California’s bill, AB 2047, will not only mandate censorware on all 3D printers; it will also criminalize the use of open-source alternatives. Repeating the mistakes of DRM won’t make anyone safer, but it will hurt innovation in the state and risks a slew of new consumer harms ranging from surveillance to platform lock-in. California must stand with creators and reject this legislation before it’s too late.
I don’t see how they could realistically target Marlin firmware. It’s incredibly straightforward software/firmware that could easily be forked and duplicated. Even the old driver boards (Ramps) were originally hand-made pcb’s designed by fellow hobbyists.
They make it illegal to distribute, install, use, etc. They make it illegal to sell, distribute, build, etc. any printer that can run on Marlin (hoping to force manufacturers to block anyone installing non-oem firmware on the machines at all).
I’m not saying it’s reasonable or feasible, but the people making the laws clearly don’t know or care about any of that.
Edit - If they make enough stuff illegal, they don’t need to catch you breaking the law when they decide to arrest you. They just arrest you and then figure out which crimes you were committing.