[cad-linux] Re: cad-linux still alive [if only on life-support...]

On Feb 24, 2009, at 9:29 PM, Andrei Smirnov wrote:

> There is simply no enough demand for CAD on Linux, and for Linux in  
> general.
> And that is in part because there is not enough exposure to Linux by
> vendors. Practically all new computers are sold with Windows pre- 
> installed.
> A vast majority of people will not think of buying a computer and
> reinstalling the operating system. Once a status-quo has been  
> established it
> almost takes a miracle to break it. Do you think that the dinosaurs  
> would
> have died naturally in the course of evolution? I think that if it  
> was not
> for that asteroid that killed them, we would have never had a chance.

There are more than 200,000 measured downloads of BRL-CAD a year and  
more than 10x that visit our website.  About 25% of those were for  
non-Windows downloads.  Approximately 9% of that total were  
specifically for Linux binaries.  Again, those are just our  
measurable counts not accounting for installs from portage, apt, or  
source tarballs, etc.

I'd say the demand is certainly there, at least for free (as in beer)  
CAD software that is feature-filled and easy to use.  Most open  
source CAD does great on the free part of course, but fails new users  
on the latter two, BRL-CAD included.  That's why one of our biggest  
efforts has been on (vastly) improving usability via a new GUI and  
hybrid representation support.  We have a fantastic set of libraries  
and a huge wealth of features, but our command-centric GUI has a very  
steep learning curve that is particularly hard on new users.  Others  
are often looking for features that aren't correlated well with the  
solid modeling domain we focus on (e.g., 2D drafting features).

Now the demand for *commercial* CAD on Linux is another matter  
altogether, but then that's not something that personally interests  
me very much.  I firmly believe that open source CAD is where we (as  
a community) should be investing effort, evolving our own future.

Cheers!
Sean

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