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Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

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Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#51

Post by aothms »

superchroma wrote: post #2

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the proble…

There's a Blender addon under development for BIM called https://blenderbim.org/ they're looking for funding

Blender's user interface is fully scriptable in Python, which means you can really adapt to your personal workflows or that of the company

BlenderBIM accomplished a lot in about a year, but I guess we're all aware of what kind of monumental undertaking this is.

(I work on a related library)

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#52

Post by [deleted] »

riedel wrote: post #8
superchroma wrote: post #2

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the proble…

Supporting FreeCAD [1] would be IMHO the way to go as they already provide both interfaces to BIM [2] and Blender [3]. Would be great if there were more architects or structural engineering companies that invest in open source. Maybe then universities would follow instead on building on education licenses that after graduation become very expensive. [1] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Donate [2] https://wiki.freecadweb.o…

[deleted]

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#55

Post by eternalban »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #49

I still love to design on my drawing board with pencil and eraser, who still does that?

I never used pencils, but mechanical pen and t-square and friends. I remain convinced that engaging the entire body in the design process is superior to the experience of CAD. What may be interesting is updating the drafting table itself to be an active surface. It may be worth a business plan and getting funding for a startup.

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#56

Post by jkestner »

sprkwd wrote: post #31
narrator wrote: post #10

Adobe should come up with a competitor. QuarkXpress abused its customers badly with high license fees and hardware dongles and all sorts of stuff like that. When Adobe came out with InDesign, everyone switched and Quark lost its dominant position. Same thing happened to Microsoft in Mobile. People were so sick of their monopolistic behavior that they lost totally to Apple and Google when they came out with a competit…

There's always Affinity Publisher. https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/

I’d love it if Serif got in the CAD game, but they’ve got their hands full finishing that last 20% on their design apps. I use only Designer and Photo now, but there’s always a couple of features I miss, like gradient mesh or duotone.

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#57

Post by Intermernet »

superchroma wrote: post #2

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the proble…

Autodesk have jumped the shark with their recent cloud pricing options. New users will be priced out of the software, and will use anything else other than the Autodesk family of products. This may take a generation, but Autodesk have made a conscious decision to be less and less relevant over the next decade or so.

Adobe are on the same path, but not quite so aggressively. They may still see the writing on the wall and back out before they become history.

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#58

Post by Intermernet »

civeng wrote: post #6
superchroma wrote: post #2

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the proble…

Try Vectorworks. They had BIM years before Revit was a twinkle in AutoCAD's eye. Perhaps they fell behind for a few years but now but now more than viable and so much more stable code.

Vectorworks is still in the thousands. It would be nice if some of the people willing to pay that cost decided to support the BIM developments in Blender instead. Blender have recently shown that they can adapt and change faster than any of their commercial competitors in the 3D modelling space. I'm pretty sure they can leap-frog Autodesk and Vectorworks in a couple of years if they had the funding.

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#59

Post by Intermernet »

auggierose wrote: post #24
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of firms think Archicad isn't industry ready It's similar in many other industries. Take InDesign, the current market leader in DTP. Say you are working on a book that has multiple indexes: index of places, index of people and so on. Well InDesign doesn't support that! This is not some fancy feature - you will find multiple indexes in many non-trivial books. But for some reason the most popular and supposedly…

It's because once a company is a market leader, it isn't anymore about "What feature is useful", but about "What will increase our revenue by x%?". Will adding a multiple index feature add anything to revenue? I doubt it.

Yep, Quark Express was the king of DTP until they suddenly weren't. It doesn't take long for the landscape to change.

Re: Autodesk criticised by 35 named architects (2020)

#60

Post by DonHopkins »

superchroma wrote: post #2

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the proble…

Firms like NVidia, AMD, Facebook, Amazon, Unity, Epic Mega Grants, Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, and Apple chucking money at Blender is a hell of a lot better for users and society and education and industry than the featureless monolith that is Autodesk chucking plaster at Ton Roosendaal. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk

>... of public interest, we have to act in that sense. I can't simply say, "Oh, I'm going to support Autodesk from now on". And then, you can't. You can bring me to court and I will most certainly lose this. Plus, what people don't know maybe, but the Blender code is not owned by the Blender Foundation. [CRASH RUMBLE THUD] What??! That was Autodesk!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg

>"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal interview. Interview with Ton Roosendaal, the man behind the open source 3D software Blender!

46:52: [Q: What do you think of Autodesk?]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg&t=46m53s

>A: They're my best friends! Yah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

>[...52:46] Nobody reads those licenses. Nobody. [And this one is quite bad, isn't it?] It's horrible. [Yeah.] They can visit you at home if you use Autodesk, and check your computer, what's on it. [That's a good quote.]

>Some people ask me, hey Ton, if I use Blender, the art I make, is that my property, can I do whatever I like with it? Of course! That's open, the Free Software Foundation philosophy, right? We are making free software. Do whatever you do with the content.

>Autodesk, on the other hand, they also have their educational versions. In the license it says that everything you make with educational software is NOT your property. You can NOT do whatever you like with it. It is RESTRICTED. You can only do a little bit with it, you can not do other things with it. So basically Autodesk controls the content for that. [Ooooh...]

>Especially for commercial use, or use inside of companies, or if you want to sell something. You can only use it to learn the software, but not to do anything with the content.

>And they complain about Blender having an evil license. But I've got -- everybody... [Wait, who says that?] Aaaah, like I've got that kind of emails. It's got less, but even today, a business meeting with a studio, and they say, "Yeah, yeah, we are thinking about Blender, but the license, you know?" and then "If we start using Blender, then we might get sued, or a patent problem. And is the content ours? If we use Blender, is it really ours? Because we get free software? Because the content is then yours."

>I said "NO!!!". [Ha ha ha ha!] I do hear rumors that Autodesk is spreading that story. [What??!] Yeah! [Ooooh!] Autodesk tells people... [That's conspiracy talk!] ...they go to companies and say "Ah, don't use Blender, but you see now, Open Source, the content you make has to be open too, so you have to share it, or everything." They spread those rumors. [Gasp!] So shame on you, Autodesk. [Ha ha ha ha ha! Allegedly. Or not even allegedly. Rumored.] I heard. But I heard it from people who heard it from Autodesk. [Ok!] So, show me [?] and in between, right, and it's with an [?] as a witness, right? It's like, you could tell me, and then it's too hard to believe you, right? [Yes, yes.]

>Especially studios in Europe, and also Australia, and Indonesia. They get visitors from Autodesk. And if they say, "Ah, we are using Blender", then ESPECIALLY they get visitors from Autodesk. "Knock knock. Hey, I am your Autodesk sales representative. I see you're using Blender. I have something much better. Let's talk. Maybe we can give you nice discounts, or things to make sure you are kicking Blender out."

>[Woah, this sounds very...] This really happens. [Really?] Yeah! [It sounds very nineteen-eighty...] It's normal business. Why's that nasty? They made money with it. It's what they have to do. I don't make money with it, so I don't care. If they want to use Maya, then they should use Maya [Yeah.] right?

>[So you believe the product should speak for itself, right? Like if it's better, you use the better one.] Yeah, everybody should decide that for themselves.

https://www.blenderbasecamp.com/where-does-blender-get-all-t...

>Where Does Blender Get All Their Money From?

>Which Companies Are Sponsors Of The Blender Foundation?

>Why Do Some Of These Companies Invest In Blender?

>What Are The Different Tier Systems That Blender Uses For Donations?

>What Are The Different Ways In Which I Can Donate To Blender?

>Can Anyone Donate To The Blender Foundation To Support The Software?

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