It wasn't obvious from the article, but the printer also supports 11" wide paper rolls for us American users.
Honestly, beyond just the openness, the small form factor also looks really compelling.
Edit: The project description does indeed state 27mm as one of the supported formats (A4 and A3 width are also supported). Seems an odd choice to me, but there may be a market there I don't know about.
Or perhaps they meant 297mm - the exact height of a sheet of A4 - and mistyped the "9".
Tabloid printing used to be quite inexpensive... Any 11" wide dot-matrix printer could manage it.
The rise of inkjets made it relatively more expensive. I resorted to rescaling tabloid (11x14") printouts to US Legal (8.5x14") to keep old business applications working.
In recent years, as A3 format copiers (with network printing) have become very common in offices everywhere, it's becoming inexpensive to print on tabloid sized paper once again.
90% of what I use my printer for is printing mailing labels for packages.
At home I've had 3 HP lasers in my life, all acquired for cheap or free.
A LaserJet 2100N - owned this for 10 years after getting it for free from a closing store (it was their office printer, it only perished because I did a bad job replacing the dried-out rubber rollers. Printed multiple reams of paper with it and never even replaced the toner.
A LaserJet P2055dn - like $100 shipped on ebay? owned this for about 7 years, printed at least a dozen reams. It still worked when I gave it to Goodwill to replace it with an all-in-one when an inkjet AIO we used for scanning died.
A LaserJet M227fdn - Acquired with 200 pages on it for $30 at Goodwill. No issues as I assume this will probably last a decade.
Moral of the story: Laserjets - and especially monochrome ones if that fits into your lifestyle - basically last forever and print for far less than the paper costs.
We have still not, as far as I know, learned what the governments threatened the manufacturers with or what they offered to them in order to get them to cooperate.
Reasons why it's laser and not inkjet:
- Crisp edges on fine details
- Consistent colors
- Consistent alignment
Remeber, we're talking about "EURion constellation" that was in use at least since 1996. Also, remeber we're talking about regular consumer printers: consumer laser printers > consumer inkjet. I guess also remember that not ever banknote is a US dolar?
That's a different measure! It's detected by some software in photocopiers or software used in conjunction with scanners, not produced by printers.
The other reason I had thought why inkjets were considered a lesser concern for counterfeiting is that the documents they produce will traditionally smear if they get wet, which doesn't seem like a very desirable property in counterfeit currency and documents. Maybe over time they've tended to use more permanent inks, though.
Source comment: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1hm4fi6/...
I know that many are intended to prevent counterfeiting, but I think it's about the principle and the hacker spirit to have something fully under your control and understanding.
It does look fantastic but I fear vaporware.
> Open Source
> Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license for all of its files, including electronics and mechanical design files, firmware code, and the bill of materials. We hope that people will be able to repair, upgrade, and contribute improvements to their printers.
It's a nice hope, but they've conveniently banned being able to pay someone else to make parts for you, which will make it harder. Also, not Open Source. (Shared Source is still better than proprietary, but it's not F/OSS.)
Just because there was a court ruling in one country, doesn't necessarily mean it is legal in another country.
I'm not a lawyer, so it's not that hard to imagine that I'm missing nuance, but... what's the difference?
I do get your point though, it would be nice if this was not an NC license
A4 is awesome, and should become the US standard.
Agree, I had to look it up as well. I can memorize A4 and A3 easily, but A5 is already counter-intuitive. It's an aspect ratio that's kept, so that's why the numbers don't add up easily.
With the paper in front of me it's easier, fold, double, you can navigate across all levels of A(n) quickly. All it takes is seeing this single graphic for a split second and you know all the DIN A-sizes, but the US sizes not. I enjoy the US Letter format though as a size, it feels somehow better than A5 as it's more square.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#/media/File:A_size_...
Write the sizes in binary and bit-shift them?
US sizes don't work like that; the closest thing to A3 here doesn't have the same proportions as the closest thing to A4. Which absolutely sucks if you are designing a poster and need to make it bigger or smaller.
With international A sizes you can reuse the same design for any size. That's why I like them.
That can't happen, because your desired exclusion is incompatible with FOSS.
You could do that with a non-FOSS license.
This is a textbook case where the headline should be editorialized as it contains misinformation, and many are only ever gonna read the headline.
Once, a long time ago. Richard Stallman was pissed off at an hostile printer. We got Free Software just because. Yet the printer problem remains unsolved.
I still hope somebody, somewhere, will eventually get it done and commoditize printing forever, riding us of the mafia which is printer makers.
There will always be enough people who would buy a $129 printer and postpone the reckoning in ink, instead of buying a $329 printer that can print reams using cheap bulk ink.
(Laser printers are superior anyway, unless you print photos.)
A new inkjet-- especially if you're not getting a photo-optimized one-- isn't doing that much technically different from a 20-year-old one. You don't need 4800DPI and rich six-ink photo finishes if all you're asking for is one four-colour pie chart in a 20-page report, so you don't need to be at the edge of premium technology here.
So why can't they just keep manufacturing a 20-year-old DeskJet, using long-amortized tooling and fully-worked-out mechanicals, but with a new controller board to replace parallel with USB/Ethernet/Wi-fi?
It revealed a lot about the incentive structure of the inkjet printer market.
All models I personally experienced came with ink cartridges containing less ink than replacement cartridges. I participated in a ton of ink cartridge refilling during 1998-2007.
For most consumers back then, I could easily imagine that it was still more cost effective to buy new printers (with partial cartridges) than it was to buy replacements.
Built with standard mechanical components and modular parts, it’s easy to assemble, modify, and repair.
But if the cartridge holder breaks, a repair service cannot print a new one.
And if PCB breaks, a repair service cannot order a new one either.
Even CC highlights this
>NC licenses do not qualify as “open licenses” under the Open Definition, and works licensed under an NC license are not considered Free Cultural Works
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/NonCommercial_interpre...
The non-commercial clause is not only unnecessary (who is going to mass market it?), but license also means firmware is proprietary software, it absolutely is not Open Source. Sad to see even seemingly user approached projects building on foundations they misuse the terms of.
Attribution license it. Name it TheOpenPrinter@Patreon.com and force manufacturers to engrave it on each one. Don't pull nonsense. Crowdfunding imo sounds like they're planning to be unsuccessful at actually making them, and just to make a living off failing to make them for a year or two.
How about just getting the design tight, modular, and small-shop ready, and not even attempting to mass produce them? Leave that to the experts.
An "open source" printer should allow someone to open a factory and mass produce them.
No, words mean things. Open Source precludes restrictions on field of use or commercialization, and no credible organization (OSI, DFSG, FSF, Creative Commons, any of the BSDs) claims otherwise.
Words have indeed a meaning, but that meaning is not purely decided by some organisation, steering cometee or authority, but by what idea they evoque to those who use them. Refer to the old debate about "free software" vs "open source" [0]: almost the same technical definition, but quite different meaning.
Most "fake" open source products are produced by companies who are fundamentaly unwilling to cooperate because they want to keep the possibility to milk customers once they have succesfully attracted investors.
I might be wrong, but I have the feeling that this is a very different scenario, if only because the potential for becoming filthy rich by selling printer parts seems slim. I believe they genuinely want to empower users, without working for free for some industrial company that could just exploit the design without contributing anything back. Empowering the user meets the definition of open source for me.
I wish we would not be so harsh against good-spirited creators because they miss to check all the boxes of the official definition of open source (tm). Maybe I'm too idealistic, wouldn't be the first time.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
And yet, the one thing they've done is ensured that nobody can ever compete with them commercially. Even if we were to accept that making and selling the thing isn't contributing (I disagree), they could just use a share-alike license so that any improvements are also released back to the community. Heck, in that situation the original folks could take 3rd party improvements and sell them. But they didn't. I lack your optimism; I think if someone was trying to just make money and milk customers this is exactly how it would look.
> Empowering the user meets the definition of open source for me.
> I wish we would not be so harsh against good-spirited creators because they miss to check all the boxes of the official definition of open source (tm).
Yeah, the problem is exactly that this hurts users. Sure, individual DIY-savvy folks can replace parts or even make improvements, but it can never scale up. It's like saying that Windows is an open system because users can install programs that modify how it works a bit... so long as they never sell those improvements. It intentionally cripples the ecosystem. (I probably argued this better at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45470111 )
What we should be convinced of though is that there are better ways to push for more openness than to shame the authors. Not sure that's what you intended to do but that's how the negative reception sounded to me.
Amusingly, I used to be what you'd call a pragmatist, but I've come to believe that over a medium-long term time scale what you call maximalism is pragmatic. It's all well and good to think, 'oh it's fine to concede this ground this time', but that just means you lose ground over time.
> What we should be convinced of though is that there are better ways to push for more openness than to shame the authors. Not sure that's what you intended to do but that's how the negative reception sounded to me.
The very first sentence on https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer is
> Open Printer is an open-source, repairable inkjet printer designed for makers, artists, and anyone tired of throwaway hardware.
The authors started our interaction by lying to me. They should be ashamed. If they opened by saying "source available" or "not open source but we'll publish repair manuals" or anything else that was actually true, I would consider it a step short of the real goal but good movement in the right direction. But instead they went for lying and trying to get good will for something they're not actually doing, so no, I'm going to view them appropriately.
I don't know this field well enough (or at all) to have an opinion really; I was actually surprised that one could consider building, or even using, a printer in 2025.
Isn't the rPI a counter-example, as a design that is not 100% legally copyable yet still open enough to inspire a lot of similar projects in this area?
If there is a sure way to reach a world of open design and user freedom, I sure don't know what it is.
No, I think the downsides are all to the creators. Consider the case if the creators release under an actual open source share-alike license: They ship, they release the source, 3rd parties clone it. The original creators lose money because now they have actual competition. Users, though? They get more options, lower prices, and reliability in the form of replacements if the original creators stop selling.
> Isn't the rPI a counter-example, as a design that is not 100% legally copyable yet still open enough to inspire a lot of similar projects in this area?
How so? The pi would have clones no matter how open it was. Actually I think it's the other way: The way the pi remains so proprietary is actively unhelpful to users, because the lack of specs makes it hard to port new operating systems to the hardware.
> If there is a sure way to reach a world of open design and user freedom, I sure don't know what it is.
Use an actual open source license ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware#Licenses ). This isn't complicated.
> The original creators lose money because now they have actual competition. Users, though? They get more options, lower prices, and reliability in the form of replacements if the original creators stop selling.
> > If there is a sure way to reach a world of open design and user freedom, I sure don't know what it is.
> Use an actual open source license
Well this one already isn't open source, so the delta's not quite so large as that. (Source Available is better than proprietary, but Open Source it is not.)
> Many have been doing this for the last 30 years, during which user freedoms have shrinked: 20 years ago I had a working open source daily phone, an open design mips-based laptop that ran only free software, and all this was technically ahead of the competition; today I'm not allowed to login to some government website unless I use an apple or google device, community maintained distros are moribund and the free software movement became irrelevant. I believe more nuanced tactic than just "use that license" are called for.
Fair, allow me to iterate: Specifically, use copyleft licenses. If Linux were GPLv3, then you would be legally entitled to change your phone firmware.
> NC licenses do not qualify as “open licenses” under the Open Definition, and works licensed under an NC license are not considered Free Cultural Works.
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/NonCommercial_interpre...
Otherwise, how does it differ from the regular HP/Brother printers, in that regard?
Epson also makes ink tank printers, but I don't recommend them because the Epson I used to own refused to work until the "maintenance cartridge" (a special sponge that absorbs the ink used to flush out clogs) was replaced, and it's not user-serviceable. (Technically you could do it but you'd void your warranty). So when my Epson died, I replaced it with a comparable Canon printer. Canon will sell you a maintenance cartridge for about $10 (plus tax and shipping) right on their website, and I'm sure some retailers would carry them too (though I haven't looked). I haven't needed it yet, but it's good to know I won't have to buy a new printer because I couldn't replace a simple sponge buried deep in its guts.
Now I have a cheap Brother laser printer for those few times I need to print something. It's over 5 years old, prints around a dozen or two pages a year and works fine every time I turn it on.
(Hopefully some day I won't need a printer at all, but sometimes it comes in handy, like when I needed to update my property tax records, my choices were either to go in to the office or mail them a signed paper form -- scanned or faxed forms were not permitted)
I have had to replace it finally because it got an issue where it kept thinking the paper was jammed or empty (it wouldn't tell me which) even when it wasn't. But that isn't anything to do with inkjet Vs laser.
I did replace it with a Brother laser printer simply because it was very cheap (and I don't need colour).
Annoyingly the Brother app uses the old temporary AP WiFi pairing method which doesn't at all work on modern Android because it constantly detects no internet access and disconnects no matter what you do.
So instead I had to tediously enter my WiFi password using up and down arrows and a 30 character display. Like 01234567890abcd next 01234567890abcdefghij next 0123... Seriously tedious but it's lucky they had the option otherwise I'd have had to return it.
That's a problem, actually, because lasting so long, the parts got scarce in the meantime. Scarce and expensive. It probably would've been more cost-effective to consider the belt a critical failure and replace it with new, but I just hate the notion of throwing this monstrous machine (it weighs like 70 lbs) in the trash for want of a 5-lb part.
That said, it should now be all set for another 10-15 years of service. It's still running the 2009-copyright firmware that was on it from the factory, and I will never let it "upgrade".
I bought a Inkjet Brother Printer about 8+ years ago and I have refilled the ink-tank just once after the first installation. I think a full-tank last about 5 years. I’m about to add a Brother Laser Printer too.
Oh! I also print for the neighbors pretty regularly (I live in a large gated neighborhood). Their kids needs some good colorful print for school, I do it for them. I’m the guy who keeps unexpected things that comes in handy. I’m happy with that.
Be careful. Brother is doing shaddy things this days, like lowering printing quality, or not printing, if a non-Brother toner is detected. E.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NzaRVEzYuz8 for a toner hack that shouln't be needed.
As far as I know they're still not doing any nonsense to force you to use their toner - but even if they did I probably wouldn't care as the original toner is cheap enough that I just can't be arsed to figure out good compatible ones.
"Brother printers do not intentionally degrade print quality based on whether a Brother Genuine or third-party ink/ toner cartridge is used."
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/06/brother_firmware_upda...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/brother-denies-using...
I think this is the one https://store.brother.ee/devices/laser/dcp/dcpt710w
Suggestion: Keep your printer clean, and covered while not using.
Few people seem to realize that ink is incredibly cheap. You just need to buy it third party. The most expensive part of an ink cartridge is the chips used to DRM them to lock you in
The handles-and-blades business model that is implicit when you buy a $40 printer is still utterly miserable, but it's no longer the only option. If you're willing to spend $200, you get a reliable piece of equipment that isn't constantly trying to nickel-and-dime you.
Order photos from a store instead of printing them.
Get a laserjet if you just want document printing at home.
If you are doing crafts, then buy a nice inkjet. The nice inkjets pay for themselves past some volume because (1) OEM ink is actually relatively cheap and (2) they are reliable.
Plus, a lot of inkjet buyers really need the scanning and copying functionality more than the printer itself.
I have a ~$200 HP OfficeJet printer it’s small, has all the multi-functions I need, and has been reliable.
Yes, the ink isn’t cheap. But I buy it at Costco which makes it less painful and it’s not the 1990s so printing isn’t an everyday thing. I have never had an issue with ink drying up or anything like that.
I think the thing you have to understand is that customers like me are not looking for the best dollars per page, they’re just looking for something convenient so that they don’t have to print at work or go to the library. They don’t want to buy a serious appliance that can’t be lifted by a large portion of the population.
>There's an integrated cutter that'll cut the roll into A4 size, but if you have a longer format printing job like a banner, then that's possible too.
To me, it seems like this license makes the most sense for everyone. The designer(s) of the printer get to sell a printer that no doubt took more than a few days worth of work to go from idea to "hey look, it prints something", and everyone else gets to see how the design works, to either improve, or create a new design based on learnings from this project. Hopefully that brand new design is licensed more liberally!
But I sure as hell would love an open printer that has a less than ideal license, especially when the alternative is basically getting a new printer from one of four companies (Canon, Epson, HP... did I miss anyone?)
The world needs more open source hardware. I'm currently trying to tackle an open source washing machine and heat pump dryer in my spare time. Will it ever turn into a built project? Probably not, but I sure as hell want to make sure that every peice that I've worked on so far is released to the world if it means that the next few people can finish or fix the design.
The fact that we see __washing machines__ as something that's not worth supporting after 6 years is honestly disgusting to me. It's not a flat screen TV, I don't see the design of a washing machine improving radically in my generation.
But if it does, it should be able to be retrofitted, rather than replacing an entire machine.
> To me, it seems like this license makes the most sense for everyone. The designer(s) of the printer get to sell a printer that no doubt took more than a few days worth of work to go from idea to "hey look, it prints something", and everyone else gets to see how the design works, to either improve, or create a new design based on learnings from this project. Hopefully that brand new design is licensed more liberally!
Let's consider a hypothetical. It might not happen, but I'd bet that it does. The project launches. They get funded. They successfully ship the hardware. Once. And then... oh, it doesn't matter. They retire. They disappear. They get hit by a bus. They want to do another run but funding falls through. They try to do another run but there are manufacturing problems and after a couple years everyone gives up. Heck, maybe they get bought by $EVIL_MAINSTREAM_PRINTER_MANUFACTURER to kill this competition. It really doesn't matter how, what matters is that if anything happens to this one group of 3 people, nobody's allowed to sell this thing ever again, which means the only way to get new parts, let alone a whole replacement machine, is to personally have enough DIY skill to make it yourself. And that's too high a bar.
They're coming at it from the software side, but the FSF articulates it pretty well:
> Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. Paid, professional support for free software fills an important need.
> Thus, to exclude commercial use, commercial development or commercial distribution would hobble the free software community and obstruct its path to success.
- https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#selling
> But I sure as hell would love an open printer that has a less than ideal license, especially when the alternative is basically getting a new printer from one of four companies (Canon, Epson, HP... did I miss anyone?)
Yes, Source Available is better than nothing, but it's strictly worse than Open Source.
> They retire. They disappear. They get hit by a bus.
Then maybe a better NC license should be designed specifically for hardware? The Creative Commons license isn't fantastic, for all the reasons that you suggest.
Just because the hardware is licensed by default as NC, doesn't mean that there can not be other providers of parts, a dual licensed open source hardware project if you will.
You get the GPL-like CC NC license for general use, the tinkerers have the plans so they can modify the hardware.
Then the commercial suppliers of replacement parts can pay a small percentage of their sales to the group that made the original designs, so they can continue to build new designs and improve existing ones.
Someone who just carbon copies a design and makes a profit of it, without giving back anything to the community is hard to avoid in the open hardware space.
I don't think it's specific to hardware, but yes, I personally think this is a poor choice of license. There are actual Open Source licenses designed for hardware, but this isn't it.
> Just because the hardware is licensed by default as NC, doesn't mean that there can not be other providers of parts, a dual licensed open source hardware project if you will.
Dual-licensing would be nice, but still isn't Open Source and is still awkward; if the original folks are gone, there's nobody to grant those commercial licenses. If you really must, I think the best option is a BSL-style arrangement where you release it under a restrictive license up front but it automatically becomes truly Open Source, including allowing commercialization, after a year or two.
> You get the GPL-like CC NC license for general use,
Point of order : GPL is absolutely not a NC license. You are free to make money off of GPL software, you just have to give code to anyone who gets binaries (possibly only if they ask, again this is general terms not legal advice).
> Someone who just carbon copies a design and makes a profit of it, without giving back anything to the community is hard to avoid in the open hardware space.
I'm kind of okay with that. Carbon copying and selling the design is giving something to the community: availability. I'm 100% on board with share-alike licenses, of course; anyone else selling it also being forced to share the source would be great. But a lot of my point is that as someone who wants open source printers to take over, I absolutely want these things to be ubiquitous, including by them being sold for pennies on the dollar by fly-by-night manufacturers and cloned and remixed and modified by companies that stand to make a fortune by doing so.
2. That's great right up until they reappear 5 years later and start suing people. Or their estate does. Or if they got bought up specifically to crush competition.
> Power via DC jack
...Can I urge the devs to go to USB-C? I know this will complicate power delivery, but wasn't this a requirement for many devices in EU?
This is one of those projects that half of developers would want to make, and nobody starts.
These old HP "cartridges" were more of hotends with integral extruders. Which means they can be installed onto a printer equivalent of Prusa i3 to turn it into a printer. For a truly open printer, we'd need an open inkjet head - and those are actually made in lithography process, believe it or not.
Currently, the cartridges are available and affordable - with multiple aftermarket suppliers. Some of which even split the "print head" and the "cartridge" into two separate parts, or leave ports for refilling them.
An open inkjet head would sure be fun to play around with, but it's not a hard requirement.
I hope this company gets big enough and starts licensing its technology to other manufacturers.
A printer without a normal paper tray and duplex printing is a dealbreaker. This thing can’t print envelopes, can’t print labels, etc.
Most likely, that's also precisely the reason why this product uses a very old HP print-head. (The one from HP DeskJet 1110, released December 2014.) Because that one has been reverse-engineered already: https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush&page=3
1. https://chatgpt.com/share/68e16867-9520-8010-8eec-6464481195...
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