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

We are a contract manufacturer specialized on stainless steel components. 
Unfortunately, we need to use the CAD software that is used by our customers, 
in order to exchange more than flat data, to which our CAD users refer "as 
full feature files." 2D drawings are often needed, but in most cases not 
enough, so 3D comes into play. Furthermore, there is CAM software supplied or 
supported by the machine vendors. And all of that stuff is running on Windows 
only. Some machine vendors even replaced their native controllers with 
Windows boxes, WTH?

I wouldn't count on the big guys in the market. Obviously, most of them sold 
their dried plum souls to the Greedy Kraken of Redmond, hence the many MS 
runtime stuff that is required to run those apps. I doubt that the CAD/CAM 
vendors will be able, or even are willing enough, to move their software to 
Operating System independence within the next five or ten years. Not to 
mention the proprietary file formats, dongles, and so on.

In the recent two years, I heard from an increasing number of customers, that 
they got very unsatisfied with the vendor lock-in situation today. And no-one 
mentioned to have any problem with paying in the one or other way for getting 
benefit of a software. But this market got totally out of fair balance.

I hope we will be able to escape this situation within few years. Maybe this 
mailing-list will be part of the solution :-)

Best regards,
Anastasios


On Wednesday 25 February 2009, Andrei Smirnov wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I just can't help letting some steam out on the issue. I've been using
> Linux for most of my professional life. And now I work at a company where I
> am developing software on Linux. However, when it comes to CAD, 100% of
> people in my company use Windows versions. And this seems the case
> elsewhere. CAD is a specific software controlled by a few vendors, which is
> sufficiently complex to write and brings a lot of revenue. I guess they
> reckoned that porting it to Linux will not pay off, since this is such a
> small market share, and the maintenance and support are costly. Nothing to
> say about the Microsoft policies.
>
> I remember several years ago, when I worked at the University, I installed
> Linux version of Pro-E at the computer lab with some 40 workstations, which
> I also converted all to Linux. It worked for a while, but the Linux version
> had glitches, and then Linux support for Pro-E was discontinued.  The whole
> lab was turned back to Windows.
>
> 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.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andrei
>

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