In my humble opinion, if a work is a community project it should stay open regardless of some small feature tweaks, and any kind of commercial revenue should be used to support the original authors as it literally costs people nothing as a tax deductible donation.
The key word here is "Should", as different places have different cultural values regarding intellectual property. Some see bad faith verbatim cloning as lucrative business opportunities (it rarely is), and creatives as a natural resource to be exploited (unfortunately they often are.)
Notably, a large part of the community quietly financially supports this cloning practice, and rarely follow their lofty ideals when purchasing.
Commercial opportunities are naturally degenerating in a saturated market, and businesses that did innovate their own unique products owe people nothing.
Note, competing with free is a bad business model, and the faster cloners fail the better. Prusa was boosted by the rep-rap project, and has spent decades rehashing the same core designs. It is not a sustainable growth strategy. =3
The key word here is "Should", as different places have different cultural values regarding intellectual property. Some see bad faith verbatim cloning as lucrative business opportunities (it rarely is), and creatives as a natural resource to be exploited (unfortunately they often are.)
Notably, a large part of the community quietly financially supports this cloning practice, and rarely follow their lofty ideals when purchasing.
Commercial opportunities are naturally degenerating in a saturated market, and businesses that did innovate their own unique products owe people nothing.
Note, competing with free is a bad business model, and the faster cloners fail the better. Prusa was boosted by the rep-rap project, and has spent decades rehashing the same core designs. It is not a sustainable growth strategy. =3