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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]

#171
post #111
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god there's Blender so 3D artists don't have to pay the ridiculous price for 3ds max and Maya. (Why the hell was Autodesk allowed to buy Maya?)

Because at the time SoftImage was still around, which meant that Autodesk owning 3ds max and maya didn't form a monopoly. Of course, Adobe now owns the defunct SoftImage brand anyway after Avid ran it into the ground.

Autodesk bought Softimage|XSI and then simply killed it after a few years. It's crazy that they can get rid of their competitors this easily.

Another reason why I recommend all 3D artists to learn Blender. Nobody can buy and then kill it off. I'm pretty sure Autodesk would love to do that if they could.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried FreeCAD but all versions crash within minutes of using it, making it unusable.

Weird, I don't think I've ever had freeCAD crash on me except maybe if I was being a real jerk to it. I typically just use the latest version from the arch repos and it's been smooth sailing.

Well, whenever I’ve trialed FreeCAD I was hoping to love it, so certainly not intentionally being a jerk to it, but also certainly being a complete and utter n00b to it. Never have gotten to the point of doing something I could use.

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Not that I disagree with you entirely, but please, Russia is killing and disfiguring men, women and children with rocket artillery, kidnapping kids, tearing families and human lives to pieces. The impact on Ukraine, now AND in the long run, is an will be enormous and absolutely incomparable to corporations screwing people up with subscriptions.

I guess PFAS in the water doesn't count?

Another way...what about the corporate military industrial complex, which wages disinformation campaigns (2003 Iraq, anyone?) to _go to war_ to generate them profits via manufacturing weapons? What about all the families that are torn apart from those weapons? The soldiers who lose lives, lose limbs, lose a peaceful mind?

It all leads back to corporations that rule America, and now to a larger extent the rest of the world via the globalist trade agreements they lobby for.

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

#175
post #71

What is the best (affordable!) CAD software for a hobbyist with no experience? I was recently looking into this and the leading software was like 6,000 USD a year per seat.

What is your back end? Do you want to create 3D art for games? I think Rhino owns that space. Want to 3D print with parametric dimensions? A lot of CAD packages can give you a file that you can feed to your favorite slicer. Have a CNC milling machine? Look for a post processor that works for your machine and work backwards to select the CAD package.

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

#176
post #152

Just a reminder that Autodesk is the oracle/adobe of the CAD world, and this is just the way they always operated.

I just got into 3d printing as a hobby a few months ago and this has been my take away from their offerings as well. I use TinkerCad for most things; I'd like to get into Fusion 360, but I'd be a little afraid of learning a bunch about that software only to have more and more of it become out of reach behind licenses that don't make a lot of sense to buy as a hobbyist. That said, the products look great and seem to h…

Look into onshape - all online (read, no installs of any kind required), free for personal use, and really what fusion 360 should have been.

Still missing minor advanced features of fusion360 but imo worlds better even if so

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it is more like this. Imagine building a great city. Each group decides what they would like to make, and their skills. One group decides to make a "book press" , where all the parts of making a paper book are improved. A different group decides to make a lock and key system, so that any time a city person wants to read a book, any book, they must use a key for that lock system. The City government over time is i…

I saw this described as the conflict between business and industry. Industry is making things. Books, food, video games, computers, petrochemicals. Business is getting money. Business strangles industry to death all the time. The only thing we can do about it is make things that can't possibly be monetized. This is relatively easy in software - but still hard. Linux succeeded, and nobody pays for Solaris. Git succeed…

Government should be charged with identifying services and goods that benefit the public domain so much that it adds it to the Library.

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

#178
post #117
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you in the spirit of hurting Autodesk, but the FOSS alternatives, while able to produce a similar product, simply use different metaphors and concepts then F360/Inventor/etc do. It's not like the switch from WinRAR to 7-Zip, it's a long ordeal of the (possibly already overloaded) designer learning how to do everything over again. There is very little carry-over aside from general design knowledge; and it may…

It sounds like the best approach is to invest in a FOSS alternative that uses the metaphors you are used to. I'm sure it's unrealistic for a small design house to do it on their own, but that doesn't mean the industry couldn't band together. I wonder what would happen if everyone donated 10% of their Autodesk licensing fees to a foundation, or if a big shop decided to hire a dozen autodesk veterans for a few years.

Sadly FOSS tends to suffer from an effect that isn't quite a tragedy of the commons but feels related. If everyone who stood to benefit from a good FOSS solution in a given problem space did invest a fraction of what they currently give to extremely profitable commercial entities for the proprietary equivalent then almost everyone (not the over-greedy corporations) could be better off. But many of these dominant software products are defended by powerful lock-in and networking effects that create very high barriers to entry for would-be competitors.

In cases where there can be "good enough" solutions that can be achieved with more modest resources and then grow after gaining some traction we have seen some success stories. But for a lot of professional software in specialised markets it's almost an all-or-nothing proposition and that defeats the incremental adoption that has been somewhat successful elsewhere. Even well-capitalised commercial competitors have failed to make dents in the market share of the established giants in some of these industries and the odds are stacked even more heavily against any FOSS effort building up from the grassroots.

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

#179
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got into 3d printing as a hobby a few months ago and this has been my take away from their offerings as well. I use TinkerCad for most things; I'd like to get into Fusion 360, but I'd be a little afraid of learning a bunch about that software only to have more and more of it become out of reach behind licenses that don't make a lot of sense to buy as a hobbyist. That said, the products look great and seem to h…

Look into onshape - all online (read, no installs of any kind required), free for personal use, and really what fusion 360 should have been. Still missing minor advanced features of fusion360 but imo worlds better even if so

OnShape is pretty good, but I tend to think even hobbyists should be allowed to have private designs. That's a really weird and uncomfortable limitation that keeps me from recommending it to other people.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it is more like this. Imagine building a great city. Each group decides what they would like to make, and their skills. One group decides to make a "book press" , where all the parts of making a paper book are improved. A different group decides to make a lock and key system, so that any time a city person wants to read a book, any book, they must use a key for that lock system. The City government over time is i…

I saw this described as the conflict between business and industry. Industry is making things. Books, food, video games, computers, petrochemicals. Business is getting money. Business strangles industry to death all the time. The only thing we can do about it is make things that can't possibly be monetized. This is relatively easy in software - but still hard. Linux succeeded, and nobody pays for Solaris. Git succeed…

> One day there will be an open source equivalent to Autodesk and nobody will make money selling Autodesk equivalents

The biggest trouble (after making a CAD software itself) is to keep it in line with a current regulations. I'm not familiar if A. even does that, but some regional alternatives are making money not only on the SW itself, but by providing services related to be in the compliance of regulations.

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