Re: SolidWorks is cool, sort of (but FreeCAD might be better)

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

On 6/17/2025 6:49 PM, Sergey Kubushyn wrote:

Especially when you are not even able to BUY that software, only rent. Not
just it gets extremely expensive after couple of years like it is now with
e.g. Altium Designer -- its cost PER YEAR is now the same as I paid for my
PERPETUAL license when those were still available and "subscription" was
(still "is" for me as mine only expires in 2027) something like 1/4..1/3 of
that and not mandatory. The biggest problem is what are you going to do when
the company goes bust (it is not "if", it is _ALWAYS_ "when" -- the bigger
they are the harder they fall) or just decides they don't want to support
that outdated weirdo anymore when they have a newer one or suddenly want 10x
last year price...

 
PC-based CAD/EDA tools have always been a gamble.  The market is too small
and the customers don't want to pay for ongoing support/development (the
"I can do all that stuff myself" econo-mentality).
 
I dropped ~$15K on the DASH suite in 1986.  Where is it today?  (where was
it in 1990??)  PCAD, Protel, OrCAD, Cadence, DIPtrace, etc.
 
[Sad as STRIDES was one of the slickest tools I've used!]
 
OTOH, you could have purchased a Mentor Graphics workstation and still
be running PADS.  Is Computervision still in business?  (does anyone
maintain their hardware?).
 
OTOH, I bought AutoCAD w/AME in the same timeframe (about $3K) and it's
been there for me in the 40 years since!  I'd still be waiting for
FOSS tools to have the capabilities I *bought* those many decades ago!
 
gEDA, KiCAD, FreeCAD... what happens when the developers move on
to the next "greatest" thing?  Are you willing to take on maintenance
of the codebase -- even if only for yourself?

The problem is not the codebase maintenance. You can happily live without
forever as long as you still have hardware it runs on.

The FUNDAMENTAL difference is that unlike [almost] ALL modern commercial
software the older software had PERPETUAL licenses and OSS doesn't have any
at all. Those will NOT stop working in a year because your license expired
and it is too expensive or impossible at all to renew it for another year.
If this happens you'll end up holding a bag -- all your work done with those
tools is useless now and you can't do anything to something you still have
to support. Not just some ancient stuff but something one year old or even
newer because your tools stopped working and there is no way to make them
work again.

---
******************************************************************
*  KSI@home    KOI8 Net  < >  The impossible we do immediately.  *
*  Las Vegas   NV, USA   < >  Miracles require 24-hour notice.   *
******************************************************************