Whatever the nuances are surrounding the reported taking down of remixes derived from the famous Benchy 3D printer stress test, it was inevitable that in its aftermath there would be competing stress tests appear under more permissive licensing. And so it has come to pass, in the form of [Depep1]’s Boaty, a model that’s not a boat, but a bench. Sadly this is being written away from a 3D printer so we can’t try it, but we can immediately see that its low bed contact area from having spindly legs would be a significant test for many printers’ bed adhesion, and it has overhangs and bridges aplenty.
It’s always interesting to see new takes on a printer stress test, after all we can all use something to check the health of our machines. But the Benchy saga isn’t something we think should drive you away from the little boat we know and love, as it remains an open-source model as it always has been. We don’t know the exact reasons why the derivatives were removed, but we understand from Internet scuttlebut that the waters may be a little more cloudy than at first supposed. If there’s any moral at all to the story, it lies in reading and understanding open source licences, rather than just assuming they all allow us to do anything we want.
Meanwhile it’s likely this model will be joined by others, and we welcome that. After all, innovation should be part of what open source does.
Missed the Benchy takedown story? Catch up here.
Thanks [Jeremy G] for the tip.
My understanding is that the original 3D model was released under a Creative Commons no-derivatives license and that the removals are not because the copyright holder of the original 3D model has issued takedowns but because the 3D print catalogs hosting them are concerned about potential lawsuits and are removing the content now rather than risk being sued later.
Removing the unauthorized derivative works that is.
Not quite, the “original” owner is on record publically saying they don’t really mind the derivatives and didn’t intend to enforce the “ND” part of the licence.
However that company was sold to a business to business focused corporation, who have indeed sent out blanket takedown notices. They probably had no idea what kind of fire they would be lighting by doing that. It might even be unintended: maybe they’ve contracted a trigger happy third party paralegal with the brief of “protect the IP associated with our recent acquisition”.
All that said, I’m not sure .stl files should even be considered “open source”, in the same sense that most people wouldn’t EVER consider describing a compiled binary .exe file as open source.
The minimum standard for “true” source of a 3D model requiring mechanical/dimensional accuracy, should really be a .step file, which is essentially the “lossless vector” to .stl’s “lossy jpeg approximation” of the geometry that was created in the CAD software.
The owner is on the record saying none of the takedown requests came from them or their parent companies. And Printables has said the original claims came from a “3rd party”.
Perhaps that’s all a lie from someone who is trying to put out a fire, or some unaffiliated ratbag has decided to do it on the behalf of the owner without their knowledge (german lawyers love this one trick)
Nice thing about this model is that it has flat areas that are easy to measure for dimensional accuracy.
This. Something easily and repeatedly measurable across prints and printers.
“the Benchy saga isn’t something we think should drive you away from the little boat” That’s correct – there’s plenty other things that should drive you away from it. It’s an ancient test that’s no longer current; plenty better test objects have been created since the benchie first appeared and many tell you more while consuming much less material.