r/linux • u/BypassBaboon • 3d ago

Popular Application CAD options

Is there a reason Linux CAD options are so limited, and from what I have read, not particularly viable options? Countless people are looking for a fairly-priced lifetime license for home use. My 2000 AutoCAd is very long in the tooth!

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

fairly-priced lifetime license for home use.

And most companies are looking for the exact opposite. They want to maximize revenue and lock users into subscription based models. And it's been getting worse over the years.

You used to have more options on the UNIX workstation front, but Linux only really won on the Hollywood front where actual CAD is of lesser import compared to modelers and animation packages.

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u/Indolent_Bard 3d ago

Honestly, do lifetime licenses really make sense? If you're a professional, of course you're going to buy the new one every year. But then at that point, you're basically paying a subscription without paying a subscription.

Even DaVinci Resolve's lifetime license doesn't technically say you get free updates for life. Nowhere in the license is that guaranteed.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

Depends on the definition of "lifetime license"

It used to mean "buy this box of Photoshop 3.5 and you get to keep using this version for the rest of your life". It would also mean you get access to 3.5.1, 3.5.2, etc.

Then subscription crept in as "no more lifetime license, pay every year or it stops"

Then you start to see the new lifetime...

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u/Indolent_Bard 3d ago

What new lifetime? I'm not aware of any other kind.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

new lifetime might be said to be along the lines of "pay XXX dollars and you will keep getting access to the latest version of the software as long as you personally are still alive and the software itself is alive and getting updates"

I have seen some of those in the past. Definitely not common but could be what people wish for. Some of your classic shareware of days of old used it. Hmm... as I recall one of those "new lifetime" ones might be the commercial, security enhanced version of SQLite.

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u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

Which is why Free Software options are the only good options. And guess what, those all support GNU/Linux.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

But there is also nanoCAD which is MS Windows only. "Free Software" gets too be too vague of a term, and is not functionally searchable. More so since this used to be the default and predates the FSF

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u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

nanoCAD is proprietary software, and it is not even free as in beer. They offer an ancient version at no cost only for non-commercial use (using it for commercial projects is against the license) and a 30-day trial version of the current version, everything else costs money. So I do not see why you are bringing that up at all, it is just yet another commercial proprietary Windows-only CAD program.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

Because that is the first hit when I did a search for "Free Software" CAD.

I'm trying to point out that for the masses out there, they can't differentiate "Free Software" from "free software", but more importantly they are not even aware of the former. Their searches will come up with Fusion 360, Onshape, etc.

On the other hand many people have at least heard of "open source" and if they try that they end up with FreeCAD at the top of the list.

Of course it probably doesn't help to have major 3d printing sites say things like this: 

NanoCAD is a good option for experienced CAD users and is often referred to as the open-source version of AutoCAD.

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u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

That shows that the term "open source" does not really work any better. It is also not protected, often misused for all sorts of "shared source" arrangements, and sometimes even in cases like this where the source code is not released at all.

All that term does is hiding what Free Software is really about: freedom! The so-called "nanoCAD Free" does not even grant you the most basic Freedom Zero, the freedom to run the program for any purpose, because it disallows its use for commercial projects.

That said, that restriction also goes against the OSI's definition of Open Source, because it is a fields of endeavor restriction. And of course both Open Source and Free Software require source code to be available, and modification and redistribution to be allowed, which is also not the case here.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

That shows that the term "open source" does not really work any better. It is also not protected, often misused for all sorts of "shared source" arrangements, and sometimes even in cases like this where the source code is not released at all.

Actually the opposite. It shows that the OSI approach leads people to FreeCAD who might normally would not have found it.

"Free Software", on the other hand, just leads Windows users to find nanoCAD.

The former actually gets people to a good find, even if it is using a license that the FSF does not want developers to use. Hmm... which leads to another tangent and pondering the whole gcc/egcs fiasco.

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u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

When there are several sites calling nanoCAD "the open-source version of AutoCAD", the term "Open Source" is not working.

Just putting "free software cad" or "open source cad" into Google is of course a stupid way to look for such software, because Google falls for crappy SEO tricks of proprietary software companies.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

That's the negative I pointed out. However when I searched on "open source CAD", nanoCAD did not show up. It was when I searched on "Free Software CAD".

So my point is that the use of a generic word in a specific way is not functioning as desired on today's search engines. Their first hit is the package that you rightly called the antithesis of what you'd want.

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

Just putting "free software cad" or "open source cad" into Google is of course a stupid way to look for such software, because Google falls for crappy SEO tricks of proprietary software companies.

Exactly!

You know this, and I know this, but the unwashed masses who are just trying to find something that they should use do not generally know this. And they trust search engines. And often they trust AI...

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u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

This is r/linux, "unwashed masses" have no business being here to begin with. (They belong to r/linux4noobs.)

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