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

On 6/20/2025 4:52 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

Would you entrust mission-critical business operations to obsolete,
unsupported software?

People do this every day.  How do you define "support"?  I define it as
"being able to get a problem that I am having FIXED to my satisfaction".
Pick a product (hardware/software).  What chance of having YOUR particular
"issue" addressed if:
- a commercial product from a company still in business and supporting it
- a commercial product from a company no longer actively supporting it
- a commercial product from a company no longer in business (possibly sold off)
- an FOSS product with some structured backing/financing
- an FOSS product without structured backing
- an FOSS product that folks have lost interest in supporting
Depending on the nature of "your" issue, all of the above can leave you
flailing about, looking for an acceptable work-around (a tacit acknowledgement
that the issue will remain unsolved for the foreseeable future -- at least
beyond your anticipated release date!)
I use PostgreSQL in my current project.  Very well supported.  Some money
behind it, too (even if only the Enterprise version, that support eventually
spills over into the "free" version).  And, likely to remain a viable
product/project for the foreseeable future!
I'd like to be able to create "databases" (tables) on R/O media.  While not
likely a high demand issue, I could see folks wanting to leverage such an
ability even if the media wasn't truly R/O (i.e., to be able to define a
tablespace that is immutable and, thus, protected from ACL f*ckups, hacks,
etc. -- "No, you physically can't WRITE to those tables!")
But, expecting folks to spend their limited development time supporting MY
needs is wishful thinking.  So, I have to embrace the codebase and plan on
adding those features, myself.