Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: SolidWorks is cool, sort of (but FreeCAD might be better)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 01:57:33 -0700
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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 that outdated weirdo anymore when they have a newer one or suddenly want 10x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?

Ask yourself what your time is worth and how much the tool is
saving (or costing!) you.  Simple business decision.

[E.g., I no longer maintain color printers as the cost far exceeds
what I have to pay if I print on a professionally maintained machine
at the end of the block!]

Whatever tools (not just EDA/CAD) you use, be sure you can keep running them
(or, resurrect them, as needed) for as long as you need to support <whatever>
you've used them for (hardware designs tend to be very transitory; though
I've a client who has somehow kept one of my designs in production for ~30
years... I have absolutely no idea how he finds the parts to do so!  :<  )

[VMs are the obvious choice for tools that can run on generic hardware.
Things get a bit more complicated when you need special hardware to host
the tools  <frown>]