbase board. It is a closed source clone of the Smoothieboard, and MKS does not give back to the community, or help the Smoothie project in any way. @Arthur_Wolf from the Smoothie project nails it pretty well: “MKS is (also) a cancer that is destroying the smoothie project. Everything people like about MKS, comes from the smoothie project, they did none of it, they are not helping in any way, they are leeches.
It is a closed-source derivative of open-source work, which is going against the wishes of the people who contribute to the smoothie project, it is violating the license, it is pissing on the community and on the work of hundreds of volunteers.”

So the next time you are considering buying an MKS Sbase board, think back on this and ask yourself is it really worth saving some money, but at the same time helping to destroy a product you actually like, and hindering the development of new features and hardware by the SMoothie team.

I will now get down off my soap box and stop pontificating. :wink:

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Perhaps a lower price could be offered to mks board owners who are willing to buy an opensource product. Or maybe the open source product could be built on China so that the not so well off people in our community could afford it. Not all of us find it easy to pay over 50 for a board.

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Note. The reason that China sells mks boards is that they don’t clamber for a quick instant high profit. That is not my opinion but reality

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@Brian_W.H_Phillips The reason China sells MKS is because people buy it. People buy it because it’s cheaper ( and often because they don’t realize it’s not open-source ). It’s less expensive because they didn’t have to do any R&D, they don’t have to do any for future evolutions, they don’t code the firmware, they don’t fix the firmware, they don’t write the documentation, they don’t help users, they don’t provide support, etc. That’s why it’s less expensive.
By buying a MKS, users are essentially “stealing” all of that stuff from the community.

The Smoothie community “gave” the Smoothie project to the world, with the understanding that the world would respect it’s license and the work the community does on it. The MKS is just a way for people to disrespect the project and the work.

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If that s the case who is paying the developers here if it is opensource then i have never heard of open source developers being paid, other than by voluntary payments to cover expenses.or are you referring to a startup company that wants to make a living out of Small scale production.

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@Brian_W.H_Phillips Robotseed sells Smoothieboard and uses a large part of the profits to pay me to work on firmware, documentation, and community management. Uberclock sells Smoothieboards and uses a large part of the profits to pay Mark to work on hardware and firmware development. Both companies also send a lot of free boards and money to contributors. Panucatt also helps and finances firmware dev from time to time. And we are currently working on a plan to have an even greater number of companies pulling together to finance full-time work on a user interface project for Smoothie.

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If anyone puts a project out as opensource then they loose their copyright s , it maybe that they think when the project is well tested and proven, that they can call it something else and sell it to big company. It is not surprising that a China company would steal the idea. I agree with you in general, but it is no good complaining after the horse has bolted!

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@Brian_W.H_Phillips « If anyone puts a project out as opensource then they loose their copyright »

This shows you have no idea what Open-Source and Copyright are …

We keep the Copyright no matter what happens. And putting it out as Open-Source just means we are letting people use the source under a specific set of conditions. That’s it.

If those conditions are not respected ( which is the case with MKS ), the license, copyright, and wishes of the community/volunteers, is not being respected. That is a bad thing we should fight against, not a fatality.

« it maybe that they think when the project is well tested and proven, that they can call it something else and sell it to big company. »

I’m not sure what you mean here. Nobody intends to sell anything.

« it is no good complaining after the horse has bolted! »

What does that mean ?

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Well I guess you are all correct and I am wrong. But is it any good
complainingl about the Chinese ripoffs that people have already bought? It
is disappointing for you and those who have bought the mks board as in my
case. I bought the mks board as when I looked for smoothy that was what I
first found, of course you will say I should have looked deeper but as I
was only interested in trying smoothy I thought the low cost was worth it
for trial purposes. As I have had problems with the mks board, I will
layer, when I have saved a bit of cash, buy a real smoothy from you

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@Brian_W.H_Phillips It’s worth “complaining” because some people do not know MKS is not open-source, and will not buy it if they know it is not open-source. We have seen this happen many times.

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I see the smoothie project as two projects, smothieware (software) and smoothieboard (hw).

What license are used for the two?

Are MKS clones or their own design? Is the fw the same or a fork that is not up streamed?

Regarding the license, what does it permit?

If I build an open hardware platform can I run smothieware on it?

If I sell an open platform can I have smoothiware pre-flashed?

If I build a closed hardware platform can I run smothieware on it?

If I sell a closed hardware platform can I sell it with smothieware pre-flashed?

What if I buy a MKS board and make FW changes that I upstream? ( preferably with a bribe/contribution to the FW developers )?

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I think it is time to write up an “Open Source For Dummies” handbook. The biggest misconception a lot of users have is that Open Source means that anybody can take it and do what they want with it. This can not be further from the truth. There is a license that it is released under and this license must be respected and followed. Otherwise you are out right stealing. Also Open Source does not mean non-profit, does not mean that there cannot be paid employees, does not mean that everyone who works on it is a volunteer (even though a great number of Smoothie contributors are volunteers)and definitely does not entitle the world at large to claim it as there own. What it does mean is that the curtain has been drawn back and the wizard is exposed (Wizard of OZ reference…lol)
It allows someone to build there own based upon the publicly released files. Why would anyone want to do Open source projects? The best reason is that it fuels innovation for the product, when users can modify the project and make it better. If the Open Source licensing is followed not just to the letter of the law, but in the spirit it was intended in the first place, everyone wins. A good example of this is the LasserWeb project. Smoothieboard was a catalyst for +Peter van der Walt to create LaserWeb, because he could not find a software package that worked with smoothieboard to his liking. And LaserWeb is helping to drive changes to Smoothieware. @Wolfmanjm has been adding features to the firmware based upon needs of the LaserWeb project. Each project drives the other project forward.

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I see the smoothie project as two projects, smothieware (software) and smoothieboard (hw).

It’s a single project.

What license are used for the two?

GPL v3 for the firmware, CERN OHL and GPL v3 for the hardware

Are MKS clones or their own design?

It’s a derivative, by their own admission. They have very little idea what they are doing, as the many many problems in their very first design show. They wouldn’t have been able to do the design without the Smoothieboard as a guide, and even then they got much help from the community without which their design would have been worthless. Note that the people from the community who helped them did so under the false impression that the design was Open-Source, before this was clarifie.

Is the fw the same or a fork that is not up streamed?

It’s a fork with very minimal modification. You can technically use the mainstream firmware on their borad too.

Regarding the license, what does it permit?

You’ll have to read it or ask a specific question …

If I build an open hardware platform can I run smothieware on it?

Yes.

If I sell an open platform can I have smoothiware pre-flashed?

Sure.

If I build a closed hardware platform can I run smothieware on it?

Yes, but that’s a dick move. You legally can, but it’s going agains the wishes of the people who open-sourced it in the first place.
You legally can, the same way you legally can insult people who just helped you in a big way.

If I sell a closed hardware platform can I sell it with smothieware pre-flashed?

Same thing.

What if I buy a MKS board and make FW changes that I upstream? ( preferably with a bribe/contribution to the FW developers )?

That’s better than if you don’t. But that’s not going to be the colossal majority of MKS purchases.

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@Daniel_Seiler That may well be but that still doesn’t absolve them of failing to or choosing to not provide design files or code changes like the license stipulates.

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@Daniel_Seiler « Imagine that the next generation of smoothieware contributors are making their first steps with an sbase board somewhere in a chinese tier 3 city »

You can always imagine things, imagination is great. I don’t think this matches with any reality though. If the future proves me wrong, I’ll be glad.
However I’m not sure this hypothetical is worth sacrificing the currently working system when Smoothieboard sales finance future development …

Also, we sell plenty of Smoothieboards to China : it’s not that expensive … You know China’s standard of living is increasing all the time right ? I’d get the “for this market” argument for Africa, but it gets less and less valid for China all the time.

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@Daniel_Seiler I didn’t say you were. I was offering an explanation to what they were doing wrong. Doing good doesn’t make up for doing wrong, especially when doing the right thing is pretty easy here.

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I started this post to educate the users out there that were unaware of the problems buying an MKS board can create. It was not intended to create a divide in the community. Please be civil with one another, but please continue discussing this matter if you have any more questions, concerns, or alternate points of view. Civil discussion leads to education, and that was my goal.

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I didn’t know Smoothieboard clones existed, although I shouldn’t be too surprised. Good open source designs tend to get copied by Chinese manufacturers, copying existing products has been a business model in Chinese manufacturing for a very long time now and open source designs cut out the need for in-house expertise in making the copy. Can’t say I’m tempted by them, though. I’d much rather spend a few extra bucks and support Smoothie.

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@Stephen_Baird \o/

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I bought my 4xc from Uberclock because I knew I would get support from the community when I ran into problems and knew the components used on the boards wouldn’t be “knock-offs”. The added cost for support has more than paid for itself. I have looked through the smoothie forums and notice that members aren’t keen on helping you with an MKS issue. And having a board that has gone thru an extensive QC test is awesome because nothing is more frustrating than getting a project going and being held back because of a component was faulty from the get go