I just posted a rant on my Maker Hacks blog about 3d printer companies abusing open source projects for their own profit, and wanted to share here to point out this is not, unfortunately, an isolated issue.
In the above case the problem is the 3d printer companies are using and modifying the Marlin source, without giving customers access to those modified files. What makes it especially weird is those companies who do this are claiming they need to protect their secrets - as if they have any IP worth a damn not based on open source software and hardware.
Heck, outside of the maker world, it's not even just big projects like Linux getting used without modified source sharing.
Everywhere people are building off the work of others. Everywhere.
Communities only thrive when the people contributing to open source projects get rewarded or at least respected. This means we need to call out when companies and individuals do the wrong thing.
Within companies also champion being good community citizens.
Let's keep the technologies we rely on being developed and attracting new talent!
