• FlyingBear also publishes the modified grbl source code!

    Norbert Heinz • 04/13/2023 at 06:58 • 0 comments

    FlyingBear has joined the party and meanwhile publishes the source code of their LaserMan firmware. They do so with a link directly on the page with the firmware binaries and that's exactly how it should be. The firmware including source code itself is hosted on Google drive:

    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SOQ87Hw8J7gjQCtrIzGSMM4Fh3et-Jet

    The repositories of Ortur still look a bit messy with many empty folders and links to closed source binaries :-( However, the core elements of their firmware is published. The repositories of interest are those of Firmware 1.4x:

    https://github.com/Ortur-Tech/Ortur_Laser_Firmware_14X

    as well as 1.7x:

    https://github.com/Ortur-Tech/Ortur_Laser_Firmware_17X-18X

  • The ball started rolling quicker than expected!

    Norbert Heinz • 07/17/2022 at 06:42 • 0 comments

    Short after Hackaday picked up my _project_ on their blog:

    https://hackaday.com/2022/07/15/watch-out-for-lasercutter-manufacturers-violating-gpl/

    and:

    https://hackaday.com/2022/07/16/fighting-the-good-fight/

    I got mails from Ortur indicating that they took notice of the Hackaday blog entry. The man I was in contact with before, supported my request to open the source from the beginning, but the software headquarter had ignored us until they were informed of that new kind of _publicy_ they gained.

    With that kind of tailwind, he could convince Ortur, that opening at least the grbl related stuff must be done quickly. To his mind (and mine), disclosing all of the firmware would even better, but let's start with a first step.

    I got a roadmap of when the source code will get published and it will start very soon. Of course that will need to be prepared and  to make things right there is more to be done than just copy and paste code lines somewhere. Gil triggered the process and so consequently got the job to do so. Being convinced that Open Source is a good thing doesn't mean he has any experience in creating a repository in such a way, that it will be useful for the community, which indicates that there is more going on than just "we do what we were forced to do". We are now in talks on how this could / should be done.

    Great news!

  • Ortur is the first company that reached escalation level 3

    Norbert Heinz • 07/10/2022 at 08:22 • 2 comments

    Ortur has refused to publish the modified source code of their grbl based firmware after two requests. Now that my personal escalation level 3 is reached, here is the video:

    For those of you, that like to put more pressure on Ortur by demonstrating that more people have an eye on their wrongdoing, the support email is:

    support@ortur.tech

    Ask politely to get the source code by pointing to their use of grbl and the GPL v3 license text - thanks!