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Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

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Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which distributions? I switched some of my machines due to the increasing user hostility in Windows, but found it a big pain in the ass, even as a developer. And that's not even considering how many programs/games will only work on Windows.

I've had an easy install and daily use with Mint.

I've had plenty of problems with Mint on my work laptop. For example:

* Regularly swapped itself into a screen freeze. Possibly because it defaulted the swap partition to 1 GB.

* Default boot partition was too small, so it ran out of space for new kernels. I have to manually remove kernels because the auto-remove is too slow to stay below the limit.

* Hibernate doesn't work out of the box. I managed to figure out that I have to install some other cryptically named package, otherwise `sudo pm-hibernate` fails without printing an error message. Then a distribution upgrade removed the required package from the repos. And that's just making the command line tool work, it doesn't add it to the power manager so it triggers automatically after an idle period or when closing the laptop lid.

I encountered similar issues on my gaming desktop running mint (e.g. the nvidia driver wouldn't load for no discernible reason) and steam deck.

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there ever been an example of an industry standard tool losing out to FOSS alternatives? Ever? There are reasons for that.

Postgresql and other OSS DBMS taking over Oracle? Even inside of AWS there are people who believe FOSS will always eventually surpass proprietary software.

[deleted]

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#33
post #6

Time to invest the comparable amount of money in FOSS alternatives? FreeCAD, LibreCAD, BRL-CAD, and so on.

Has there ever been an example of an industry standard tool losing out to FOSS alternatives? Ever? There are reasons for that.

The writing is on the wall for Altium, partially because they are shooting themselves in the foot with their pricing and feature releases (people and companies are tired of paying $3k/year for new via stitching tools when memory leak crashes still occur daily) and partially because Kicad has improved to the point where it is a viable alternative for small and medium projects.

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#34

Fusion 360 was the greatest bait and switch I’ve seen in a long time. Went from free for personal use to $300/mo to make it useful at all… right after everyone built their library of parts on the free version

Sorry if I am missing something obvious, but the 10 editable files hasn't bothered me (very) much yet. Am I not using it as much? I'm I too inexperienced to notice other features that were previously there?

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#35
post #8
post #6

Time to invest the comparable amount of money in FOSS alternatives? FreeCAD, LibreCAD, BRL-CAD, and so on.

It's a challenge. Look at Linux vs Windows. Modern distros are a drop in replacement for Windows, minus the user hostility, yet people continue with Windows because change is hard, not to mention matching everyone else. So, even if OSS CAD became a drop in replacement for Autodesk, there's gotta be something extra to truly bite at Autodesk.

> Modern distros are a drop in replacement for Windows

I really want to agree, and I am a big advocate for using Linux exactly because of the hostility from Microsoft, but for most users it definitely is not a drop in replacement. For an average user that is used to Microsoft Office, the difference is simply too big.

It might not be the best example, but just look at how Linus from LTT struggled to get one of the "most user-friendly" distros working.

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#36
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a challenge. Look at Linux vs Windows. Modern distros are a drop in replacement for Windows, minus the user hostility, yet people continue with Windows because change is hard, not to mention matching everyone else. So, even if OSS CAD became a drop in replacement for Autodesk, there's gotta be something extra to truly bite at Autodesk.

This attitude is harmful. There are legitimate (or maybe illegitimate in your view, but real) reasons people have to stick with proprietary software. As long as these aren't solved, people can't switch. While free software may not have a marketing budget, its freedom aspect is generally an inherent advantage over other software (no licensing, no user hostility). There may be proprietary alternatives to Aufacity and G…

I agree, on your point of resolving limitations which prevent switching, is there a standard, or hub for listing limitations, bugs, inconveniences according to how much friction they provide potential adopters?

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#37
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there ever been an example of an industry standard tool losing out to FOSS alternatives? Ever? There are reasons for that.

Now QGIS is wiping the floor with Esri ArcGIS, in the geoprocessing niche. About 10-15 years ago Esri was nearly monopolistic in this space.

I just installed this and it is much better than Grass for my needs.

Re: Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]

#38
post #6

Time to invest the comparable amount of money in FOSS alternatives? FreeCAD, LibreCAD, BRL-CAD, and so on.

Has there ever been an example of an industry standard tool losing out to FOSS alternatives? Ever? There are reasons for that.

I don't have hard numbers to prove, but I bet that Blender is currently wiping the floor with Autodesk Maya and 3dsmax in wide areas of the gamedev world, at least for new studios that have the luxury to start their asset production workflows from scratch (the others can't do much else than begrudgingly accept that Autodesk tightens the screws more and more until they can also break out of their self-induced vendor lock-in).

Which is a shame because Maya is actually a very decent product, or at least was until Autodesk bought it. I only actively followed Maya development until around 2018 when I maintained a plugin for it, and back then it was already pretty clear that Autodesk favours milking their existing customer base over investing into their product development.

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