Let me start out that I have no horse in this race - I don't own a Wanhao printer, I don't know anyone who does, I'm not directly affected by it, and I don't even use Repetier's firmware. Also, everything I'm posting was gleaned off of a few comments from a Facebook post and then a google search or two. Still, I can't let it drop without typing it up somewhere.
It's my understanding that Teacup was released under the GPL v2, and Marlin was released under the GPL v3.
Someone deep in this thread (you have to click "View more replies" beneath the comment "Samuel John Benevenia What size nozzle are you using ? That's really high quality") mentions that Wanhao has their own slicer, but that they thought the firmware was something "hacked away" from repetier's firmware. They also said that Wanhao doesn't release source code to the firmware.
Here's the Facebook thread:
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www.facebook.com]
I then found this thread here on the reprap forums from 2014, reminding us that Repetier's firmware is based on Teacup and Marlin and is released under the GPL (despite the fact that Repetier's HOST software was closed off, supposedly possible because it's always been under the Apache 2.0 license).
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forums.reprap.org]
Therefore the source code to the firmware from Wanhao should be released to the public, otherwise they're in violation of the GPL (unless they received separate licenses from the Teacup and Marlin authors, and other people's GPL contributions didn't get included, maybe).
I then Googled a bit and found this thread, where someone explicitly asked for the firmware but someone else claimed Wanhao's code wasn't open source:
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groups.google.com]
On the wanhaousa.com site, I don't see (at a quick glance) any source code posted, just compiled firmware.
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wanhaousa.com]
Anyone want to run with this? Leaving this here in case it helps someone. People shouldn't be benefiting/profiting from modified GPL firmware without releasing those changes to the public, at least if they're publishing the derivative work (which they are, on their site).
Pre-apologies if I got any part of this wrong.
..Jeff Keegan
jkeegan@keegan.org
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2015 03:54PM by jkeegan.
--Jeff Keegan (
Just Another RepRap blog)
