Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by alias_neo » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 9:51 AM UTC

05 wrote: post #184

alias_neo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of 3D printing, and the community is that you could have saved yourself some time and downloaded one of the many, many versions of this available online already. I want to love FreeCAD, but it is hard to work with for complex designs compared to other tools; topological naming has been an absolute nightmare, but I persevere, it's improving slowly. At least now I'm less likely to have to throw away hours/da…

As a Linux user, onshape (web based CAD) is streets ahead of FreeCAD. Seems on par with parts of Fusion I use (of course, Fusion also includes FEA, CAM and lots of other stuff). Not libre, but free for personal use (all your free tier designs are public) and works on Linux.

I've created an account but I need to do some reading, it's a different enough workflow to FreeCAD, that I couldn't immediately figure out how to do some basic things.

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

#222

Post by award_ » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 12:10 PM UTC

bobrown010 wrote: post #176

award_ wrote: 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

Thanks! I've seen this come up a few times with some youtubers I follow as well. Its got some limitations but might be just what I'm looking for.

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

#223

Post by award_ » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 12:12 PM UTC

grogenaut wrote: post #196

award_ wrote: 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…

The skills in these tools are transferrable. The designs not so much. Basically There's a way of thinking about and solving problems in these tools which is common, same as solving things in programming languages is similar but different and maybe different names. Annotations, lambdas, record types, functors they all have different names in different languages and commas and parens are used differently but when you l…

Thank you for this reply! I'm really just getting into the design side of things now and started with some basic around-the-house stuff I could clobber together in tinkercad. I'll keep this in mind and try not to get bogged down on the 'what to start with' as much :-)

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

#224

Post by justsomehnguy » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

roarcher wrote: post #195

justsomehnguy wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you mean that CAD software itself has to comply with certain regulations? Or that it helps engineers comply with regulations regarding their designs? Not a professional CAD user myself, but as a hobbyist with an interest in this space I've never heard of the former case, so I'm curious.

> it helps engineers comply with regulations regarding their designs

This one, I should had frame it better.

> I've never heard of the former case

I don't think the CAD software itself is a point of a regulations, but there are definitely some standards and regs regarding how it should be done. A quick search yielded [0] which is a nice example of how it could be done by a hand, yet it would help immensely if the CAD software would aid and do the things by itself, saving both the time and man-hours.

[0] https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/design-and-construction/comp...

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

#225

Post by Zambyte » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

girvo wrote: post #100

Zambyte wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to shut down the X server to install the driver properly. And you would have to reboot on Windows. Rebooting would also restart your display server on Linux, so that is at worst equally as painful as Windows. > I know very well how Linux works. It is still necessary to run stuff from the terminal from time to time. Even on user-friendly distros like Steam OS - some games will require some tinkering - but they…

Even though I actually agree with your main points, I regularly upgrade my Nvidia drivers on windows and it definitely does not need a reboot to do so.

They did say "install" rather than "upgrade". I have an Nvidia GPU in my work laptop running Fedora, and I often upgrade my system without rebooting or restarting Sway. Now I'm not sure that I actually am using the new drivers until I reboot, but that doesn't matter to me, and I suspect it doesn't matter to most people.

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

#226

Post by mdip » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #188

itronitron wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this picture in my head of you holding a worklight above an open CPU case while your dad works to connect the drive.

Why not use a decent headlamp? So much more comfortable.

It's funny you mention that ... I have both discovered and forgotten the novelty of a headlamp at least 5 times in the last decade.

At the time (1980s), I'm not sure there were very many good headlamp options but either way, I wasn't in control of the portable light purchasing decisions.

However, the man who's job it was didn't skimp much. He was a small plane pilot, so I recall being warned not "to look into this flashlight[0]." It looked not much different than you're typical consumer flashlight, but if you picked it up, it was much thicker plastic, used 4 C batteries and no joke, it hurt your eyes to look into.

[0] The flashlight has a switch and a button on it, the button lets you flicker the light for emergency visual signalling (the kind that a pilot might need for the very specific situation of "need to flash morse-code through the windscreen at the ATC tower to get landing clearance because I was struck by lightning and my radios are all fried" -- so ... bright.

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

#227

Post by MSFT_Edging » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 9:42 PM UTC

05 wrote: post #184

alias_neo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of 3D printing, and the community is that you could have saved yourself some time and downloaded one of the many, many versions of this available online already. I want to love FreeCAD, but it is hard to work with for complex designs compared to other tools; topological naming has been an absolute nightmare, but I persevere, it's improving slowly. At least now I'm less likely to have to throw away hours/da…

As a Linux user, onshape (web based CAD) is streets ahead of FreeCAD. Seems on par with parts of Fusion I use (of course, Fusion also includes FEA, CAM and lots of other stuff). Not libre, but free for personal use (all your free tier designs are public) and works on Linux.

I'm still preparing myself for when I need to learn onshape to do something freeCAD cant.

You basically made a list of reasons why I avoid it, its in a browser, you need a log-in, basically zero ownership of your designs on the free tier, with a jump to $1500/y for the "standard" tier. I know cad programs are difficult to make but damn they make it easy to not want to be their customer.

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

#228

Post by gymbeaux » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 12:10 AM UTC

humanlion87 wrote: post #143

gymbeaux wrote: post #75

I’ve always pirated AutoCAD and will continue to do so. I use it occasionally and just for hobby stuff, nothing commercial. So why would I pay out the ass for that? Same story with Photoshop. Ohhhh it might contain malware… I don’t really give a damn because to me it’s the only option, paying $10, $20, $50/month for software I hardly use but still kind of need is not an option. Run pirated software in a containerized…

When you run the software in a VM of Windows, how do you provide access to the files that you want to edit? Do you have a shared volume between the host and the VM?

Yes, I just share the ./Downloads folder usually, sometimes the whole home folder, but if malware is truly a concern it’s safest to share a dedicated “Windows VM” folder for just those files.

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

#229

Post by roarcher » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:31 AM UTC

justsomehnguy wrote: post #224

roarcher wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean that CAD software itself has to comply with certain regulations? Or that it helps engineers comply with regulations regarding their designs? Not a professional CAD user myself, but as a hobbyist with an interest in this space I've never heard of the former case, so I'm curious.

> it helps engineers comply with regulations regarding their designs This one, I should had frame it better. > I've never heard of the former case I don't think the CAD software itself is a point of a regulations, but there are definitely some standards and regs regarding how it should be done. A quick search yielded [0] which is a nice example of how it could be done by a hand, yet it would help immensely if the CAD…

Thanks for the clarification! This makes sense.

I do wonder who is liable if the software used to design a bridge outputs incorrect simulation results and the bridge collapses as a consequence. I suppose it's on the senior project engineer (or whoever ultimately signs off on the design) to verify the results somehow.

Edit: This article [0] talks about the "trust" placed in commercial and open-source CAD software by engineers and doesn't mention regulation/certification of the software itself, which seems to imply that there is none.

[0] https://www.simscale.com/blog/open-source-software-cae/

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

#230

Post by wakeupcall » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 10:49 AM UTC

award_ wrote: post #152

wakeupcall wrote: post #9

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…

For a non-commercial setting I would never touch anything autodesk. You can clearly see how f360 was changed from maker-friendly price to essentially the same price as a professional cad license within a few years with a clear directed strategy to capture the market. I might still be ok if you consider it includes cam/sim, but again only in a professional context. And make no mistake, the software is cloud+subscription only. f360 doesn't allow you to work on assemblies when offline, or export meshes, and some other arbitrary restrictions that make no sense except to limit offline mode.

If you have the money, and you're fine with windows, I would suggest alibre with the offline license as one of the few options available.

I've bitten the bullet and went with a mixture of freecad/openscad/cadquery/solvespace for my hobby designs. It's more work due to the limits, but zero regrets.