![]() We will probably see something similar to the adoption of Linux in the commercial space where it simply makes sense to use Linux instead of developing your own OS or licensing some other OS.įor the prior, OpenCAx Association was created specifically to encourage and even sponsor OSS coordination. The transition phase will still take dozens of years because of all the work invested in existing platforms. But once it exists, it will eat the world. That's the reason why open source CAD doesn't really exist today in the professional space. To me it sounds like professional CAD is really hard and nobody can "just make it" in a few years of work. Why then would all those "plugin makers" invest in a specific proprietary software when they could extend the open source software instead? Why would users want a proprietary software when they could use the open source software instead? That's one reason why it doesn't exist today. I agree with you that probably nobody would pay big money for that. Suppose that there would be an open source CAD software that does all the basic things right (like Blender). Until it gets minimum viable general usability, it's hard to scratch one's own itch without personal investment or extrinsic incentives. Adding usability and developing infrastructure for a system that complex takes time and a level of expertise that isn't common. Still, general usability is not funded and is left to the auspices of the open source community. ![]() BRL-CAD so overwhelmingly outperforms the commercial tools in the analysis space and is so well-integrated that it would likely cost tens of millions to stop using it. Even against the likes of CATIA, Creo, NX, Solidworks, etc., development is heavily and strategically optimized and invested for solid geometric analysis, validity, verification, and performance. Usability's slowly expanded, but primary paid focus is military vulnerability and lethality analyses where BRL-CAD is absolutely unparalleled. However, that investment is heavily centered around features, integrations, and capabilities that are not as typically useful to the general public. ![]() Your comment is incredibly insightful, more than many people will realize.Ĭase in point, BRL-CAD has had more than 450 years of full-time effort invested, tens of millions with development spanning over four decades. So there's an unofficial free tier that's way better than any open source toy. Once they get big enough, the software company will ask them to start paying some reduced amount. It would be basically worthless and worth almost nobody's time.įor customers with low requirements, the less expensive tools do the job at just the right price point where it doesn't make sense to invest in advancing something like freecad.Īlso, many companies in many countries are pretty much "allowed" to pirate the really expensive software. They would just have an expensive drawing tool. And they give you access to a lot of valuable proprietary information.Įven if a company threw twice as much money at open source CAD, they'd still get basically none of that. They keep up with all the latest and greatest regulations, technologies, manufacturing processes, etc. ![]() That's why many of them cost as much as hiring another employee. The investment and expertise that go into them is enormous. And they do invest in those things, often quite heavily. It's not like when web developers make web development tools, or when machinists make machinist tools.ĬAD is sort of a piazza where the value a company gets from it comes from everything that's attached to it - reporting, CAE, CAM, etc. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't make software tools for themselves. ![]() Drafting is a low-value activity often performed by low-value workers who don't write software. There's no money in CAD by itself, meaning just the drawing part. I speak from two types of experience - both a user of CAE and a developer of CAE. ![]()
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