# Software in the cloud



## Gordon (Feb 10, 2020)

Perhaps I am over reacting but I am concerned about all of the software operating in the cloud instead of on my computer. Recently  I have been playing around with Fusion 360 and have a pretty good start. I am concerned because recently there has been a scare, apparently false, that Autodesk was going to start requiring a purchased copy. I do not want to spend a lot of time designing something which is saved on the cloud instead of on my computer only to be unable to access it a year from now. Even if I save the file on my computer it is in a format which is useless in any other program. As a retired hobby user there is no way that I am going to pay $500 per year for software that I am going to use twice a year. This is not only a CAD problem. Microsoft Office is now also a cloud based program. I am using the old 2007 version which lives on my computer. The same is true of Quick Books which I used for years. The latest lives on the cloud and I must pay a subscription fee to access my files. Here again I am using my old 2007 copy which lives on my computer. I loose some features but for the most part it does what I need. Also I can use my program in places where I do not have to be connected via WiFi. 

Am I just an old Luddite or is there reason for concern? 

Gordon


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## BaronJ (Feb 10, 2020)

Hi Gordon,

You might be an old Luddite, but yes you should be concerned !

It all about monetising everything !  Give it a few more years and you will have to pay to use anything on your computer.  Notice my avatar !  I'm a Linux user and most everything is free.  In fact most electronic goods, phones, TV's, modems, routers, cars etc use Linux because its open source and you can inspect, modify and sell programs that you create using it.  In fact its hard to find anything that I need Windows or Mac for.


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## Gordon (Feb 10, 2020)

I have played around with Linux a little but but never got too deep into it. There are word processing and accounting programs but how about cad?  I tried running my existing 2 D cad under Linux but it did not run well.


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## BaronJ (Feb 10, 2020)

Hi Gordon,

I use Qcad !  It runs on Windows and Mac as well as Linux !

I have used Qcad for several years. If you go to

https://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/

Go to the download page and download the correct version for your operating system.  There is also a version that will output Gcode for CNC use.


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## RonGinger (Feb 10, 2020)

I have the same fear about Fusion360, but the software is so good I just suck it up and use it. I bought Alibre several years ago, but it got bought out and screwed up by the new  owner. I stopped paying for support for that, but they have been re-organized and are back and even encouraging model engineers. It is very good, but lacks the CAM functions that Fusion360 has.

Linux is OK, but it lacks almost all user level software. Yes it runs as the operating system all over the place- most of the cloud is linux based, but it will never touch Windows in things like CAD and office software. The linux die-hards have been forecasting better software forever, but it has not happened.

I have a Tux, like Barons avatar right on my desk, bought back when I was a linux guy.

I think you have to just accept the fact that the world has turned to a cloud based and software subscription model. Resistance is futile!


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## BaronJ (Feb 10, 2020)

Hi Guys,

Whilst main stream giants desperately continue to attempt to lock people into their operating systems and software, simply in order to keep their revenue stream going,  and continue producing the rubbishy software and programs, the free and open source movement grows stronger.

Also look at Tesla's recent débâcle !  Your car software can be reprogrammed and altered remotely by wireless !  No internet connection needed.  Shades of 1984.

Linux is very definitely a better windowing desktop than Windows.  Windows advocates only push what they can make money with !  Just look at all the problems that lots of users face.  They have to pay someone to continually fix them !  At the end of the day its all about money !  Few make money out of Linux !


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## Cogsy (Feb 10, 2020)

I do think there are people who make money out of Linux - namely sysadmins. I've only ever tinkered with Linux but what little experience I have had wasn't fun. I once had a sysadmin chase a bug that was preventing me from installing a critical piece of software for over a day (that's a long time when you're standing behind him and twiddling your thumbs) and it eventually turned out to be something trivial like a time-out on automatic version support for the OS installed (I forget exactly). It's the little things that can trip you up so easily that I don't like. When you install a new OS you shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it will support audio drivers or wifi (or the mouse)...


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## ninefinger (Feb 10, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> I do think there are people who make money out of Linux - namely sysadmins. I've only ever tinkered with Linux but what little experience I have had wasn't fun. I once had a sysadmin chase a bug that was preventing me from installing a critical piece of software for over a day (that's a long time when you're standing behind him and twiddling your thumbs) and it eventually turned out to be something trivial like a time-out on automatic version support for the OS installed (I forget exactly). It's the little things that can trip you up so easily that I don't like. When you install a new OS you shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it will support audio drivers or wifi (or the mouse)...



Trust me Microsoft and other big companies are no better - my 2 year old printer won't work with my pc on Windows 10 but works on my wifes pc with the same operating system - no obvious reason.  There is always an example of somebody who got screwed by Linux or Windows.  I could list dozens of examples of Windows updates that affected the company I work for, as a small business its hard to keep up when the software is only a supporting piece of your product.

Many times peripheral devices are left unsupported when the big guys decide to move on.   

Gordon
As far as in the cloud software and Fusion 360 - I've accepted that I may be held somewhat ransom by them at a point in the future, and I'll protect myself as much as possible by exporting portable formats, as well as saving locally the native format and hoping that some savvy person will in the future figure out a conversion to the next great cheap CAD software when that day comes. 

I tend to support the Linux crowd for home use and there are open source software that operate on Windows that can replace many of the current subscriptions (i.e. OpenOffice instead of Microsoft office for word processing and spreadsheets, etc. )

Mike


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## Cogsy (Feb 11, 2020)

I must admit I'm not a big fan of having to purchase yearly subscriptions for software but I think I might have spent more buying them outright and upgrading back in the day. Matlab is a good example, when you purchase a license you get free upgrades for a calendar year and they normally release 2 versions during the year (a & b revisions). At the end of the year you can continue to use your old version for as long as you like. However, every second year there seems to be something in new release that I can't live without and I have to purchase a brand new license. I am happy to keep supporting the developers to produce new content though, as whatever the new feature or library is, it makes my life easier. 

Microsoft Excel is another one that was horrendously expensive to purchase initially, but becomes outdated. I am doing a task at the moment where I'm plotting around 40,000 data points per run and it's only reasonably recent versions that can handle more than 32,000 points. I'm much happier paying a modest yearly amount for full access to the absolute latest Office suite than having to pony up $700+ every couple of years like I used to.

In saying all that, I'm not sure I'd be happy paying for any product that didn't let me at least save my files locally. If an application goes away that's one thing but I wouldn't be happy with my hard work disappearing with it.


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## BaronJ (Feb 11, 2020)

Hi Cogsy, Guys,



Cogsy said:


> I do think there are people who make money out of Linux - namely sysadmins.



Yes they do get very well paid, but so did the Unix admins.  There isn't the shops around that support Linux, like those that support Windows !



> I've only ever tinkered with Linux but what little experience I have had wasn't fun. I once had a sysadmin chase a bug that was preventing me from installing a critical piece of software for over a day (that's a long time when you're standing behind him and twiddling your thumbs) and it eventually turned out to be something trivial like a time-out on automatic version support for the OS installed (I forget exactly). It's the little things that can trip you up so easily that I don't like. When you install a new OS you shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it will support audio drivers or wifi (or the mouse)...



I agree with your sentiments !  However Linux today is a quite different beast to what it was, its improved greatly, even in the past couple of years or so.

I wonder how many remember Yggdrasil ?  Developed by Adam J. Richter.  I first came across Linux when my Wife bought me a book with a CD in it way back in 1991.  No CD drive in many machines then and no internet as such either.

In those days you had to hunt around to get the software to compile things for yourself.  Things didn't just work, you had to modify the code to suit your particular flavour of operating system.

Not like today where you can download a live CD image, burn it to a disc, put it in your machine and boot from it.  Hey presto, you are now running Linux directly from the CD, without making any changes at all to your machines software.  More importantly, it enables you to see if your hardware works with the particular version that you downloaded.  You have several hundred to choose from.

Really those that knock Linux do not realise just how widespread Linux is !


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## BaronJ (Feb 11, 2020)

Hi Cogsy, Guys,

I was going to just edit my previous post, but there are a number of points in here that need addressing.



Cogsy said:


> I must admit I'm not a big fan of having to purchase yearly subscriptions for software but I think I might have spent more buying them outright and upgrading back in the day. Matlab is a good example, when you purchase a license you get free upgrades for a calendar year and they normally release 2 versions during the year (a & b revisions). At the end of the year you can continue to use your old version for as long as you like. However, every second year there seems to be something in new release that I can't live without and I have to purchase a brand new license. I am happy to keep supporting the developers to produce new content though, as whatever the new feature or library is, it makes my life easier.



Qcad is like that !  Although there is the community version that is completely free of charge.  I purchased a licensed edition in order to help support development.



> Microsoft Excel is another one that was horrendously expensive to purchase initially, but becomes outdated. I am doing a task at the moment where I'm plotting around 40,000 data points per run and it's only reasonably recent versions that can handle more than 32,000 points. I'm much happier paying a modest yearly amount for full access to the absolute latest Office suite than having to pony up $700+ every couple of years like I used to.



Again under Linux there are a couple of very usable office suits that are completely free, as I believe Matlab is.  Though its an application that I've never used.



> In saying all that, I'm not sure I'd be happy paying for any product that didn't let me at least save my files locally. If an application goes away that's one thing but I wouldn't be happy with my hard work disappearing with it.



As far as CAD files are concerned, I use industry standard DFX to save all my drawings !  That way they can be used by any application that can read DFX.  I also save files as JPG pictures that can be coloured and posted on forums.  The same files can be saved as PDF's as well as several other formats.

The trick to protecting your drawings is to use an industry format such as DFX.  Proprietary  formats are just one way of tying you in !


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## goldstar31 (Feb 11, 2020)

Classically it is 'Caveat Emptor' or let buyer beware.   We know the conditions laid down by what are in essence a cartel or an oligopoly!  Many  are using credit to 'buy' these luxuries' half as much again for interest on a loan- which is what credit really means.


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## Gordon (Feb 11, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Hi Gordon,
> 
> I use Qcad !  It runs on Windows and Mac as well as Linux !
> 
> ...


T
That is 2 D CAD. I have a 2 D program which I have been using for the last 20 years. 3 D programs at a reasonable price are harder to find.


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## Gordon (Feb 11, 2020)

Software has always been a problem. Great ideas get purchased by the big boys and killed. Case in point is the CAD program I started out with was Generic CAD. It was starting to outshine Auto Cad so they bought it and killed it. Fortunately some of the original developers resurrected it as Visual CAD and I have been using it ever since. They come out with upgrades from time to time but the older version still works just fine. What 3 D CAD needs is the equivalent to DXF so that the drawings can work across various programs. Maybe there is such a thing but I am not aware of it.

The problem for many of us hobby users is that we cannot justify the cost of the deluxe program. Many of the folks here are using a copy of what they have at where they work but that is not an option for many of us retired folks. I realize that Fusion 360 is currently free for hobby use but what happens a year form now when they change that. There is no way that I can justify $500/year for a hobby program which I use a couple of times a year. I can live with many of the deluxe features but I hate to invest many hours into learning a program and designing a project only to have it become junk a year form now.


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## xpylonracer (Feb 11, 2020)

_The trick to protecting your drawings is to use an industry format such as DFX. Proprietary formats are just one way of tying you in !_

Baron, did you mean DXF files ?


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## RonGinger (Feb 11, 2020)

DXF files are not really as 'industry standard' as you would sometimes like. They are close, but things like text often fail.

They are also just 2D, so some of the great things about Fusion360 modeling is lost. in a dxf.


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## 74Sprint (Feb 11, 2020)

BaronJ - All right I'm not the only one using QCad. Have you had any luck using the 3D feature? I wish there was more symbols in the library and not all metric. I have no problem send my work to machine shops and I love the CAM feature.

What a country.
Ok I'm going to play devils advocate here. A little of my history first. When I got out of the military I got into computers for SMBs (small medium businesses). I realized that there was a need to help out SMBs that couldn't really afford to pay $120 -$250 an hour for tech support so I charged $40-$60 Hr. but, I quickly became overwhelmed and had to start picking and choosing customers. With SMBs every single dollar makes a difference. Anyway I was a Microsoft OEM partner and working on my MSCE, making computers and networking them together. For years I used to blame programers for a lot of problems not knowing what they had to deal with, so I became a computer analyst/programmer. Now I had my electronics technologist, electrician, MSCE, and a programmer. I had front to back, beginning to end knowledge.

Here is what I know, nothing happens or gets created unless there is money to be made. Yes I like Linux, my favorites are Kubuntu and Fedora but, there is still work to be done on the add on software for EDA and CAD/CAM but, they are workable. Now people let's not forget that all businesses need to make money to stay alive and to keep people employed. I'm not saying that companies need to be greedy but, some of these companies need to show a Growing profit year over year to keep their stockholders happy or the board gets replaced. Anybody that invests or has mutual funds or retirement funds is part of the problem, including me.

Years ago when not everybody had high-speed internet and storage costs were a lot higher it was impractical to have subscription services. Mind you Quickbooks and Simply Accounting(Sage) did have yearly update subscriptions for taxes and payroll updates and so did a lot of other software companies. Backups are extremely important to any business and the rule is to keep 1 copy locally and 1 off site, in case of fire or other disaster. I have restored a business from a single backup tape. The cloud didn't just appear out of nowhere it was a progression from off site backups to a another computer that used high speed internet. When the Cloud first came in it was to provide low or zero maintenance for off site backups. Problem with the cloud is that, if it has to go through your server or modem and one of them goes down, then everybody goes down. If the internet or the cloud server goes down then everybody goes down, not good.

To put everything together, the biggest contributing factor to subscription services was that high speed internet really took off and has gotten even faster. Next was that computers got faster and more powerful so people and companies weren't replacing their computers because their older computers could run the newer software, this is also one of the reasons why I got out of computers sales and support. So hardware and software companies saw their sales declining and had to come up with a way to keep profit growth growing. Hey the internet is fast now, computers can now run software live off our servers, lets come out with subscription services. Let's also get rid of free & lite software, and permanent licenses, it's a conspiracy I tell you.

I have written software for resale and I put a lot of effort into my programs and I expect to get paid for them and make a profit. I also design electronics and either sell my devices or license my intellectual property. Entrepreneurship, what a country, let's all make more money.

The Bast**ds, my notebook (laptop) is a HP workstation replacement and was not cheap but, in September of 2018 on Wednesday the day after update Tuesday, my wireless connection quit working. I contacted Microsoft and they said "we are aware of it and are working on a fix, in the meantime contact your equipment manufacturer and see if there is a driver update", and HP said "we don't write the driver for your wireless WiFi chip, contact Intel". And Intel told me "they no longer support a 6 year old wireless chipset on a 4 year old notebook and that I should consider upgrading to a new notebook", well isn't that just peachy. So I go out and buy a wireless USB dongle and then 18 months later Intel puts out a so called driver fix, well it doesn't work. Now I could write a new driver or just keep my ASUS wireless dongle, I kept the dongle, what a country.

I don't know the exact amount of money I have spent on CAD/CAM & EDA software packages but, it has to be over $5,000. I'm still looking for the perfect software for me at a low price and I have tried quite a few. The ones I like, using their trial software I can't afford. If anyone has a suggestion for really good free or cheap software I'm all ears. For hundreds if not thousands of years 2D drawings sufficed and most of my work is 2D but, I know have to progress to 3D so long as I can generate G-code for DIY 3 or even 5 axis machining.

What a country.
Ray


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## Ozwes007 (Feb 11, 2020)

Just so you are aware, Apple run 2 operating systems, one is completely Linux based and the other(not used much at all) is apple’s proprietary system. So Big companies do make billions out of Linux. Point 2 is cloud won’t be all encompassing as two many countries have internet infrastructure that doesn’t support cloud based software. The desktop software will be around for awhile yet, albeit these days changing to app style programs.


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## awake (Feb 11, 2020)

RonGinger said:


> Linux is OK, but it lacks almost all user level software. Yes it runs as the operating system all over the place- most of the cloud is linux based, but it will never touch Windows in things like CAD and office software. The linux die-hards have been forecasting better software forever, but it has not happened.



I must respectfully disagree. I have been using Linux nearly exclusively for many years now. The Windows machine supplied by my employer mostly just serves as a backup device - only very rarely do I turn to it to use Microsoft Word, and that only when a quirk in converting Word's formatting comes into play in a document that is shared with others.

Otherwise, I do all my work on Linux, and all of it using free and open-source (FOSS) software. Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations - LibreOffice does them all quite well; in fact, there are a number of things that LibreOffice Writer in particular does MUCH better than MS-Word. I do most of the editing of the MS-Office documents used by my organization in LibreOffice; it generally handles the MS-Office documents seamlessly, which is definitely NOT true of the reverse. (As noted above, though, there are some specialized formatting issues that are not handled well in conversion, either by MS-Office or by LibreOffice.)

What else? Desktop publishing - Scribus. Audio and video editing and production - any number of programs, from the command-line ffmpeg to LMMS, Ardour, MuseScore to Handbrake, OpenShot, Kdenlive, and more. Graphics design - Inkscape. Photo-editing - GIMP. C++ programming - Code::Blocks and the gcc suite. Electronics and PCB design - KiCAD. 2d CAD - LibreCAD (the FOSS version of QCad). 3d CAD - FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, Blender. And the list goes on, and on, and on.

It can be argued, and often is, that many (most?) of these FOSS programs are not as capable as the Windows equivalents - and that is often true. Fusion360 has more features than FreeCAD; Illustrator and Photoshop have more features than Inkscape and GIMP; and so on. But here's the thing: I rarely if ever miss those features. So much software available today can do so much more than I will ever make use of - I don't care if my program can only do 90% of what the other program can do, as long as it does the 10% that I actually need and want. And here's the other thing: FreeCAD, Inkscape, GIMP, etc. are completely and absolutely free. Meanwhile, Fusion360 is free only so long as Autodesk chooses to allow it to be free, and Illustrator and Photoshop and the rest are ... let's just say, a long, long way from being free. And some of the FOSS programs remain under continual development, and are rapidly gaining ground - FreeCAD being a particularly good example.

Interestingly, it is not unusual for me to wind up taking care of something for someone else in the office because I can do it on Linux, and they can't do it on Windows. Admittedly, some of that has to do with me being a geek, and some of it has to do with the fact that Windows users tend not to know about the highly capable FOSS software that is available. (Note that most if not all of the FOSS software listed above, though it may have originated on Linux, has for years been programmed using multi-platform toolkits, so it can run on Windows and Mac as well as Linux.) Still, it is interesting that it is so often quicker and easier for me to reformat the video or fix the graphics or tweak the photo using my FOSS software on Linux than it is to 1) figure out some way to get Windows to do it, or 2) afford the commercial program that could do the job on Windows.

Ray's point above is well taken, that "nothing happens or gets created unless there is money to be made." Definitely true ... often. But the many FOSS programs mentioned above point to an alternative, one that "shouldn't exist" - and yet it does. To be sure, many of these FOSS efforts have led to monetization opportunities for some - RedHat and Canonical/Ubuntu, for example. The 3d printing phenomenon is a particularly interesting example - so much of it developed as open-source software AND hardware designs, and even now some of the most successful 3d printer manufacturers (e.g., Prusa) remain fully open-source, and the vast majority of commercial 3d printers run on Marlin - which is still FOSS to its core.

Obviously, I have revealed myself to be a Linux and FOSS advocate, and thus everything I say is automatically suspect.  So let me end with a very different example, one that shows both the pluses and minuses of Linux for "ordinary users":

Several years ago, my aging parents were having a very difficult time using / adjusting to their new Windows 8 machine. I was having to do a LOT of troubleshooting, both over-the-phone and in person (which required a 3-hour round trip - very doable, but not necessarily something I wanted or had time to do on a daily basis!).

As an experiment, I set up a dual-boot option with Ubuntu on their machine. Immediately they found it easier to use Ubuntu, and wound up never booting up in Windows again. Things were blissfully trouble free for many, many years ... until, last year, after moving to a different state, the hard disk on their machine began to get flaky. The problem was not particularly amenable to troubleshooting over the phone ... and now they lived far enough away that a day trip to fix the issues was no longer an option ... and the local computer gurus were of no help, because they only handled Windows, not Linux. Sigh ... we had to set them up a new Windows 10 machine, so that they would have local support if needed.


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## BaronJ (Feb 11, 2020)

Hi,



xpylonracer said:


> _The trick to protecting your drawings is to use an industry format such as DFX. Proprietary formats are just one way of tying you in !_
> 
> Baron, did you mean DXF files ?



Yes !  Sorry about that, fingers working faster than brain.


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## David Shealey (Feb 11, 2020)

--------------snipped----------------------. What 3 D CAD needs is the equivalent to DXF so that the drawings can work across various programs. Maybe there is such a thing but I am not aware of it
.[/QUOTE said:
			
		

> Most 3d CAD systems will save out as .stp files, long with others such as parasolid. These do not carry the design feature creation data with them, but most good 3D modelers are getting pretty good at feature recognition and the ability to modify the solid created from the .stp file


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## BaronJ (Feb 11, 2020)

Hi 74sprint, Ozwes007, Awake, Guys,

Thankyou all for putting your points forward most eloquently, far better than I could have.

I've had virtually no experience of 3D cad, so I hope that you all will forgive me for that omission.

Linux rules !


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## nel2lar (Feb 11, 2020)

ninefinger said:


> Trust me Microsoft and other big companies are no better - my 2 year old printer won't work with my pc on Windows 10 but works on my wifes pc with the same operating system - no obvious reason.  There is always an example of somebody who got screwed by Linux or Windows.  I could list dozens of examples of Windows updates that affected the company I work for, as a small business its hard to keep up when the software is only a supporting piece of your product.
> 
> Many times peripheral devices are left unsupported when the big guys decide to move on.
> 
> ...




Mike
I feel your pain and it just kills me because you put many hours in learning the system and out of the blue it will not work anymore. The biggest thing that get me about technology is when the company's just quit making updates available to you. I read a big thing with John Deere Tractors, Everything on the newer models are all programed and if a board goes down and they decided to no longer make the replacements it put a piece of equipment *out of service *and there is nothing you can do. It might be a perfect world concept like the "Model T" but I feel all new improvement should be on shelf for 20 years. That way a new piece of equipment would be guaranteed to be workable for at least 20 years. It is sad to have $100,000 pieces of equipment not good for anything but a boat anchor. Sad life we live in where big business can get away with unacceptable conduct.


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## bmac2 (Feb 11, 2020)

Gordon said:


> Software has always been a problem. Great ideas get purchased by the big boys and killed. Case in point is the CAD program I started out with was Generic CAD. It was starting to outshine Auto Cad so they bought it and killed it. Fortunately some of the original developers resurrected it as Visual CAD and I have been using it ever since. They come out with upgrades from time to time but the older version still works just fine. What 3 D CAD needs is the equivalent to DXF so that the drawings can work across various programs. Maybe there is such a thing but I am not aware of it.



Gordon I started out with a copy Generic CAD that came on 5 ¼ inch disks then upgraded to Gen CAD 6. When I bought a copy of Via CAD I think it took me about a year before I finally stopped using Gen CAD completely. It was a steep learning curve and I kept running into situations where I’d start thinking “If I was doing this in Gen CAD, I’d be done by now”.

I find that Via CAD and Fusion 360 are very similar but I don’t like Cloud services.

Please see Photo Bucket.


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## Mike Whittome (Feb 12, 2020)

Gordon said:


> Perhaps I am over reacting but I am concerned about all of the software operating in the cloud instead of on my computer. Recently  I have been playing around with Fusion 360 and have a pretty good start. I am concerned because recently there has been a scare, apparently false, that Autodesk was going to start requiring a purchased copy. I do not want to spend a lot of time designing something which is saved on the cloud instead of on my computer only to be unable to access it a year from now. Even if I save the file on my computer it is in a format which is useless in any other program. As a retired hobby user there is no way that I am going to pay $500 per year for software that I am going to use twice a year. This is not only a CAD problem. Microsoft Office is now also a cloud based program. I am using the old 2007 version which lives on my computer. The same is true of Quick Books which I used for years. The latest lives on the cloud and I must pay a subscription fee to access my files. Here again I am using my old 2007 copy which lives on my computer. I loose some features but for the most part it does what I need. Also I can use my program in places where I do not have to be connected via WiFi.
> 
> Am I just an old Luddite or is there reason for concern?
> 
> Gordon


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## Mike Whittome (Feb 12, 2020)

I have just face the same dilemma.   My copy of Fusion 360 was shut down as elapsed.   A bit of research showed that individual users with out a commercial motive could enjoy a free copy, which I went for.   My files were immediately again available and I was able to update to the latest software version.   I have been doing this for three years with no problem.


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## Gordon (Feb 12, 2020)

Photo Bucket is a perfect example of why I am concerned. I may have to take a look at some of the Linux programs available. I am a little leery of screwing up my computer by loading Linux even with dual boot. I realize that many thousands of others have done so without problem.


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## awake (Feb 12, 2020)

Gordon, good news: you can go ahead and try the programs without switching to Linux.

Nearly all free and open software (FOSS) is written to be multi-platform, so even though much of this software is developed on Linux, it runs on Windows and Mac as well. Therefore, much as I like using Linux, I have to admit there is no reason to switch as long as you are satisfied with how your Windows machine is running - you can still take advantage of nearly all the FOSS out there. (On the flip side, starting to use FOSS on your Windows machine will make it easier to transition if you ever do decide to try Linux. That was true for the example I gave above of my parents - they had been using LibreOffice on Windows for several years, due to not wanting or needing to purchase MS-Office.)

Here are some links to get you started with FOSS on Windows:

LibreOffice suite - complete replacement for Office360. (Click the Download Now button and if necessary choose your operating system - it should "sense" your operating system and default to it - probably Windows 64-bit if you are running a recent version of Windows):

https://www.libreoffice.org/

LibreCAD - very capable 2d CAD; I have never used AutoCAD, but I've heard people say it is similar in approach; has CAM features built in. (Click on either link under Windows and then click on the link for the latest installer; you'll want to run this program after it downloads; look in the Downloads folder and double click on the file name):

https://librecad.org/#download

FreeCAD - very capable 3d CAD, with rapid improvements being made; includes CAM; in addition to the mechanical design that is probably what you and I are most interested in, it includes various specialized "work benches" for things like architecture, ship building (!), and more. (Click on Download Now and choose your flavor of Windows, 32-bit or 64-bit):

https://freecadweb.org/

Note that there are tons of tutorials available for all of these. Note also the discussion (above? or might be in another thread) about the problem you can run into with a tutorial based on a different version than the one you are using. Where this will have the biggest impact is with FreeCAD, because of the rapid development. The current stable version as of this post is 18.4; for many basic tasks you would be fine with a tutorial based on version 17, maybe even 16, but there were some significant changes with version 18. And there are even more significant features coming in the next version (19) - and sometimes people put out tutorials on these new coming features, and you will wonder why you can't find that feature in the version you are using - DAMHIK.  I tend to like Sliptonic's you tube tutorials on FreeCAD, but he's been mostly quiet lately - only one recent video.


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## kvom (Feb 12, 2020)

I use Solidworks for CAD, and get it for $20/year as a veteran.  Each year the old version stops working in November or so, and I have to order the latest version.  It does run on my desktop, and I use a desktop CAM program.  I do save what I need for machining as DXFs or STLs, but the DXFs are loaded into the CAM which is the actual repository for duplicating some work in the future.  I may have to upgrade to Win10 in the future.  I know that this is the last year I can run TurboTax on Win7, but I have a Win10 laptop that should be OK for that.


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## TonySteamHobby (Feb 12, 2020)

It has come to the point that I am afraid to upgrade my OS.  Recently, I upgraded my Mac, clicked on my Outlook and was presented with the message that I had to upgrade my MS suite.  Well, despite the fact that I lost everything associated with that suite, I refuse.

The same thing happened when I upgraded my IPad, my Force Affect and Force Affect Motion programs from Autodesk did not work with the new OS.  Autodesk would not be supporting the software any longer. I lost all of my steam engine models, with no warning.  And those were just two of the 30 programs I lost.  

I retired a few months ago.  I brought home my stand alone 2007 Autocad as a parting gift.  I called to get a license code but Autodesk does not support old versions so the software is now useless.  I had been an Autocad user since ver. 9.

I had also purchased Autocad Lite for home use at $99 when it first came out.  I upgraded it until they raised the price outside of the range where I could still justify to my wife that I needed to spend that much money.  Now I must learn a new, free package (freecad) to support my hobby as my retirement budget doesn’t include multi-thousand dollar software.

If I buy a hammer at the hardware store, I don’t have to go back and pay again at the end of the year for continued use.  If I loan my hammer to the neighbor and he moves away I loose my hammer.  That is how I feel about my software or projects in the cloud.  I trust no software that stores data in or operates from the cloud.  

I still have software which runs on my vintage computers which I purchased 40 years ago.  Can we expect a cloud service to still be available in 10 years or more.  I doubt it greatly, especially when, at a companies whim, they can just elect to stop supporting the product.  It’s then, your investment turns to vapor.  

I love the many engineering apps I own.  What I don’t like is the new trend of the OS developers to completely disregard backward compatibility with my apps.  It seems the only thing I can trust to remain constant is my 1948 version of the machinists handbook.

I had a discussion with my 37 year old son recently, I was commenting on his all digital dashboard and integrated GPS screen.  I asked how anyone would be able to restore his car in 20 or 30 years.  He said no one would want to.  I think that sums it up.  Use it now, buy something else later, don’t look back. 

I rant like this to my wife continuously and she says suck it up.  Thanks guys, I see I’m not alone.


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## Brian Hutchings (Feb 13, 2020)

Although Fusion 360 saves info to the cloud, it is also possible to save the same files to your PC.
Brian


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## Cogsy (Feb 13, 2020)

TonySteamHobby said:


> If I buy a hammer at the hardware store, I don’t have to go back and pay again at the end of the year for continued use.



But let's say your hammer costs you $20 - not a bad price for a good hammer. Now you can use that hammer year after year, but it will never get any better than it was the first day you bought it, in fact it will get older, the handle may get loose, the head will get scarred and chipped and eventually it will be useless. With a cloud-based hammer, you only pay $2 a year but you have the best version of a hammer you can buy every day of the year. If you get the latest hammer today but they bring out a new version with a nicer ergonomic grip and a screw-on deadblow attachment tomorrow, yours will automatically upgrade. 

Even your old copy of the machinery handbook isn't quite what you think it is - the pages are yellowing, the ink is fading and, most importantly, the errors that existed in it 70 years ago remain uncorrected to possibly catch you out at some point. It's human nature to resist change but in my mind the subscription model for software is a better system.


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## Gordon (Feb 13, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> But let's say your hammer costs you $20 - not a bad price for a good hammer. Now you can use that hammer year after year, but it will never get any better than it was the first day you bought it, in fact it will get older, the handle may get loose, the head will get scarred and chipped and eventually it will be useless. With a cloud-based hammer, you only pay $2 a year but you have the best version of a hammer you can buy every day of the year. If you get the latest hammer today but they bring out a new version with a nicer ergonomic grip and a screw-on deadblow attachment tomorrow, yours will automatically upgrade.
> 
> Even your old copy of the machinery handbook isn't quite what you think it is - the pages are yellowing, the ink is fading and, most importantly, the errors that existed in it 70 years ago remain uncorrected to possibly catch you out at some point. It's human nature to resist change but in my mind the subscription model for software is a better system.


The problem is that we are not offered the option of using our old dinged up hammer. The new hammer may be better but if I am only using my hammer to drive in one nail a month I can decide that the old hammer is adequate for my job. What works for a going business does not necessarily work for the retired hobbyist. My lathe is probably about 60 years old and my mill is similar age and I would be very unhappy if suddenly South Bend Lathe Co disabled my lathe and would not permit me to repair it. There is no doubt that some of the newer lathes are an improvement over my old machine but I can decide to continue to use my old less ideal machine. It is not worth several thousand dollars to have a better lathe. If the option is only sever thousand dollars or using my old machine, the old machine is going to stay. Even a business will decide what bigger and better is worth and will the upgrading pay enough to justify the cost.


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## stragenmitsuko (Feb 13, 2020)

To continue the hammer metafore , once everyone is using the 2$ cloud based hammer , and the hardware stores selling the 10$ lifetime versions are out of business , rest assured you won't get the hammer  for 2$ .  Maybe you won't even get to use one at all , maybe all of a sudden your right to use a hammer will be revoked because you refuse to buy the matching gloves and t shirt at a 100$ .  

But then it'll be to late and they'll  have total control over your computer and your designs and you'll have no choice to pay the fee just to acces yur designs  . 

Windows 10 fi is also clearly evolving that way . 

I think once a software package does what it has to do for me , I don't need further upgrades . 
Most of the time upgrades are a step in the wrong direction anyway . 
Menu's get rearranged , certain features dissapear or don't work anymore ... 
Not worth the hassle for me . 

Take draftsight as another  example . 
Very basic cad software , capable of doing everything I wanted and not much more . 
Was freeware , and has been for a decade or so . But now it's no longer free . 
They're also going towards cloud based and a yearly fee . 

So my guess is give it 10 more years and yeah , those who've kept win 7 or XP and lifetime licenses 
ar gonne be very happy . Won't last forever , I know , but I have at least 10 old pc's stockpiled that will run Win7 and or XP . 

My 2ct's . 

Pat


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## awake (Feb 13, 2020)

Or - just to be a FOSS pain in the rear (please note that I said FOSS, *f*ree and *o*pen *s*ource *s*oftware, not FOS!!) - I can get a free hammer (FOSS), that is mine to keep, AND I can get the free updates that are available on a regular basis - or not, as I choose. When I can do that, why pay $2 / month for a hammer I don't actually own??

Actually, Cogsy, I agree that sometimes the subscription model makes sense - particularly in a larger organization, where it is actually cheaper to pay $2 / month than it is to try to update several hundred / thousand computers when the $20 hammer falls apart. But as Gordon notes, the math works out differently for an individual user, and even more so for a hobby user.


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## awake (Feb 13, 2020)

stragenmitsuko said:


> So my guess is give it 10 more years and yeah , those who've kept win 7 or XP and lifetime licenses
> ar gonne be very happy . Won't last forever , I know , but I have at least 10 old pc's stockpiled that will run Win7 and or XP .



Far too many older CNC machines are facing this sort of dilemma - I'm talking about full sized commercial machines that used a DOS machine or a Windows XYZ machine as the control system. The floppy drive goes out, and for some reason it is hard to find a new one; the CRT goes out, and nobody makes those any more; it's all flat screens; and so on.

Actually, as I understand it, not just CNC machines - all sorts of embedded systems, including point-of-sale terminals and medical equipment and more. Who exactly thought it was a good idea to use Windows as an embedded OS ... ?!?


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## Ozwes007 (Feb 13, 2020)

Floppy drives can be replaced with USB/floppy converters. Did one for an old CNC at an engineering company 6 months ago. The cloud issue is a very big problem, too many people have data that just completely disappears or is hacked. And I’m not talking small companies as cloud service providers, Apple, Microsoft, yahoo, google, etc, all have lost massive personal an corporate data purposely and due to hacking and failed equipment. Until guidelines are in place that guarantees your data with specific tangible cost payouts don’t place anything in the cloud you can’t afford to loose. I tell all my business customers the same thing. Have a home copy of everything. One client lost 15 years of corporate data 2 years after they destroyed all there paper records. And this was on a Linux data server provided by a Government backed cloud service. Use the cloud by all means, but keep copies of everything.


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## BaronJ (Feb 13, 2020)

Gordon said:


> Photo Bucket is a perfect example of why I am concerned. I may have to take a look at some of the Linux programs available. I am a little leery of screwing up my computer by loading Linux even with dual boot. I realize that many thousands of others have done so without problem.



As I have said previously, just download a Linux live CD ISO, burn it to a CD and boot your computer from it.  It won't make any changes at all to your machine and you will be able to run Linux and even surf the net.  Of course you won't be able to save anything to the CD.

I am using Q4OS and have been for a couple of years.  It uses the "Trinity" desktop and is based on "Debian".  The latest version is Q4OS 3.10 Centaurus.
It does everything that I want or need.


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## petertha (Feb 13, 2020)

Brian Hutchings said:


> Although Fusion 360 saves info to the cloud, it is also possible to save the same files to your PC.
> Brian



I don't run Fusion but was told by someone who did that yes, it can save files to your non-cloud personal drive, but you cant open them (or maybe it was edit them?) without appropriate licence/credentials. Somehow his had lapsed or renewal got messed up. Maybe that was then & current modes are different, not sure. 

I'm equally unclear about Microsoft 365. 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/of...f-my-subscription-expires?view=o365-worldwide
There is a staged progression of file utility based on time. Read What Happens if I cancel a subscription. Some people claim you can simply copy/paste files to another format/app even after expiry, but I'm not really sure about that. When they say _Office applications, like Word and Excel, will eventually move into a read-only, reduced functionality mode and display._.. that almost smells like limited editing capability, which is kind of what file conversion involves. Could one 'back up' your MS files to another vendor while still having a subscription? Probably.

Anyways, I think different vendors are taking different paths on this issue & the fine print isn't always clear or locked down.


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2020)

Gordon said:


> Photo Bucket is a perfect example of why I am concerned.



While I think Photo Bucket really went about it the wrong way and I hope it bites them so hard they can't recover from it (holding users to ransom is never OK in my book), they are a company and need to make money to provide their services, just like all the rest. Obviously their ad revenue wasn't sufficient to continue with the completely free model (likely because the majority of their users simply embed content into forums like this one which prevents Photo Bucket from displaying ads on them). The thing is though - Photo Bucket is a cloud service which is exactly what every single one of their users wants (yourself included). It's hosting on a remote server so you don't have to host it yourself. I lost my Photo Bucket account the first time they hit us with a user fee but I didn't lose my images as I kept local backups. There's no way I would entrust my images completely to the cloud.

Ironically, if we'd all been paying a subscription fee (that we were happy with) in the first place, I don't believe Photo Bucket would've needed to ransom their users and the whole situation could've been avoided.

Back to the hammer metaphor, if you have made the switch to a subscription hammer (like Office365) then you are pretty well locked in to a subscription, but if you've still got a copy of Office 2007 or something, then you can keep using that. The same goes for other programs like CAD, CAM and photoediting. What we can't expect is to suddenly get the latest version of whatever it is we need at a subscription price and just keep using that forever without upgrading or continuing with the subscription. If some companies are willing to offer to lend you a free hammer (like Fusion currently is) then we have to be aware that they may want it back, or charge a fee for it in the future. Alternatively, we can hunt-up a vintage hammer to buy and keep banging away with that.

Again referencing Matlab, there is a free program available called Octave and it is so similar to Matlab that most general programs written on one will execute on the other. It's not quite as pretty or user-friendly as Matlab but I could live with that, except like I said earlier, every couple of years a library or function is released for Matlab that allows me to do something that I've needed to do but couldn't, or it makes something incredibly difficult to accomplish far easier. That's how I can justify the price as I'm directly paying for the development of the tools I need. Matlab just makes the best hammer...


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2020)

petertha said:


> I'm equally unclear about Microsoft 365.
> [SNIP] Some people claim you can simply copy/paste files to another format/app even after expiry, but I'm not really sure about that. When they say _Office applications, like Word and Excel, will eventually move into a read-only, reduced functionality mode and display._.. that almost smells like limited editing capability, which is kind of what file conversion involves. Could one 'back up' your MS files to another vendor while still having a subscription? Probably.



I have an Office365 subscription through my university. I believe what they are talking about in your link is cloud-only files (like collaborative documents, etc.). Personally, I almost never use collaborative or purely cloud-based documents at all, unless I absolutely have to (and even then it's usually through Google Drive). All my 'normal' work in all the Office applications is saved to local drives just like they always were and can be accessed without modification by OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc. So even if my subscription were to lapse without my knowledge I wouldn't lose a single file. I do need to be more proactive in backing my files up to the cloud though (just some server space at my uni really) as my current back-up regime keeps 2 copies on different physical devices that are located in the same building which is not a good idea for fire and physical theft protection.


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## fvwilkinson (Feb 14, 2020)

I have another outlook on all of this constant updating etc. Looking at the GREEN element which everyone is getting verbal about now days, this constant change and replace environment we are living in as against our past when things lasted forever is using earth resources i.e. the verbiage on carbon issues etc.

I still argue that running an old Morris 10 with its inefficient engine and rebuilding / repairing the parts for 300 000 miles or more vs modern vehicle with all the plastic and electronics which have no spares available in 5 or 6 years and gets replaced in 60 000 miles or 3 years could still be a better carbon emission / resource usage choice.


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## rodw (Feb 14, 2020)

Personally, I think the cloud rules. I love it. My most used device is a Chromebook and all my documents and spreadsheets are in the cloud with Google Gsuite which I have used for over 10 years, and I work every day from 3-4 devices.  My  accounting system is a licensed supported version of opensource and I've probably spent over $50k on a web site in the cloud somewhere that runs on an opensource application.. I have broken way from cloud based application service providers and our servers are on Amazon Web services. I never ever write a document or spreadsheet using a local application. They are in the gsuite cloud and we are always collaborating with consultants, remote workers and contractors. In fact, I have one copywriter who refuses to use Gsuite and I will never engage him again. its cost me hours of my time managing his mess so I can present it to other collaborators who have embraced the cloud.

My website is fully integrated with our accounting system,  freight systems, email marketing systems.  

The only local applications I use are for CAD and image processing. If I was serious about designing products for sale, I would be using cloud based OnShape and pay the $150 a month. Which is wayyy cheaper than Inventor or Solidworks.


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## goldstar31 (Feb 14, 2020)

Of course we are moving completely away from the concept of being a 'hobby' forum , financed by  what remains of our net disposable income and getting to- I think that the words are 'a witting or unwitting' advertising situation  for products which may well be satisfactory but are being obtained at a discount which  many of us  are not able to avail ourselves of.
 It suggests the famous or infamous situation of Ignatius Loyola in the Middle ages about catching would be adherents at a very impressionable age or situation.

Exits constantly repeating ' Myford, Myford' or even better 'GSK, GSK' or another International Firm where I am a shareholder. 

My views, of course

Norman


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## rodw (Feb 14, 2020)

Not really, the business started as a hobby and then took over my life. The sad part was the hobby was funding my machine shop in preparation for retirement but a redundancy spoiled the best laid plans. A paid subscription to Google  gsuite will follow me into retirement and beyond. Its just that good! I don't really know when that will be any more now I've established a very serious business in my 60's....


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## goldstar31 (Feb 14, 2020)

The greatest mistake I made was to retire completely at the age of 55. I should have retired much earlier. 
So my pension checks and dividends have arrived for the last 35 years. What system the senders use I haven't the faintest idea- nor care one jot iota or tittle.
I bought a two penny packet of seeds at the age of 14 from a period of no education in a depressed mining area of wartime Britain where there was no education save the brainwashing endemic to a Communist( oh they were) County Council . I have no idea how I dodged it- possibly being   being dyslexic or inattentive  helped.
Again, I am so deaf and blind that I'm impervious or something.
All that I really know is being able to go to my bank without a care in the World
Apart from getting money out, I also get the odd hug and kiss from the lady members of the bank staff.
Lucky old me


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## Gordon (Feb 14, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> While I think Photo Bucket really went about it the wrong way and I hope it bites them so hard they can't recover from it (holding users to ransom is never OK in my book), they are a company and need to make money to provide their services, just like all the rest. Obviously their ad revenue wasn't sufficient to continue with the completely free model (likely because the majority of their users simply embed content into forums like this one which prevents Photo Bucket from displaying ads on them). The thing is though - Photo Bucket is a cloud service which is exactly what every single one of their users wants (yourself included). It's hosting on a remote server so you don't have to host it yourself. I lost my Photo Bucket account the first time they hit us with a user fee but I didn't lose my images as I kept local backups. There's no way I would entrust my images completely to the cloud.
> 
> Ironically, if we'd all been paying a subscription fee (that we were happy with) in the first place, I don't believe Photo Bucket would've needed to ransom their users and the whole situation could've been avoided.
> 
> ...


It all comes down to your situation. At $1/year everyone signs up. At $200/year 50% sign up. At $2000/year only 1% sign up. Again it depends on what your use is. If I only have to get myself to work I can buy a Kia. If you move one ton parts you will buy a big truck. If my income is $20,000/year I cannot afford the big truck so I have to find a job which does not require moving one ton parts. If my cad is used for my hobby I am not willing to pay $500/year. If your job is designing parts for General Motors you may have no choice but to pay $500/year as long as your income justifies that expense.


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2020)

fvwilkinson said:


> I have another outlook on all of this constant updating etc. Looking at the GREEN element which everyone is getting verbal about now days, this constant change and replace environment we are living in as against our past when things lasted forever is using earth resources i.e. the verbiage on carbon issues etc.
> 
> I still argue that running an old Morris 10 with its inefficient engine and rebuilding / repairing the parts for 300 000 miles or more vs modern vehicle with all the plastic and electronics which have no spares available in 5 or 6 years and gets replaced in 60 000 miles or 3 years could still be a better carbon emission / resource usage choice.



If the Morris 10 didn't need replacement parts all the time, then it might make some sense to keep it instead of upgrading (purely from an energy/emissions standpoint). However, my second car is a 2005 Ford Falcon sedan with nearly half a million km on the clock and is still on the original engine, transmission and diff without any sign of needing attention anytime soon, and it doesn't have a spot of rust. If you got 60,000 miles out of a Morris 10 without an engine rebuild you probably did well and I'd much prefer to be in my Falcon than your Morris if I'm unfortunate enough to be involved in a crash. I wonder how many original parts are still in use on a daily driven Morris 10 these days (I'm guessing virtually the entire car has been replaced several times by now, one part at a time). 

It's another good argument for upgrading though - my Falcon likely uses less fuel, definitely has more power, better suspension, brakes and steering, is more comfortable and vastly more reliable than the Morris. On paper they do the same job but they're very different machines.


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2020)

Gordon said:


> It all comes down to your situation. At $1/year everyone signs up. At $200/year 50% sign up. At $2000/year only 1% sign up. Again it depends on what your use is. If I only have to get myself to work I can buy a Kia. If you move one ton parts you will buy a big truck. If my income is $20,000/year I cannot afford the big truck so I have to find a job which does not require moving one ton parts. If my cad is used for my hobby I am not willing to pay $500/year. If your job is designing parts for General Motors you may have no choice but to pay $500/year as long as your income justifies that expense.



I agree with you - your budget certainly dictates what you use. I can afford (just) Matlab so I use it but I cannot afford a license for COMSOL (starts at $4K USD), so I can only use it on the lab computers, even though it'd be way more useful on my laptop.  

But I don't really get what you're asking for here. You can't justify spending big money on something like Solidworks (me either) but you don't want to use the free software because it might not be free forever? Mostly, developers of powerful software want to get rewarded for their efforts and they will try to get us to pay somehow. Fusion may well be paid only in the future but that could happen to any software (even the Linux based stuff).


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## goldstar31 (Feb 14, 2020)

I suspect that I'm the only person here that has actually not only owned but passed their driving test on a 1935 Morris 8, The only thing that I would have liked to have had was the Cherished number plate which was CBB367. Of course Cogsy is right about the 'life of one',  Mine cost the princely sum of £50 and with no heating, a 6 volt circuit and one windscreen wiper it was real modern piece of technology. It had one thing in its favour, it had a rear pull down blind to avoid being blinded by 6 volt lighting from the Knight of Darkness-- Joseph Lucas but one could chalk on the blind these immoral words---


Don't laugh, your daughter may be inside


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## awake (Feb 14, 2020)

I'd say Gordon has captured the clear conclusion from the discussion above: it depends.  Or to say it another way, different solutions will work best for different people / different situations. If you are happy with what you are using, why change? If you are not happy with what you are using, for whatever reason (capabilities or concerns about future access), then the discussion  above may offer some possibilities to explore.



Cogsy said:


> Fusion may well be paid only in the future but that could happen to any software (even the Linux based stuff).



W-e-l-l ... note that FOSS (Linux based or other) is generally controlled by one or another of the GPL or similar licenses. Yeah, I know - there are some subtle but important differences between GPL, LGPL, and so on ... and beyond that, who ever reads the license before clicking "okay" to install the software anyway?  But here's the point: FOSS software has not simply been released for no charge, nor has it been released with no license (leaving open the possibility that someone might claim it down the road and shut off access); it has been released with a very specific license controlling whether and/or how it can be commercialized, and even if it can be commercialized, stipulating that the original version MUST remain free and open-source. (IF the license allows it, someone might modify / build on the FOSS to produce a commercial product that is not free of charge ... but the underlying FOSS software will remain free and open source.)

So, a very different situation from something like Fusion360, which is _not_ open source. IIRC, the license for F360 allows the use of the product free of charge for non-commercial users for a period of one year; it does not guarantee anything beyond that. Thus far, they have continued to allow one-year-at-a-time renewals, but they really can change that at any time - whereas that is not possible for FOSS. (Okay, anything is possible - but if someone attempted to claim exclusive ownership of a piece of FOSS and start charging for it, I suspect they would lose big in court!)

Let me hasten to say: I am not knocking Fusion360. On the contrary, much of what I have seen suggests that Fusion360 sets the gold standard for 3d CAD. Whether that is true - whether, for example, it is better or worse than Solidworks - there is no doubt that Fusion360 is more capable than the FreeCAD that I use. But for my purposes, FreeCAD is more than sufficient, and I prefer the FOSS philosophy, so for me, it is the right choice. For someone else, the free-use Fusion360 may very likely be the best choice. And for someone who makes his/her living this way, I would think that a paid subscription for Fusion360 or Solidworks or some such would be the right choice.


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## comstock-friend (Feb 14, 2020)

Not of interest to John the hobbyist but of great concern to John the engineer was that our product was nuclear safe guard equipment and the US Government required all documents under direct control, lock and key. We could not place their drawings in the cloud. Without direct machine to machine keyed encryption we could not send emails and had to send via snail mail in Russia doll fashion of envelope within envelope with dire warnings about handling in each subsequent envelope. And this was only Nuclear Sensitive, not Secret or Top Secret...

John (a so far happy Fusion 360 user)


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## Gordon (Feb 14, 2020)

John (a so far happy Fusion 360 user)[/QUOTE said:
			
		

> Since this discussion started I have been playing around with Free Cad and I have found it extremely frustrating. There are hundreds of You Tube videos and it is almost impossible to determine which ones are relevant to your situation. Most are too fast and you have no idea what they did to accomplish that. Others are by folks with such a foreign accent that I cannot understand what they are saying. Others seem to have a completely different program, I assume because of updates. I get stuck on something and do a google search and whatever they did is just what I want but I cannot duplicate it. Almost ready to go back to my old 2D program.
> 
> Incidentally I think that my CAD program is using the right approach. Program is Visual CADD. I purchased the original V1 and I upgraded several times to current V8.  All of the versions are still able to operate as originally released. Each upgrade added some features but if you did not need them you could just keep using the old version and something produced in one version is compatible with the other version. I used V5 for a long time until I really wanted to do something which I could do in V8 so I upgraded. I did not have pay to upgrade from 5 to 6 to 7 to 8. Upgrades are reasonably priced and not mandatory. I am sure that my frustration with the menu driven programs is because of my familiarity with the keyboard driven program.  Also I seem to be able to do so many things with one command instead of several sequential commands.


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## awake (Feb 14, 2020)

Gordon, you are quite right - though part of your frustration appears to be endemic to all of the 3d CAD programs (tutorials that are out of date for the latest version), another part is that FreeCAD is very much an international project, so the tutorials are in a variety of languages - an advantage for those who speak those languages, of course!

If you haven't found the page below, this is a good place to start:

https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/User_hub


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## 74Sprint (May 21, 2020)

Ok I'm not bragging ok, I'm not, I don't like it when people brag but.
I started my career as a heavy duty mechanic in 1979, after 3 years I said nuts to this and joined the military. There I did electronics, RADAR, Navigational Aids, and mainframe computers doing all my work in binary and component level repairs. When I left the military I got into PC's and networking them from Windows 3.11, Netware and up. I worked on my MSCE with Microsoft and then went to college to become a Computer/Analyst Programmer. So not only can I build you a custom microchip but I can make you a website or even a database engine along with the database. For 25 years I had been working as a Business/Analyst, helping companies to decide what hardware, software, and interfaces to use. I'm retired now, not by choice but, because of burnout and heart problems. So I want to get back to the things I love doing, racing cars, making things, and machining things.

I hate the cloud and absolutely hate subscription services.
The cloud:
Before the cloud we used to use off-site backup servers to store all the irreplaceable data just encase the business burnt to the ground taking the backup's with it, been there done that. Only a couple of us knew where the servers were located. But with all computers there is still the need to service them, I did this mostly by remote. But there was still times I had to go the the site to do maintenance. All this incurred costs for the owners of the business. When the cloud first came on-line it allowed business owners to store their data somewhere in the world safely for a monthly fee. And that's still what it's there for, the rest is on the net. Best part was there was no maintenance from the business end, and my revenue declined. So yah I hate the cloud.

Subscription services:
Ok let's remember; unless you paid someone or you actually wrote the program you DO NOT own it. What you buy is a licence to use it and only in a way that is dictated by owners of the software, licence agreement right. Oh by the way, a lot of times open source code is not really fully open, read the licence agreement. Subscription services is nothing new, I can remember having to use hard-locks that went on the serial or printer port but that was to prevent copying the software. Back in 1985 some venders would only allow so many transactions or entries and then it would stop and display a message to purchase additional capacity. You would have to transfer money or send a cheque and they would give you a code which allowed you to enter more transactions, complete PITA. It takes a lot of time and money to produce a commercially viable, not just an industrial product and when your paying someone or people to write that code you want to get your money back and make a profit. Nothing wrong with that I believe in it. A subscription service can be anything like a yearly update like my QCAD or the yearly payroll tax update like for Quickbooks or Sage. As a business analyst it was my job to find ways to maximize profit margins and ROI. Businesses are just like you, in that it would be nice to have a steady income flow and not seasonal like Turbo Tax for example every tax season. So how can one achieve this? Well everyone has high speed internet now right (not) so let's offer monthly online subscription services and that way we can have a steady income, better for planning and locking people into our product.

Marketing:
My wife is a CGA accountant and when she was doing her courses there was one question that stands out in my mind; You have a product you want to sell what is the selling price? They gave no cost to manufacture or anything else, so what is the selling price? Well it is whatever the market will bare. In other words, what is the market that we are going after? Who in that market are we going to target? Do we sell a lot of product at a small profit margin or do we sell less product at a higher price but, with higher profit margin. If we sell at a higher price then there is a better chance that our customers will be locked into staying with us. I have installed and setup software that costs $100 per licence to $2 million dollars a licence for a database server farm and another $250,000 dollars for PC computer licences. 

Service:
I love this one. I'll tell you about 2 companies that disgust me, Btrieve and Quickbooks. Btrieve is a database engine that has been used by thousands of program developers and Quickbooks well they are pretty much well known. In the case of Btrieve I had access to their internal help and I was having a problem where for some unknown reason their database engine would crash usually at the worst time which, meant that the database had to be rebuilt taking at least an hour. When I searched their private online help, I found the problem but not the fix. Btrieve said and this is totally true "we are aware of this problem but, because it happens randomly we are not going to pursue it. Besides it is a good revenue generator for our partners". Right, I couldn't believe this, this totally sucks but, it did make me money. Quickbooks; I used to be a partner, installing it for businesses and accounting firms. I even had times where I had to tell their tech help how to do something. Once again I was able to use their private online help. There was a number of issues that I needed to fixed but, their help files showed that there were problems that they were aware of but, they had done nothing in some cases 8 years to correct it. In programming we used to joke around saying "get it out the door asap, if there are problems we'll call them features", "we'll patch it later". So whatever happen to doing it right the first time? Another truth when it comes to hardware & software is, "whoever get's it out the door first wins". I know for a fact that there are times when developers reach a cutoff date and the product goes out as is and we the end users have to discover the faults after paying good money.

On a final note, I own a registered copyright program. I wrote this program in 1998, 4 years after the internet was opened up and what it does is prevents illegally copying of my software or any licensee of the software by recording the serial numbers of the hardware installed on a computer. Once installed you have to register and activate the software online and get a activation code, sound familiar? If you try to install it on another computer it won't work. If I had the money I would enforce my copyright and if I could about 90% of the software in Canada if not the world would stop working. My copyright is registered 2 years before Microsoft and other companies used the computer serial numbers for licencing. Subscription services would allow me to change the price, licence agreement, and support provided anytime I want and if you don't pay up or agree I could instantly kill your program. Sure subscription services allows you to use the latest and greatest version but, at what cost. With the programs I licence, if I lose my internet connection I can still work, mind you online sales would hurt. Things like my QCAD allow me to upgrade when I'm ready, not when they want me to, and I can keep working. I pretty much no longer get free software but, I do get free hardware, a lot more than I use to. So now that I'm an end-user having to pay for software and keep a small business going I have to be more prudent with my money. I have a hard time finding just the right software. How do I decide? Well the most useless tool is the one that I own but, is broken or doesn't do the job it's suppose too. The most valuable tool is the one that I don't own but, need right now to get a job done.

Cheers
Ray


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## Richard Hed (May 22, 2020)

As for myself, I would never use the "cloud".  Have you noticed that anything from the net is hackable?  Even bit coins were stolen a few years back--something that was supposably non-hackable.  I have intellectual work that I would expect to disappear some day by accident or design.  As is, I put ALL my important work on at least three different backup media.  And I'm just a little guy with nothing important except to myself.  If you trust someone else, someone completely unknown to you, in a place where you haven't got a clue as to where it is stored, you are a fool.  I have tried script writing software which would not allow me to put the script I was writing on my own computer--I tossed it immediately--will NOT let some program put MY stuff on some unknown server.


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## jhparkhill (May 22, 2020)

Just retired from a long career in IT development/management. Initial resistance to cloud was fostered by the "You're in good hands" mindset in my time it started with IBM. Jump forward several decades and it was "If you're not running Oracle, are you even an enterprise?", on and on. We left a co-lo and jumped into AWS, the only question is why did we wait that long. Instead of juggling budget, leasing obsolete hardware and always be up-charged for another TB of storage, or incremental server upgrades, it switched from consistently upgraded hardware, super flexible and cheap storage, automated scaling (on demand) and most importantly, automatic database recovery, nearly instant. And, significantly less cost. The world runs in the cloud now.


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## Richard Hed (May 22, 2020)

jhparkhill said:


> Just retired from a long career in IT development/management. Initial resistance to cloud was fostered by the "You're in good hands" mindset in my time it started with IBM. Jump forward several decades and it was "If you're not running Oracle, are you even an enterprise?", on and on. We left a co-lo and jumped into AWS, the only question is why did we wait that long. Instead of juggling budget, leasing obsolete hardware and always be up-charged for another TB of storage, or incremental server upgrades, it switched from consistently upgraded hardware, super flexible and cheap storage, automated scaling (on demand) and most importantly, automatic database recovery, nearly instant. And, significantly less cost. The world runs in the cloud now.


You are free to do so, I will never do it.  I encourage others NOT to use it.  There are too many examples of hacking banks, yahoo, google, the military, -- everything gets hackt so do you expect the "cloud" to not get hackt?  That's absurd.  It's only a matter of months or a few years till it happens.  Then, of course, the owners of the cloud will apologize profusely, promising to get your data back and stop the hacks--too late.  It won't happen with me.  I refuse to use it.  This is like the burger company we all know and hate--gives you good deals till one day you are addicted and then they grab you by the throat, you are over weight, cancered, heart attack coming, etc, but the burger guys just laugh.


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## BaronJ (May 23, 2020)

Hi Guys,

Forgive me for putting it this way... History repeats its self infinitum.


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## 74Sprint (May 24, 2020)

The cloud like everything else has it's place in the world. It is IMHO one of the safest places to store data. But and this is a Big But, do you trust the people on the other end/side ? There has been only 1 case that I'm aware of where an employee at a cloud server company was stealing data/info from customers.

I had a customer once that had his business broken into and they took everything and I mean everything, even books on the shelf. But they missed 1 backup tape. It was a week old but, I managed to get him up and running from that one backup tape. After that he wanted me to lock down his system, I advised against this but, he wanted to try it. The lock-down lasted only 2 days because, first you logged into computer (BIOS level), then logged into system, logged into the programs, and then you had to log into each and every file you opened. I even restricted access to only certain websites and had 3 firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-malware also. Backup tapes were changed daily and removed from the business. Imagine needing 4 different passwords just to open a Word document or a PDF file!

The biggest problem with hackers is the people at the workplace or home that don't practise safe computer usage. Next is IT managers or business owners that don't want to spend the time or money to safeguard a system. It takes time to setup user right/ privileges, closing open ports, setting up complicated wirewalls like oneway ones, doing updates and such. Not to many businesses even want to higher the people or enough people to do the work instead they rely on outside help which, complicates things. I'm sure jhparkhill can attest to what I'm saying. So how much trust do you have in others?

cheers
Ray


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## Richard Hed (May 24, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> The cloud like everything else has it's place in the world. It is IMHO one of the safest places to store data. But and this is a Big But, do you trust the people on the other end/side ? There has been only 1 case that I'm aware of where an employee at a cloud server company was stealing data/info from customers.
> 
> I had a customer once that had his business broken into and they took everything and I mean everything, even books on the shelf. But they missed 1 backup tape. It was a week old but, I managed to get him up and running from that one backup tape. After that he wanted me to lock down his system, I advised against this but, he wanted to try it. The lock-down lasted only 2 days because, first you logged into computer (BIOS level), then logged into system, logged into the programs, and then you had to log into each and every file you opened. I even restricted access to only certain websites and had 3 firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-malware also. Backup tapes were changed daily and removed from the business. Imagine needing 4 different passwords just to open a Word document or a PDF file!
> 
> ...


That reminds me of an old fellow I was hired to update his old hand drawn files to computer files.  this guy owned a welding shop and one of his employees showed him how he could use computers to send a file to a laser cutting shop down the road.  The old guy was so impressed, he went out and BOUGHT a computer system.  Well, when he hired me to do the drawings, I could tell he was DEATHLY afraid of computers.  I only took a week to do this job but I was trying to show him how to back up all the stuff, keep it backt up and monthly make a CD which was to be taken home and put in a safe place.  He had no clue as to what I was talking about.  He couldn't even open a file, i doubt he could even turn the compute on.  the story is MUCH more complicated than this, involving a very complex story with another employee.


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## Rodney Brown (May 24, 2020)

Hmmm, interesting discussion, especially since some of us old f**ts have actually been in the computer-tech world most of our lives. I've been a software developer and IT entrepreneur for 38 years now and still make my living every day doing tech-stuff -- writing Windows desktop, web, and mobile software for a variety of clients.

As a developer and software seller, I love the cloud and subscription-based revenue. It makes the business model work -- you can smooth out your income, better predict your revenue streams and know that the little upgrades are being paid for. 

As a user I absolutely *hate* the cloud and subscription-based software. It's not that I mind paying for what I use and there are genuine benefits to the always-updated model. But the loss of control is simply an outrageous risk that cloud marketers, cheap owners, and lazy IT staff have convinced the world is okay to ignore. The risks are insidious... like this one that caused me to abandon the Microsoft O365 suite forever: I owned and was happy with Office 2016. One of my consulting clients switched their company to O365 and while I was logged into their system, the MS update software quietly *upgraded* my personal Office 2016 to O365. No way to avoid it, and no path to downgrade back to my own software. I felt robbed, but oh well, times change. But then the client went bankrupt a year later. Since the original O-365 install had been tied to their corporate account, when they disappeared so did my access to the software and cloud-stored data. No way to retrieve it. No way to recover the info that was not related to the bankrupt client. 

Being an IT pessimist, I didn't actually lose much, but I have turned down offers from other clients to 'be on their license' to make file sharing easy! LibreOffice for Windows has completely replaced the MS Office suite, Thunderbird Mail has replaced Outlook, and so on. I use Sketchup and F360 for the home shop hobby work, and thank this thread for the other options like FreeCad that I'll try.

The day is coming when you will be forced into a subscription model that you don't want, even it if is "free". Microsoft did it with Office, and Win10 is a Patch-Tuesday-update from the same path. 

The main thing to take away is to absolutely not trust any 3rd party with all your information. That local backup of both your software and your data may be all that keeps you working some day. If it can't be rebuilt and run without an internet connection, the application has no place in a business/mission critical stack. Otherwise, it is there for fun.

Rod


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## Richard Hed (May 24, 2020)

Rodney Brown said:


> Hmmm, interesting discussion, especially since some of us old f**ts have actually been in the computer-tech world most of our lives. I've been a software developer and IT entrepreneur for 38 years now and still make my living every day doing tech-stuff -- writing Windows desktop, web, and mobile software for a variety of clients.
> 
> As a developer and software seller, I love the cloud and subscription-based revenue. It makes the business model work -- you can smooth out your income, better predict your revenue streams and know that the little upgrades are being paid for.
> 
> ...


Thankyew for that Rod, you said it much better than I could.  However, I know exactly what "the cloud"ers are up to.  As you say "free" until the day you have no choice but to use their media.  When I back my stuff up on various media that I own, I know that I can unplug my computer, or disconnect the media, I am much safer.  As to those evil microsux people, I try my best to block them from making their alleged "upgrades".  Oh, sure, there are some upgrades, but I don't believe for a moment microsux is ONLY upgrading.  I also believe in aliens (just kidding).  Every time microsux "upgrades" my computer, it actually makes my computer work some way I don't want it to.  I have to spend a couple hours fixing it.  What ever happened to that Justice Office stopping them from doing things people don't want?  microsux lied back in 1998 and continue to lie to this day


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## 74Sprint (May 25, 2020)

More old F**t stuff. Back when I was young, in the military doing the Nav-Aids stuff, we got a brand new IBM PC with a 8086 cpu with 1 meg of memory for restoring flight plans if the mainframe went done. Anyway I remember we were reading up on the new PC and saying who the hell is Microsoft? Should of bought they stock LOL. Microsoft did a coup degra when they came out with Windows 95. At the meeting of techs and IT people, Microsoft gave us all a free copy of Win95 & Office95 and every copy had the same activation code, later I found out every single copy across the world had the same CD code. So everybody installed them on numerous computers. That was pretty much the death of 3.11 & Netware and pretty much Apple, at the time. I still think business dictates what we all use for OS's. I wish people would use Linux systems more but the support isn't there,  the 16 year old kid down the block hasn't a clue about Linux. Oh well.

Cheers
Ray


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## Richard Hed (May 25, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> More old F**t stuff. Back when I was young, in the military doing the Nav-Aids stuff, we got a brand new IBM PC with a 8086 cpu with 1 meg of memory for restoring flight plans if the mainframe went done. Anyway I remember we were reading up on the new PC and saying who the hell is Microsoft? Should of bought they stock LOL. Microsoft did a coup degra when they came out with Windows 95. At the meeting of techs and IT people, Microsoft gave us all a free copy of Win95 & Office95 and every copy had the same activation code, later I found out every single copy across the world had the same CD code. So everybody installed them on numerous computers. That was pretty much the death of 3.11 & Netware and pretty much Apple, at the time. I still think business dictates what we all use for OS's. I wish people would use Linux systems more but the support isn't there,  the 16 year old kid down the block hasn't a clue about Linux. Oh well.
> 
> Cheers
> Ray


Thanx for the Linux blurb.  I have had most of my computers double operating systems.  It is easy to install Linux, so much safer too.  You can run "windows" on Linux as just another program.  Har har har--this just shows what crap microsux is.  But I'm wondering, if I ran windows as a program in Linux, would it prevent them from fiddling with MY computer?  I'd do almost anything to stop all the companies from continually "needing" to upgrade my system, program, etc.  We have advertising pop ups blockt, but how do we block popups from all the programs we have installed?  I use AutoCAD and it continually puts up a popup that says to visit their site to get all the new goodies.  this is 2004 Architectural CAD (but it works fine for mechanical and electrical).  Frankly, it is far more difficult to use than modern 3D stuff but who can afford the new stuff?

Furthermore, win95 was the absolute WORST OS micrusucs ever made.  It crashed every 15 minutes.  It wiped out, what I estimate at 20K$ worth of work and I was not able to recover it.  Ever since that, I have had it in for those sukky people.


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## awake (May 26, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> I wish people would use Linux systems more but the support isn't there,  the 16 year old kid down the block hasn't a clue about Linux.



That last bit is the key. While I greatly prefer Linux, I would say that any OS, including Mac, Windows, and Linux (and yes, I know Linux is just a kernel, but let's not worry about that distinction for the moment) is going to require support for the average user. Certainly I have found that to be true as a former software engineer who now serves as the unofficial go-to support person for family, friends, and office co-workers - sooner or later, everyone has something that doesn't quite work right. It may be user error; it may be a new piece of hardware (or an old piece of hardware) that isn't recognized; *very often it may be an issue with an application (maybe not an error but just how to do something), or it could be a hardware problem - none of these latter are necessarily due to the OS at all.*

For many, many years my parents used a Linux (Ubuntu) machine with few problems. They switched because Windows 8 was so hard for them to get used to, but they had no trouble with Ubuntu - other than the normal odds and ends as noted above - a new printer here, a user error there, how to do something in an application, and so on. I was close enough to resolve any problems they ran into. But then they moved 4 hours away, and their old laptop began to give up the ghost. It quickly became apparent that phone support was not sufficient, and it was very difficult to "run up there" to solve it. And here's the kicker - no one in the area would work on it, because it was Linux. So, I wound up encouraging them to replace it with a new Windows 10 machine. 



Richard Hed said:


> You can run "windows" on Linux as just another program.  Har har har--this just shows what crap microsux is.



I think this goes both ways. You can run some Windows programs on Linux using Wine or Crossover, but many programs work only partially or not at all that way. Or you can install a virtual machine (e.g., VirtualBox or VMWare) and run Windows near-flawlessly. But you can also install a virtual machine (again, VirtualBox or VMWare come to mind) on Windows, and install Linux on it, and run it near-flawlessly. Cygwin provides a Linux shell environment, running as an app under Windows. And supposedly, the new WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) will allow directly running various Linux distros, but I haven't had any reason to try that.


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## Richard Hed (May 26, 2020)

awake said:


> That last bit is the key. While I greatly prefer Linux, I would say that any OS, including Mac, Windows, and Linux (and yes, I know Linux is just a kernel, but let's not worry about that distinction for the moment) is going to require support for the average user. Certainly I have found that to be true as a former software engineer who now serves as the unofficial go-to support person for family, friends, and office co-workers - sooner or later, everyone has something that doesn't quite work right. It may be user error; it may be a new piece of hardware (or an old piece of hardware) that isn't recognized; *very often it may be an issue with an application (maybe not an error but just how to do something), or it could be a hardware problem - none of these latter are necessarily due to the OS at all.*
> 
> For many, many years my parents used a Linux (Ubuntu) machine with few problems. They switched because Windows 8 was so hard for them to get used to, but they had no trouble with Ubuntu - other than the normal odds and ends as noted above - a new printer here, a user error there, how to do something in an application, and so on. I was close enough to resolve any problems they ran into. But then they moved 4 hours away, and their old laptop began to give up the ghost. It quickly became apparent that phone support was not sufficient, and it was very difficult to "run up there" to solve it. And here's the kicker - no one in the area would work on it, because it was Linux. So, I wound up encouraging them to replace it with a new Windows 10 machine.
> 
> ...


I didn't know that.  I tried to get WINE to work on a SUSE machine but couldn't get it to work.  That would have been nice.  I never heard of Crossover.  NOwadays, I generally don't use Linux too much but when I did, I always preferred it because seemed to me to be so much more powerful for it's size.  Years ago, I tried Red Hat when it was hot and a few others, but always preferred SUSE.  I hear a lot about Ubuntu but have never tried it.


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## awake (May 26, 2020)

Crossover is a commercialized and tuned version of WINE - I've not tried it, as I am allergic to non-FOSS software, but supposedly it can run things like Microsoft Office much better than plain WINE.

I should note that my understanding is that with enough wine, any program looks pretty good ...


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## Richard Hed (May 26, 2020)

awake said:


> Crossover is a commercialized and tuned version of WINE - I've not tried it, as I am allergic to non-FOSS software, but supposedly it can run things like Microsoft Office much better than plain WINE.
> 
> I should note that my understanding is that with enough wine, any program looks pretty good ...


I make wine and I do plenty of whining.  What is FOSS?


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## awake (May 26, 2020)

Sorry for the acronym - FOSS = "Free and Open-Source Software." WINE is FOSS; Crossover, however, is neither free nor completely open-source (there are proprietary bits built on top of the open-source WINE).

Plenty of whining here as well, at least according to my wife!


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## Richard Hed (May 26, 2020)

awake said:


> Sorry for the acronym - FOSS = "Free and Open-Source Software." WINE is FOSS; Crossover, however, is neither free nor completely open-source (there are proprietary bits built on top of the open-source WINE).
> 
> Plenty of whining here as well, at least according to my wife!


Actually, I don't mind paying for something,that is, what it is REALLY worth, and that would be about $10 for an operating system that I can use over and over for all my new computers.  Maybe $20 for a good 3-D CAD system, etc.  Thing is, that ALL software is over charged for if it is not free.  the developers of FREE software generally don't have enough time to make their software bullet-;proof the first time because they probably are holding down a job somewhere else.  By overpaying for MOS we have made several billionaires and many, many millionaires.  These people don't need, nor deserve these fortunes, particularly when every 18 months a new system comes out makeing problems for older software.


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## BaronJ (May 26, 2020)

Hi Guys,

Interesting thread !  I feel quite sure that you have all deduced from my avatar that I'm a Linux user, actually Q4OS and the Trinity desktop.

I've been a Linux user for many years, about 1989/90 ish.  For me it started with Yggdrasil Linux, my wife bought me a book with it bound into the cover, several 5.25 floppy disks if I remember.  In those days you had to find all the code to suit your hardware, modify it if needed and then compile it.  Often many times.

Today just download a live CD ISO, burn it to a CD and boot from it.
For all Winblows users it that easy.  You don't even need to install anything unless you want to.  Just run it from the CD.

On a slightly different note I use Qcad and whilst you can use it freely I bought a license for it.  Mainly because I wish to support the author and take advantage of some of the bits that you don't get in the community version.  Of course the license is perpetual so you can use it forever, but after 12 months unless you renew you don't get any more upgrades.


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## Richard Hed (May 26, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> Interesting thread !  I feel quite sure that you have all deduced from my avatar that I'm a Linux user, actually Q4OS and the Trinity desktop.
> 
> ...


Ya know, I have known about booting from CD but I have never done that.  Thanx for reminding me, I'll try that.  Who would you suggest to try?  I like SUSE and am familiar with it but don't know if SUSE has kept up with things or if they still exist.  I down loaded a SUSE from the new owners a couple years ago and they had changed the look quite a bit from 9.2 which I bought many years ago.  I know Ubuntu is very popular and another too and have never tried them as I know SUSE well and why change after all?


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## awake (May 26, 2020)

Booting from a CD (or a USB drive if set up as a boot device) is a great way to try out a distro, but I always feel like it runs much, much slower that way than it does when installed.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it - which is to say, if you like SUSE, stay with it.

Unless you just want to try other distros. As far as I can tell*, there are two three major distinctions between distros: 1) What user interface does it use? 2) What package manager does it use (what is the mechanism for adding software)? and 3) Does it strictly limit itself to open-source software, or does it allow use of proprietary software (especially drivers) where needed? Actually #1 is a bit of a red herring, because so many of the distros offer multiple UIs - the standard Ubuntu UI is Gnome, but it can be had with KDE, xfce, MΑΤΕ, and a dozen more; I believe OpenSUSE offers a similar range of UIs. And as for #2, many different distros share the same package manager system - as best I can tell, the two most common package managers are rpm (Fedora, SUSE) and deb (Debian, Ubuntu).

*Caveat - I have used Ubuntu for years and years, but have barely touched other distros - so while I would consider myself Linux-savvy, that is really limited to just the one distro. While there are many folks who are quite religious in their support of a given distro, I use Ubuntu simply because it is the one I started with, and it does what I need - so back to, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!


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## Richard Hed (May 26, 2020)

awake said:


> Booting from a CD (or a USB drive if set up as a boot device) is a great way to try out a distro, but I always feel like it runs much, much slower that way than it does when installed.
> 
> If it ain't broke, don't fix it - which is to say, if you like SUSE, stay with it.
> 
> ...


I tried Red Hat and a couple others when it was relatively new, but they are, as far as I know, gone.


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## BaronJ (May 27, 2020)

Hi Guys,

All the commercial Linux proponents are still there and promoting their services, Red Hat, SuSe and others.  The major differences are as had being said are the two major package managers.  Other than that all the other differences a mainly down to the desktop that you want to use.

I personally like and use "Trinity" derived from KDE3, I also support the development.

As far as speed is concerned running from a CD can seem slower.  What happens here is the bulk of the OS is loaded into memory and parts are swapped in and out as required.  For low memory machines this can be a bit of a drag, but the parts that are in memory will run just as fast as they would as if the whole lot was being read from the HDD.

I've an eight processor machine with 12 Gb ram.  Linux will use all the processors where Winblows only uses two !  Memory wise I've never seen swap used at all, infact most of the time I'm only using a fraction of my available memory.

A live CD, of which there are dozens, is a great way to explore and evaluate Linux.  Certainly much safer than installing something that you may not prefer.


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## Gordon (May 27, 2020)

With all of this discussion about Linux I will have to get back to trying it. I tried to use it a while back because I have a Dell Inspiron without a hard drive which no longer works because it keeps trying to update Windows 10 and there is not enough room for even the operating system. I was using it for my sit in the chair at night and surf until it just would not work. I got sidetracked with other things but I should try again soon. Not really important to get this computer working but it just upsets me that I have something which does not work because of stupid decisions by Dell.


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## Richard Hed (May 27, 2020)

Gordon said:


> With all of this discussion about Linux I will have to get back to trying it. I tried to use it a while back because I have a Dell Inspiron without a hard drive which no longer works because it keeps trying to update Windows 10 and there is not enough room for even the operating system. I was using it for my sit in the chair at night and surf until it just would not work. I got sidetracked with other things but I should try again soon. Not really important to get this computer working but it just upsets me that I have something which does not work because of stupid decisions by Dell.


Yes, that is one of the things that keeps me awake at night, gives me kidney problems (anger issues) and high blood--the corporations trying to tell ME what to do with MY stuff!  I blame microsux for most of the problems.  Everything is always trying to "update".  I have to go into task manager and turn off all the "update services"  There isa a lot more I COULD turn off if I only knew what they are.  Turning on the task manager, you can see how bloated microsux is.  A great deal of those programs running in the background are just bloat unfortunately, I don't know which is which as the names often are simply criptic.


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## 74Sprint (May 27, 2020)

I have put several people on KDE for everyday computing with no major complaints and I also prefer it for everyday computing. But I prefer Redhat for more business like environments. I agree, try several out until you get one that your happy with. My main computer is a Win10 machine and am very happy with it. I prefer Eagle 7.6 which is the last version before they were bought out by Element and they made it a subscription program, sucks. When I was doing the IT stuff I use to complain that the programmers always screwed up the programs. So I decide to get my Computer Programmer/Analyst papers, that's when I found out that programmers used faulty programs to write programs and there wasn't always time to test the software on every machine ever made. I have 5 computers here to test my software and that's still not enough. Back in the day one of my best customers had problems every month with 1 Win95 machine and the rest Win98's. Because I like a good soldier I kept very good records of all work that was done on each machine. I found that if we kept the machines always on which, we did so the automated maintenance could work over each night, would crash ever 28 days. If we rebooted the computers on the 28 day, they were fine. I notified Microsoft, they in turn duplicated my tests and 3 months later put out a bulletin. But no thank you. I still stand by what I said, "business or our work place dictates what we use at home". I found that @95% of the people that use computers don't want to know anything more than to get them through their day. They use to tell me stop, do I really need to know this - well no - then stop telling me.

Hardware and software, it's nothing personal, it's just business.

Ray


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## 74Sprint (May 27, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> Yes, that is one of the things that keeps me awake at night, gives me kidney problems (anger issues) and high blood--the corporations trying to tell ME what to do with MY stuff!  I blame microsux for most of the problems.  Everything is always trying to "update".  I have to go into task manager and turn off all the "update services"  There isa a lot more I COULD turn off if I only knew what they are.  Turning on the task manager, you can see how bloated microsux is.  A great deal of those programs running in the background are just bloat unfortunately, I don't know which is which as the names often are simply criptic.



Actually there are 2 spots you need to look at, 1 - Task Manager and 2- the Services. You can Google the names of each and decide which ones to turn off/disable but, PLEASE set a new restore point before turning stuff off. You can also use a program called CCleaner to look at what's starting up on boot up. I have noticed over the years that Microsoft is hiding more and more of the settings.

Ray


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## Richard Hed (May 27, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> I have put several people on KDE for everyday computing with no major complaints and I also prefer it for everyday computing. But I prefer Redhat for more business like environments. I agree, try several out until you get one that your happy with. My main computer is a Win10 machine and am very happy with it. I prefer Eagle 7.6 which is the last version before they were bought out by Element and they made it a subscription program, sucks. When I was doing the IT stuff I use to complain that the programmers always screwed up the programs. So I decide to get my Computer Programmer/Analyst papers, that's when I found out that programmers used faulty programs to write programs and there wasn't always time to test the software on every machine ever made. I have 5 computers here to test my software and that's still not enough. Back in the day one of my best customers had problems every month with 1 Win95 machine and the rest Win98's. Because I like a good soldier I kept very good records of all work that was done on each machine. I found that if we kept the machines always on which, we did so the automated maintenance could work over each night, would crash ever 28 days. If we rebooted the computers on the 28 day, they were fine. I notified Microsoft, they in turn duplicated my tests and 3 months later put out a bulletin. But no thank you. I still stand by what I said, "business or our work place dictates what we use at home". I found that @95% of the people that use computers don't want to know anything more than to get them through their day. They use to tell me stop, do I really need to know this - well no - then stop telling me.
> 
> Hardware and software, it's nothing personal, it's just business.
> 
> Ray


Is Redhat still around?  I thot they died.  I prefer SUSE anyway


----------



## Richard Hed (May 27, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> Actually there are 2 spots you need to look at, 1 - Task Manager and 2- the Services. You can Google the names of each and decide which ones to turn off/disable but, PLEASE set a new restore point before turning stuff off. You can also use a program called CCleaner to look at what's starting up on boot up. I have noticed over the years that Microsoft is hiding more and more of the settings.
> 
> Ray


Yes, GRRR!  and thanx for that info.  It takes a lot of time, however to do all this.  and thanx for telling me about the "restore" point, that helps a great deal.


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## 74Sprint (May 27, 2020)

Yup RedHat.com


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## Richard Hed (May 27, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> Yup RedHat.com


I'll be darned.  I notice they sold to IBM last year.  Wonder what that will mean.  I boought version 6.2 probably more than 20 years ago but I see they are only up to 8. at this time.  Or it looks lilke it now.  Also, the blurb claimed they are the biggest maker of open software, but it had that feel of someone writing something pretending to be someone else and giving themselves a pat on the back.  If you see in my avatar, I can barely lift my arms to give myself a pat but I really dislike it when I detect that stuff where someone writes about themselves and pretends to be a disinterested party.  I saw that in the Philippines all the time, particularly in the restaurant/tourist business.  What a crock.


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## awake (May 27, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> As far as speed is concerned running from a CD can seem slower.  What happens here is the bulk of the OS is loaded into memory and parts are swapped in and out as required.  For low memory machines this can be a bit of a drag, but the parts that are in memory will run just as fast as they would as if the whole lot was being read from the HDD.



Yeah, that's probably the key to my experience - mostly I've used a LiveCD on low-end systems.

Baron, I was not familiar with Trinity until you mentioned it. I've read some things on-line about it now, but of course, it is hard to evaluate just from a list of features or such. If you were to pick just one or two key features that make you go with Trinity over another desktop - the one or two things that you just couldn't live without - what would they be? And if you didn't use Trinity, what would you settle for instead? (I ask out of curiosity and desire to learn, nothing more!)


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## Rodney Brown (May 28, 2020)

Redhat is alive and well, but is currently a subsidiary of IBM. Reminds me of a moment in my past. In the 90's I worked for a mapping software startup in upstate NY. Matt Szulik was the head of marketing and invited me to leave coding behind to join his marketing team. Should have taken the offer, but instead moved back west to Wyoming. A year later Matt was the chairman of RedHat... and pretty much defined the model that FOSS software today follows when it needs to have a profitable corporate structure behind it.

For as long as I can remember, there have been religious arguments over operating systems -- Unix/DOS/AIX/Posix/OS2/Next/Mac/Windows/Linux/ and a bunch of others that were arguably better but never made a scratch in the marketshare chart. Historically they were closer related than their marketing hype pushers wanted anyone to know. AT&T(Bell Labs) developed Unix and initially shared the source for the asking (mostly with universities - saw my first version at U of Wyo). They changed the deal and suddenly commercial users had a risk of owing AT&T royalties. University off shoots like the BSD (Berkley software distribution) formed the basis of other proprietary versions from Sun, DEC, and others leading to the giant mess of "standardizing Unix". I was part of several "OpenUX" conferences back in the day when all the vendors were arguing for their pet features and hoping to capture a little of that royalty revenue. Ultimately Linus Torvalds did an end-run around the whole deal and Linux became the defacto standard.

But there were others... Carnegie Mellon University had a flavor called Mach Unix that become NeXT (incidentally lead by Steve Jobs). _Side note: the world-wide-web as we know it was originally built on a NeXT machine. _ NeXT was the golden egg that Jobs used to get back a job he had lost at Apple. On a different trunk of the OS family tree a developer/manager from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) was enticed to Microsoft and Windows NT (MS's first "real" multi-tasking system) grew out of the DEC VMS legacy. Windows 10 is just the latest modern, consumer-grade edition of NT. Microsoft's early market domination has left them with the unenviable task of supporting Edsel-era applications on Model-T platforms.

As I see it, any OS is tolerable. Even so, I tend to avoid Apple-anything like the plague, not because their OS's are better or worse, but because their self-centric view of system management runs afoul of my daily job to tweak systems to my clients needs. Similarly, being dependent on cloud-based applications is abdicating authority over your own data and business intelligence -- selling your tech-soul for the promise of thoughtless updates and backups.

The song goes "No need to remember when 'Cause everything old is new again". A few decades ago, we all sent in paper copies of our 1040's to the IRS. Now the questions they ask get more invasive, and we enter that data for them electronically with our eSubmit buttons. Our horizon has your cloud-based Quickbooks and online bank directly reporting your activities so that "filing is easy (er..... automatic/mandatory/compulsory)". I may write cloud-software for my clients, but I'll keep using old, unfriendly apps and mailing in my paper 1040 as long as I can.


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## BaronJ (May 28, 2020)

Hi Andy, Guys,

Trinity, is derived from KDE3 and was a fork started because SuSe moved to KDE4 and completely ruined the KDE experience.  Then they did it again with KDE5.  Microsux got blamed for their interference with the programming at SuSe.

Trinity is what KDE4 onwards should have been. Simple straight forward and fast.  It just works, doesn't crash and burn !   Actually everything Microsux isn't.  

Really you get lazy using a desktop that you like which makes moving to another desktop a of a chore.  But it like anything else, it take time to learn.


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## Richard Hed (May 28, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Hi Andy, Guys,
> 
> Trinity, is derived from KDE3 and was a fork started because SuSe moved to KDE4 and completely ruined the KDE experience.  Then they did it again with KDE5.  Microsux got blamed for their interference with the programming at SuSe.
> 
> ...


I don't care, anything that goes wrong with computers is microsux's fault.  Even when the sun shoots out sun spot x-rays and it fries a computer, it is their fault.  I tried a SUSE after 9.2 and preferred the 9.2, however, I didn't really give the newer version much of a chance.  I down loaded a new version yesterday and am going to put it on a disk and use it for start up.  I'll see how that goes.  I'll probably like it just because it's not microsux.  Do you remember when IBM had their operating system?  It was $1000 so it didn't take much from microsux to undermine them.  IBM deserved what they got but now sux is the big gorilla on the block


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## Richard Hed (May 28, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Hi Andy, Guys,
> 
> Trinity, is derived from KDE3 and was a fork started because SuSe moved to KDE4 and completely ruined the KDE experience.  Then they did it again with KDE5.  Microsux got blamed for their interference with the programming at SuSe.
> 
> ...


Hey, Baron,
I have been trying to use FreeCAD, but it's a bear to learn.  I lookt at the tutorials on line but they miss so much, I thimk they have the bad habit like I do myself, that is, if I am trying to explain something, I assume the other person knows what I am talking about when they don't have a clue.  The program looks very powerful but trying to follow the tuts is difficult.  I thimk maybe the UI has changed because the tut says one thing but it's not there when I go to find it.  Do you know of any good tutorials for that?


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## stanstocker (May 28, 2020)

Greetings folks.  I've used linux to varying degrees since the distribution was on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks.  Windows machines are around here too, Mach4, VCarve, GWizard, Fusion 360, and Arturia (music synthesizer stuff) are Windows based.  Software development was a component of my professional life on many platforms all the way back to punched cards.  Did my time on everything from embedded to mainframes, assembler and C to COBOL 

I really like linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.  KDE is also a good environment, I just like the older 2.x based Gnome desktops.  Thunderbird is the email client in use, nothing against webmail, it's used on vacations and travel, but I like having everything local and backed up.  Gnome 3 desktop and the current Windows 10 interface feel focused on touchscreens at some expense to the keyboard/mouse user.  That's OK, they aren't "wrong", it's nice that linux supports a variety of desktop environments.  It's not that I refuse to use Gnome 3 / Windows 10 style interfaces, it's that I'm not FORCED to do so that I appreciate!  Many things said of linux (and other things in life) are based on prior experience that may be very far out of date.  People still say you can't do anything in linux without using the command line, or that networking is difficult to get working, all sorts of things that were true 20 years ago without doubt, 10 years ago sometimes, and recently in very few instances.  Windows 10 is harder to get playing nicely in a mixed OS network than Linux by far.  I still have one Windows 10 machine that can't see drives on linux boxes, while all the other machines (Windows and linux) see the drives just fine and dandy.    I lived in a command line world for many years, and seldom feel any need to  use the command line.  If you DO need the command line, odds are you are following directions to install an application manually, and will copy from the website instructions and paste into the terminal window anyway, it isn't as if you need system programmer level knowledge!

More recently applications for linux have been available in "appimages", which contain the entire support infrastructure and application in a single file.  While these are larger files and do take a bit longer to load than the standard binary installation, they do ensure all libraries and such match the original build of the application.  CURA has benefited from the appimage world quite a bit, it has had far fewer odd things happening as an appimage than as an installed application here.  The overall linux application availability and quality has improved quite a bit over the last few years.  While you can find Adobe or Microsoft folks who will find some detail that isn't in the same place or called the same thing, for the vast majority of folks they work very nicely.  If you are a die hard Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop user who uses the most advanced features everyday you may not be satisfied with GIMP and DarkTable, most folks find the same features are there, just with a different name or on a different tab.  But it will take some effort to move for some folks.

Wine allows SOME windows applications to run without installing a virtual machine instance of Windows, but check before you commit if a specific application is a must for your world.  I've never had great success using wine, tried again with several apps and installed Windows 10 in a VirtualBox.  Getting Fusion360 to run took some tweaks, and virtualbox has some infuriating limitations (like not being able to use the physical DVD drive as a general i/o device).   If you can extract the disk to an ISO file you can mount that file, but not being able to just plop in a disk and shove the drawer closed is irksome in some cases.  Then again, many machines don't even come with DVD drives any more.

It's funny, we had a "PC revolution" in the late 70's to free us of the tyranny of the mainframe world where we had no control over our applications or data, not to mention the operators from hell.  We then went to a world of fragmentation, where who knows what was installed on or in the machines you were dealing with (not in most classified environments but elsewhere no matter how hard "they" tried to lock it down, some user always found the cute screen saver that would eat files or worse).  Now we're back to the world of applications running on remote systems, with most to all of the data residing somewhere besides the end user machine.  What was once a terminal is now a web browser.  Often on a phone.  With more MIPS, memory, and colors than the mainframes we were getting away from.  Funny world.

Best to all,
Stan


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## awake (May 28, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> Hey, Baron,
> I have been trying to use FreeCAD, but it's a bear to learn.  I lookt at the tutorials on line but they miss so much, I thimk they have the bad habit like I do myself, that is, if I am trying to explain something, I assume the other person knows what I am talking about when they don't have a clue.  The program looks very powerful but trying to follow the tuts is difficult.  I thimk maybe the UI has changed because the tut says one thing but it's not there when I go to find it.  Do you know of any good tutorials for that?



Richard, no doubt you have looked at this page: Tutorials - FreeCAD Documentation

It has a wealth of tutorials - and that is part of the challenge! As you note, the version used in the tutorial is quite important, because FreeCAD continues to develop rapidly. Fortunately, most of the tutorials on the page above indicate the version they used in the title. Be especially careful of tutorials based on pre-.17 versions - I would probably not bother with anything based on .16 or below, because there were some significant changes to the organization / workflow with .17. 

A parallel issue is that many tutorials are already based on .19, which is not yet in final release - but which has added a number of very nice features. So you may have to choose between running a stable version that lacks some cool features that are already being discussed, or getting the features but having to run a not-completely-stable version against

Another challenge is that FreeCAD is very much an international project, so tutorials can be in a variety of languages. Conversely, it seems like many FreeCAD tutorials use no speech, just showing a series of steps - I find these to be the hardest to follow.

And yet, despite all of these challenges, there are good tutorials out there, and once you get hold of the basic approach, experimenting, supplemented by Google searches, becomes the best teacher. If you haven't already done so, start with the two basic ways of modelling parts, and branch out from there: Creating a simple part with PartDesign - FreeCAD Documentation, Basic Part Design Tutorial 017 - FreeCAD Documentation, Manual:Traditional modeling, the CSG way - FreeCAD Documentation.


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## Richard Hed (May 28, 2020)

stanstocker said:


> Greetings folks.  I've used linux to varying degrees since the distribution was on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks.  Windows machines are around here too, Mach4, VCarve, GWizard, Fusion 360, and Arturia (music synthesizer stuff) are Windows based.  Software development was a component of my professional life on many platforms all the way back to punched cards.  Did my time on everything from embedded to mainframes, assembler and C to COBOL
> 
> I really like linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.  KDE is also a good environment, I just like the older 2.x based Gnome desktops.  Thunderbird is the email client in use, nothing against webmail, it's used on vacations and travel, but I like having everything local and backed up.  Gnome 3 desktop and the current Windows 10 interface feel focused on touchscreens at some expense to the keyboard/mouse user.  That's OK, they aren't "wrong", it's nice that linux supports a variety of desktop environments.  It's not that I refuse to use Gnome 3 / Windows 10 style interfaces, it's that I'm not FORCED to do so that I appreciate!  Many things said of linux (and other things in life) are based on prior experience that may be very far out of date.  People still say you can't do anything in linux without using the command line, or that networking is difficult to get working, all sorts of things that were true 20 years ago without doubt, 10 years ago sometimes, and recently in very few instances.  Windows 10 is harder to get playing nicely in a mixed OS network than Linux by far.  I still have one Windows 10 machine that can't see drives on linux boxes, while all the other machines (Windows and linux) see the drives just fine and dandy.    I lived in a command line world for many years, and seldom feel any need to  use the command line.  If you DO need the command line, odds are you are following directions to install an application manually, and will copy from the website instructions and paste into the terminal window anyway, it isn't as if you need system programmer level knowledge!
> 
> ...


Ha, I learned on punch cards too.  I use GIMP in windows 10 environment and it works just fine for most everything I need.  However, I did have one need to darken up some drafting lines on some .jpegs that I could not get to darken to a readable point.  Don't know what CURA is and would like to know what DarkTable is.  And, yes, all those apps that put your into into the "cloud", I don't use.  My kidz do, but then they don't do anything useful either, or important--just play games and chat with their buddies.  As for MY stuff--it's going into my hard drives.  Every year until two years ago, I was able to buy thumb drives that doubled in size, I got to 256 GB, and they stopped in this country.  I asked why this was at Staples, they said essentially there wouldn't be any--then in the Philippines I found out that the rest of the world has indeed kept doubling.  so the USA is being restricted on purpose I believe.  It's always about $$, power, control.  Anyway, each year the terabytes get larger and larger too.  Last year is the first year I didn't buy a new upgrade for many years--the reason?  I couldn't fill an 8TB hard drive and had no need of a new one.  I'll try to buy one this year, particularly if the prices drop significantly.  (Often greedy business's will RAISE prices when they need to LOWER them which ultimately causes them to go under.)  And I fill my machines with Lang Lang, Beethoven, Bach and so on along with youtube vids of machining processes and foundry processes.

Technology is a wonderful thing if you don't let IT control you or let the corporations tell you how to give them your $$


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## stanstocker (May 29, 2020)

Hi Folks,  Turns out that Oracle renamed and moved the option to enable CD/DVD drive access in VirtualBox, it wasn't removed.  It's buried and multistep in the settings menus, but I just got it working.  If anyone cares, the DVD option is no longer called passthrough, it's now "live cd/dvd" and the device has to be added then set up.  No doubt there was some good reason, just not at all apparent to me at least...  When originally installed nothing turned up on searches referring to the changed names and locations, several folks simply said it was removed.  So I said something untrue based on outdated info, just 6 months or so outdated rather than 20 years 

Cheers,
Stan


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## awake (May 29, 2020)

Thanks for the update. I knew I had used CD/DVD drive access in the past, but wondered if that had been lost. Good to hear it is still available!


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## 74Sprint (Jun 1, 2020)

In high school I started with punch cards but, we also had a brand new Commodore PET computer (Commodore BASIC) that no one was allowed to use without direct supervision with the teacher. Anyway AFAIK I'm the only one I have ever met that had to do 16 bit binary UNIX programming using switch settings for my TQ4 RADAR tech training. Took me 1/2 hour entering commands to just get it to print "Hello World, hello Ray".  You set the 16 switches on the front and then pushed down on the momentary enter switch. Assembly was advanced programming to me at the time.

Ray


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## Richard Hed (Jun 2, 2020)

74Sprint said:


> In high school I started with punch cards but, we also had a brand new Commodore PET computer (Commodore BASIC) that no one was allowed to use without direct supervision with the teacher. Anyway AFAIK I'm the only one I have ever met that had to do 16 bit binary UNIX programming using switch settings for my TQ4 RADAR tech training. Took me 1/2 hour entering commands to just get it to print "Hello World, hello Ray".  You set the 16 switches on the front and then pushed down on the momentary enter switch. Assembly was advanced programming to me at the time.
> 
> Ray


I missed that part, but my instructor said he had to do it.  I started with punch cards.


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## Richard Hed (Jul 10, 2020)

ninefinger said:


> Trust me Microsoft and other big companies are no better - my 2 year old printer won't work with my pc on Windows 10 but works on my wifes pc with the same operating system - no obvious reason.  There is always an example of somebody who got screwed by Linux or Windows.  I could list dozens of examples of Windows updates that affected the company I work for, as a small business its hard to keep up when the software is only a supporting piece of your product.
> 
> Many times peripheral devices are left unsupported when the big guys decide to move on.
> 
> ...


My advice:  Never never NEVER use the cloud.  I am also a screenwriter, and there are seveeral programs that insist on saving the script in the cloud.  -- forget it.  won't happen.  It is not only some of the probs that peeps have mentioned above, but also the prob of it being INEVITABLE that someone will crack the passwords to all that stuff.  (In fact, I believe, there is room to suspect that this is PLANNED to happen).  There goes all your stuff and it's Oh, we're SO sorry.  Don't believe it?  Look at the banks, goggle, yahoo have all been hackt, military, governments.  You Better believe it.  It is not safe.  Even you home stuff is not safe if you are hookt to the internet in any way.  the only way it is safe is when it is UNPLUGGED.


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## Richard Hed (Jul 10, 2020)

awake said:


> I must respectfully disagree. I have been using Linux nearly exclusively for many years now. The Windows machine supplied by my employer mostly just serves as a backup device - only very rarely do I turn to it to use Microsoft Word, and that only when a quirk in converting Word's formatting comes into play in a document that is shared with others.
> 
> Otherwise, I do all my work on Linux, and all of it using free and open-source (FOSS) software. Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations - LibreOffice does them all quite well; in fact, there are a number of things that LibreOffice Writer in particular does MUCH better than MS-Word. I do most of the editing of the MS-Office documents used by my organization in LibreOffice; it generally handles the MS-Office documents seamlessly, which is definitely NOT true of the reverse. (As noted above, though, there are some specialized formatting issues that are not handled well in conversion, either by MS-Office or by LibreOffice.)
> 
> ...


Another point is that when you 100$-2000$ for some program, you very well might have DONATED a few bucks, say 10% of that 100 or 2000$ to the Linux developers.  The more they get a donation, the more interesting it is for them.  Generally, only about 1/20 people donate to them.  If you could even dontate 1% that would help them out immensely.  You see, they have to have day jobs to support their naughty habit of programming for free programs.  If you want a better CAD in Linux, help support the linux programmers.  If you support them and at the same time register your concerns, you are likely to get a goo response.  Not with any of the big $$$ greed heads.  In Economics, it is well known that if you lower your price a few percent, you will sell more product and actually make more $$.  But this doesn't seem to faze the market that is selling product for 2-3000$ when it could sell the same product for 2-300 and STILL be making much much much.  There have been Many quality products (Thimk Amiga computers) that went out of business because of overpricing.  (Amiga had bad marketing strategy, was cheaper than Apple and a FINE product.)  Iomega had a great product but would not support their market with problems--they didn't exactly go out of business, but they had the unfortunate case of technology superceding their stuff.  

FOSS generally keeps up with technology, let's YOU decide how much to pay and sits back in their grow room laughing at the greed heads.


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## Richard Hed (Jul 10, 2020)

awake said:


> Or - just to be a FOSS pain in the rear (please note that I said FOSS, *f*ree and *o*pen *s*ource *s*oftware, not FOS!!) - I can get a free hammer (FOSS), that is mine to keep, AND I can get the free updates that are available on a regular basis - or not, as I choose. When I can do that, why pay $2 / month for a hammer I don't actually own??
> 
> Actually, Cogsy, I agree that sometimes the subscription model makes sense - particularly in a larger organization, where it is actually cheaper to pay $2 / month than it is to try to update several hundred / thousand computers when the $20 hammer falls apart. But as Gordon notes, the math works out differently for an individual user, and even more so for a hobby user.


A large organization can easily use the clod but it is wise to daily back up their stuff on their OWN hard drives.  The way that works is to have the workers files save to the clod but at the end of the day, an administrator copies the files to their own hard drives.  That's what I would do if I were to use the clod.


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## Chriske (Sep 9, 2020)

Long thread, didn't read it all.
I'm a Linux user too. Mint 18.3, stopped using Wintendo after W7.
About Linux , but BaronJ and a few others said all, it's all free. But most important Linux has all software on board, also for free.
The only thing, not running in Linux, I need is Autodesk Inventor. That I do run in a VirtualMachine + W7.


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## moose4621 (Sep 10, 2020)

This is a long way from the OP's question but I too am a long term Linux user to the point where all the house hold and work computers all boot to native linux OS's. We find it much easier to use and much more controllable than windoze. And I have found nothing that can not be easily achieved in Linux including 3d CAD.

More inline with the original question, I currently use Onshape for 3d modelling. It's a cloud based Cad package that allows free membership as long as you don't mind your files being public. I would imagine that most modellers wouldn't mind. You can export the files as several formats onto your local storage device if required. It also has 3d party plugins that can do Cam for mills or 3d printers among all sorts of other things although I tend to use separate software I have already installed locally. 
The cloud is always a concern when it comes to data storage and data recovery. I must admit to putting my head in the sand in this regard but if you are doing mission critical work it would make sense to maintain local copies in a format which could be utilised by other software. And if you are concerned about privacy, then as others have said already, one day everything will be hacked into. It's just a matter of whether your data is of any value to them or not as to what they do with it.


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## Mike Henry (Sep 11, 2020)

moose4621 said:


> More inline with the original question, I currently use Onshape for 3d modelling. It's a cloud based Cad package that allows free membership as long as you don't mind your files being public. I would imagine that most modellers wouldn't mind.



I like Onshape as well, but one possible problem for model engineers using the free version is that copyrighted plans cannot be modeled in Onshape without the risk of making the plans public.  Back when they allowed 10 private files in the free plan I'd modeled someone's plan set and put the parts in my private area.  I can still access them there and export them to a neutral format for use with a different CAD program but can no longer edit parts or assemblies in Onshape.  I periodically request of Onshape that they create a pricing tier for hobbyists that would allow them a modest number of private files.  I'd happily put my Alibre maintenance fees toward such a tier.


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## BaronJ (Sep 11, 2020)

Mike Henry said:


> I periodically request of Onshape that they create a pricing tier for hobbyists that would allow them a modest number of private files.  I'd happily put my Alibre maintenance fees toward such a tier.



I doubt it will ever happen !


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## Mike Henry (Sep 11, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> I doubt it will ever happen !



Me too, but if you never ask you never get.


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## BaronJ (Sep 11, 2020)

Mike Henry said:


> Me too, but if you never ask you never get.



True, very true.


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## awake (Sep 12, 2020)

moose4621 said:


> ... free membership as long as you don't mind your files being public. I would imagine that most modellers wouldn't mind ...



I don't know that I can fully articulate why ... but I would mind. Maybe I don't want others to see all of my mistakes and dubious design decisions!


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## Charles Lamont (Sep 12, 2020)

I give my Onshape documents names that nobody is likely to search for, but I see someone has found a project I would have preferred they had not. Unfortunately it seems you can now search public documents on part names.


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## Mike Henry (Sep 12, 2020)

awake said:


> I don't know that I can fully articulate why ... but I would mind. Maybe I don't want others to see all of my mistakes and dubious design decisions!



I doubt that many of your designs would be found, especially now that so many students are using it for remote learning.  I'd be more concerned if Onshape let you search on an account or screen name but they don't so you'd most likely have to be found through a random search.  None of my files are proprietary so that doesn't bother me.


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## awake (Sep 13, 2020)

Mike Henry said:


> I doubt that many of your designs would be found, especially now that so many students are using it for remote learning.  I'd be more concerned if Onshape let you search on an account or screen name but they don't so you'd most likely have to be found through a random search.  None of my files are proprietary so that doesn't bother me.



Yes, that makes perfect sense. But still I feel squeamish about it. As I said, I don't know that I can articulate a rational reason ...


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## Pappyd (Sep 16, 2020)

Just received an email from autodesk that announced changes in the personal use licensing:

Effective *October 1, 2020*, functionality in *Fusion 360 for personal use will be limited*, and you’ll no longer have access to the following:



Probing, 3 + 2-axis milling (tool orientation), multi-axis milling, rapid moves, automatic tool changes 
Multi-sheets, smart templates, output options for drawings (print only). 
Download options from public share links
 Cloud rendering
 Export options including F3Z, DWG, DXF, IGES, SAT, and STEP 
Simulation and generative design 
Unlimited active and editable Fusion 360 documents (10 doc limit).
Fusion 360 extensions


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## awake (Sep 16, 2020)

That doesn't sound good ...


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## Richard Hed (Sep 16, 2020)

Pappyd said:


> Just received an email from autodesk that announced changes in the personal use licensing:
> 
> Effective *October 1, 2020*, functionality in *Fusion 360 for personal use will be limited*, and you’ll no longer have access to the following:
> 
> ...


To be expected.  Thanx for the notice


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## Gordon (Sep 17, 2020)

That was exactly my point in the original post. After putting in hours of time in a cloud program the company decides to change the rules. Now it becomes a matter of how much you are willing to walk away from vs how much are you willing to pay to preserve your efforts. Even programs like free cad can suddenly become non accessible or too expensive for your limited use.


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## awake (Sep 17, 2020)

Gordon said:


> Even programs like free cad can suddenly become non accessible or too expensive for your limited use.



Hmm ... in general, the possible problem for free & open-source software (FOSS) like FreeCAD is more that the project might stall, becoming obsolete and unsupported rather than non-accessible or expensive. Certainly a company may fork a commercial version of a FOSS project ... and perhaps the open-source fork then suffers from reduced attention ... ? I am coming up blank on significant FOSS software that has had this experience, but it could happen. More typically, the commercial development has led the open-source development in features, but there has remained a healthy dialogue and interaction between the two forks. (Two examples that come to mind are CrossOver vs. Wine and QCad vs. LibreCAD).

I have seen some FOSS projects fold for lack of attention - sometimes projects that looked very promising - but can't recall that happening with a project of the size and diversity of development effort of FreeCAD. Maybe someone else can point out an example ...


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## ddmckee54 (Sep 17, 2020)

awake said:


> Yes, that makes perfect sense. But still I feel squeamish about it. As I said, I don't know that I can articulate a rational reason ...


Andy, I know exactly what you mean, but I'm an old fart and I'm pretty paranoid.  Or maybe it's that other people aren't paranoid enough?  Yup, that's the story and I'm sticking to it.

Don


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## awake (Sep 17, 2020)

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get me!


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## Richard Hed (Sep 17, 2020)

awake said:


> Hmm ... in general, the possible problem for free & open-source software (FOSS) like FreeCAD is more that the project might stall, becoming obsolete and unsupported rather than non-accessible or expensive. Certainly a company may fork a commercial version of a FOSS project ... and perhaps the open-source fork then suffers from reduced attention ... ? I am coming up blank on significant FOSS software that has had this experience, but it could happen. More typically, the commercial development has led the open-source development in features, but there has remained a healthy dialogue and interaction between the two forks. (Two examples that come to mind are CrossOver vs. Wine and QCad vs. LibreCAD).
> 
> I have seen some FOSS projects fold for lack of attention - sometimes projects that looked very promising - but can't recall that happening with a project of the size and diversity of development effort of FreeCAD. Maybe someone else can point out an example ...


The peeps who are making FOSS believe in stopping the outrageous prices charged for products.  A 2000$ program would make more $$ if they reduced their price to 200$--not a joke, this is one of the first p0rinciples of economics--lower the price, sell MUCH more and MAKE more $$ in the end.  One has to sell above the costs, of course, the programmers time, the rent, electric, water, etc.  but the total costs are much lower than the 2000$ they charge.  Cities and many businesses have gone to Linux based OP Systems, it's a wonder th;at microsux hasn't gone out of business.  Look  who microsux put out of the operating system business: IBM who was, at trhe time, charging 1000$ per computer--that would be about 5000$ in todays dollars.  So if you use free software it REALLY IS important to support the programmers.  It's CHEAP to support them.


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## Cogsy (Sep 17, 2020)

I had a look at the link provided in the other thread discussing these changes and (without being a user myself) the changes they're announcing seem fairly logical to me. It looks like they're removing the functionality from the free version that would make it a real PITA for commercial operations to (illegally) use the free software but would have little impact on the hobbyist. Seems like good business sense - someone has to pay for the development of these tools and surely we want that to be the commercial users who make money from the tools? To me, this doesn't look at all like the Photobucket money grab that we saw a few years ago.


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## BaronJ (Sep 18, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> I had a look at the link provided in the other thread discussing these changes and (without being a user myself) the changes they're announcing seem fairly logical to me. It looks like they're removing the functionality from the free version that would make it a real PITA for commercial operations to (illegally) use the free software but would have little impact on the hobbyist. Seems like good business sense - someone has to pay for the development of these tools and surely we want that to be the commercial users who make money from the tools? To me, this doesn't look at all like the Photobucket money grab that we saw a few years ago.



Its all about generating and keeping a revenue stream going !


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## ajoeiam (Sep 18, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> The peeps who are making FOSS believe in stopping the outrageous prices charged for products.  A 2000$ program would make more $$ if they reduced their price to 200$--not a joke, this is one of the first p0rinciples of economics--lower the price, sell MUCH more and MAKE more $$ in the end.  One has to sell above the costs, of course, the programmers time, the rent, electric, water, etc.  but the total costs are much lower than the 2000$ they charge.  Cities and many businesses have gone to Linux based OP Systems, it's a wonder th;at microsux hasn't gone out of business.  Look  who microsux put out of the operating system business: IBM who was, at trhe time, charging 1000$ per computer--that would be about 5000$ in todays dollars.  So if you use free software it REALLY IS important to support the programmers.  It's CHEAP to support them.



Along these lines - - - - it is fascinating that the bulk of today's programming usually 'doesn't' happen in first world countries. 
Check on the size of IBM (India) for one.


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## KellisRJ (Sep 18, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> Cities and many businesses have gone to Linux based OP Systems, it's a wonder th;at microsux hasn't gone out of business.  Look  who microsux put out of the operating system business: IBM who was, at trhe time, charging 1000$ per computer--that would be about 5000$ in todays dollars.  So if you use free software it REALLY IS important to support the programmers.  It's CHEAP to support them.


A very reliable source told me the real reason behind the screwed up Office 2007 GUI change was to make it difficult for future users to use the once MS mandated GUI. I still hate the new GUI. I mostly use LibreOffice now but none of the CAD programs are intuitive enough for my simple needs so I just do what I need in Draw.

Ron


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## Richard Hed (Sep 18, 2020)

KellisRJ said:


> A very reliable source told me the real reason behind the screwed up Office 2007 GUI change was to make it difficult for future users to use the once MS mandated GUI. I still hate the new GUI. I mostly use LibreOffice now but none of the CAD programs are intuitive enough for my simple needs so I just do what I need in Draw.
> 
> Ron


I don't bother with office at all.  I use exclusively Libre Office.  microsux's GUI SUX terribly.  They keep making unnecessary changes just so they can keep rolling in the $$.  I thimk it backfired on them, however.


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## Cogsy (Sep 18, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Its all about generating and keeping a revenue stream going !


I don't understand why this is a bad thing? We all like to eat and have somewhere to live. I know I enjoy being paid for my work efforts.


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## Richard Hed (Sep 18, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> I don't understand why this is a bad thing? We all like to eat and have somewhere to live. I know I enjoy being paid for my work efforts.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with making some $$, however, when a company can make PLENTY of money by lowering their price but won't, this is blood sukking--this is vampirism.  Do you thimk for a moment, that bill gates and his blood sukking company REALLY need all those hundreds of billions of $$?  They don't.  Bill even said it himself, that no one needs a billion!

There is an important adage to all that:  small, under funded companies just cannot do certain things, however, those that are funded can do things like go to the mooon, or make fantastic machines, etc.  The question, however, should be, ARE YOU indeed making something important?  If not, then your company is just another vampire taking too much blood.


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## Cogsy (Sep 18, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> There is absolutely nothing wrong with making some $$, however, when a company can make PLENTY of money by lowering their price but won't, this is blood sukking--this is vampirism.  Do you thimk for a moment, that bill gates and his blood sukking company REALLY need all those hundreds of billions of $$?  They don't.  Bill even said it himself, that no one needs a billion!
> 
> There is an important adage to all that:  small, under funded companies just cannot do certain things, however, those that are funded can do things like go to the mooon, or make fantastic machines, etc.  The question, however, should be, ARE YOU indeed making something important?  If not, then your company is just another vampire taking too much blood.



You have been saying how you're been harvesting recently (corn I think?) and making bank so you can buy yourself a new lathe. Now do you really need a new new lathe? Couldn't your harvesting job be done for less money by someone who is struggling to keep a roof over their head or to feed their family? Same situation.

What drives Microsoft to develop and support new product - spoiler alert - it's money. Yes, they make a lot of money, and they pay a decent amount of tax and employ a lot of people. Every one of those employees is also paying tax on their wages and supporting the economy by spending their high salaries on nice toys. Millions of companies make a lot more (in total) than Microsoft does, using their products. Money makes the world go round. This Covid thing shows just how much society depends on people spending their money and not sitting on it. 

So again, where's the problem with companies charging what their product is worth? The market sets the price (at least in theory) and I haven't seen too many people complaining about the high cost of professional software like Solidworks (thousands per year) yet there is so much debate about Autodesk offering free access to a high-end product. These companies owe us nothing at all and this entire discussion seems very weird to me.


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## Richard Hed (Sep 18, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> You have been saying how you're been harvesting recently (corn I think?) and making bank so you can buy yourself a new lathe. Now do you really need a new new lathe? Couldn't your harvesting job be done for less money by someone who is struggling to keep a roof over their head or to feed their family? Same situation.
> 
> What drives Microsoft to develop and support new product - spoiler alert - it's money. Yes, they make a lot of money, and they pay a decent amount of tax and employ a lot of people. Every one of those employees is also paying tax on their wages and supporting the economy by spending their high salaries on nice toys. Millions of companies make a lot more (in total) than Microsoft does, using their products. Money makes the world go round. This Covid thing shows just how much society depends on people spending their money and not sitting on it.
> 
> So again, where's the problem with companies charging what their product is worth? The market sets the price (at least in theory) and I haven't seen too many people complaining about the high cost of professional software like Solidworks (thousands per year) yet there is so much debate about Autodesk offering free access to a high-end product. These companies owe us nothing at all and this entire discussion seems very weird to me.


My situation is NOT anything like what we are talking about.  ANd microsux is NOT worth the 100+$ they charge for it.  Yes people pay that, when ever I buy a new computer I am FORCED to buy their sh*tty operating system.  I don't want it, but I have to buy it.  Linux doesn't charge at all and one can get about 10 different versions from different makers of it.  ANd by the way, microsux is BLOATED with garbage and spyware.  They could charge 10$ and STILL make a killing.  So, you approve of vampires, I don't.

PS, Yes, I DO need a new lathe.


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## Richard Hed (Sep 18, 2020)

Richard Hed said:


> My situation is NOT anything like what we are talking about.  ANd microsux is NOT worth the 100+$ they charge for it.  Yes people pay that, when ever I buy a new computer I am FORCED to buy their sh*tty operating system.  I don't want it, but I have to buy it.  Linux doesn't charge at all and one can get about 10 different versions from different makers of it.  ANd by the way, microsux is BLOATED with garbage and spyware.  They could charge 10$ and STILL make a killing.  So, you approve of vampires, I don't.
> 
> Yes, I need a place to live and something to eat but I don't need a palace and a rolls royce.  No-one else does either.
> 
> PS, Yes, I DO need a new lathe.


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## ycroosh (Sep 19, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> You have been saying how you're been harvesting recently (corn I think?) and making bank so you can buy yourself a new lathe. Now do you really need a new new lathe? Couldn't your harvesting job be done for less money by someone who is struggling to keep a roof over their head or to feed their family? Same situation.
> 
> What drives Microsoft to develop and support new product - spoiler alert - it's money. Yes, they make a lot of money, and they pay a decent amount of tax and employ a lot of people. Every one of those employees is also paying tax on their wages and supporting the economy by spending their high salaries on nice toys. Millions of companies make a lot more (in total) than Microsoft does, using their products. Money makes the world go round. This Covid thing shows just how much society depends on people spending their money and not sitting on it.
> 
> So again, where's the problem with companies charging what their product is worth? The market sets the price (at least in theory) and I haven't seen too many people complaining about the high cost of professional software like Solidworks (thousands per year) yet there is so much debate about Autodesk offering free access to a high-end product. These companies owe us nothing at all and this entire discussion seems very weird to me.



Al,
These are valid points, but it's "complicated". The software price debate is pretty old and it's somewhat of a religious war, so I don't tink you or I can change too many minds, but let me add some perspective:

For full disclosure, I currently work for the largest cloud platform providers. For the last 20 or so years I worked at various software companies, 7 of which were for a SaaS company (cloud-based software). I use (at work and at home) a mix of free, open-source, and paid software, and with software "you get what you paid for" is very true, with one caveat that it's often more of "you get what someone paid for". Many successful open source projects are very heavily financed and staffed by commercial companies. I know many people on Intel's Linux kernel development team; my employer has their own version of Linux and contributes heavily to Linux source and so does Microsoft with hundreds of people contributing code to Linux. The same goes for many other projects. On the other hand, many "hobby" projects stay in "Alpha" for decades (Inkscape is close to my heart right now). They work OK-ish, but not anywhere near what their commercial competitors do. There is nothin open-source that touches Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Visual Studio, Fusion 360, Altium, or you name it. Developing that software takes a LOT of VERY expensive software engineers. 

For perspective; at this point, I sunk over 4,000 hours into TouchDRO (my "hobby project"), and that thing is a "minnow" compared to Fusion 360. In the USA a fully burdened [average] software engineer costs >$100 per hour, so do the math. The whole thing about off-shore development is again, "complicated". Low-end stuff like drivers, basic apps, etc. can be done off-shore; MS, Amazon, Adobe, Intel, IBM have tens of thousands of engineers in developed countries (take a wall on MS campus or look at Amazons HQ in Seattle; they are huge). Autodesk is local to me, so I know several people there too (including the guy who invented the Inventor), and they have many-many engineers in the states (in Oregon, Cali, etc.)

In this case, it makes sense that Autodesk wants to get an ROI on their investment. To be fair, before they made Fusion360 free for personal use, there was NOTHING on the market that could touch it and didn't cost an arm and a leg. Where it gets hairy is that making it free, they killed off any [potential] competition, so an argument can be made that this is anti-competitive behavior. Closer to my heart, I've been Eagle user for more than a decade. It used to cost $200 for my version to outright own it. Then Autodesk changed it to $100 per year subscription for basic version; this year they killed it. Fortunately for now I am grandfathered into that price, but if they change their mind, I will be paying over $400. Again, this is within their rights, but it really suck for me personally.

Now, as far as Cloud-based software: in principle, this is a really good idea, and there are examples where the model has huge advantages, especially for the enterprise. If you take into account the cost of local IT, servers, etc. it makes sense to move to a cloud-based system, where you get benefits of the scale (your instance can share hardware with others, so you are not paying for idle capacity.; if done right, you get elastic scalability, continuous updates, etc. For consumers this can work well too. I actually love Adobe's new pricing model. I used to dump over $1000 for Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator every 2-3 years. Now I pay $20 per month for the two apps that I use. Same with Office 365, but with the benefit of having access to all my Office Apps and files from anywhere in the world. At this point, I can throw my laptop out of the window, buy a new one and be back in business the same day. 
The thing goes sideways when a company gets greedy once they lock in enough customers and jacks up the price. My former employer pulled that stunt a few years ago - they offered highest tier for under $100K/year, then got acuired by a private equity group and tripled the price for all renevals. Since data migration out was insanely expensive and lengthy (we handled hundreds of terbaytes of documents for some customers), they basically got screwed one way or the other.

Bottom line: this while situation has many ideas and it's a lot more nuanced. Needless to say, we live in a capitalist society (and most of us enjoy that fact), so this is basic economics at work.

Regards
Yuriy

P.S. Wow, I think this is my longest post every. Sorry about that; I threw away a few paragraphs, but still pretty long.


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## kuhncw (Sep 19, 2020)

Yuriy,  

Very interesting and informative post.  

Thank you.

Chuck


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## jwills8606 (Sep 19, 2020)

ajoeiam said:


> Along these lines - - - - it is fascinating that the bulk of today's programming usually 'doesn't' happen in first world countries.
> Check on the size of IBM (India) for one.


re:  Lower price means more income.  "Elasticity of demand."  Good concept.  May or may not be true for the software company; depends on what it costs them to produce the product and dS/dP (S=sales, P=price), which is hard to determine without at least a trial run.

re:  MS sucks.  God is that true.  I went to Apple twenty years ago and never looked back.  The Win operating system is still terrible; I am using Windows 7 on my old Elite flight sim, since it wouldn't work on anything other than MS.  I have my son fix it when it - very reliably - dies.

re:  Linux.  MS had a near-monopoly on Internet servers and backbone software for a while; now everything is Linux (Unix), which is as stable as they come.  Interestingly, Unix had been controlled by SCO (Santa Cruz Operation), which was charging ~$1k for every use of SCO Xenix (Unix), and when Apple began using FreeBSD (Unix), SCO sued them unsuccessfully.  Then Linus Torvalds brought Linux to the fore, and as they say, the rest is history.  SCO should have learned that lesson about elasticity of demand.  I think they may be out of business; not sure.

re:  programming in other countries.  When I left school in the late 'seventies and was looking for a job, I read that 85% of GE's programming was done in India.  I'm sure that number hasn't gone down any.  Not to disparage Indian engineers, programmers, or mathematicians.  They are awesome.


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## ycroosh (Sep 19, 2020)

jwills8606 said:


> re:  Lower price means more income.  "Elasticity of demand."  Good concept.  May or may not be true for the software company; depends on what it costs them to produce the product and dS/dP (S=sales, P=price), which is hard to determine without at least a trial run.
> 
> re:  MS sucks.  God is that true.  I went to Apple twenty years ago and never looked back.  The Win operating system is still terrible; I am using Windows 7 on my old Elite flight sim, since it wouldn't work on anything other than MS.  I have my son fix it when it - very reliably - dies.
> 
> ...



Let's talk about your points:
1. Econ. 101 - lower price = more sales is very oversimplified. Each piece of software has a finite Total Addressable Market (TAM). Lowering the price will likely lead to a larger portion of the TAM becoming customers but that is a complicated formula. A simple example: Apple has insane margins on its iPhone. In theory, it can cut the price in half and still make profit on each device, but it will not double the sale (in fact it might actually lose sales, since iPhone is perceived as a status symbol, so lower price will over time erode that status). Similarly, with Fusion 360 - given that Fusion 360 is basically the market leader in it's niche, it already owns large portion of the TAM (we obviously don't know what the percentage is). Cutting the price in half will not significantly grow the TAM (it's not like for $200 all of a sudden my wide will start using it to design her bead jewelry), and there might not be enough TAM left to produce the same income. Moreover, there are costs associated with each sale, ranging from banal bandwidth usage to support, payment processing, fraud, etc.

2. Ms Sucks was kind of cute and funny in the 90's... All the evidence I can see points to MS being a very successful company that produces good product that is in high demand. Windows has a bit under 80% (OSX - 16%, do the math for Linux) of the desktop/laptop share; Office 365 has 40% market share (behind Google's free G-Suite); MS SQL Server overtook Oracle in 2018 as the most widely used RDBMS, and so on. Don't get me wrong, I love my Maccbook and use Linux when possible, but even for a power user (I write software that runs on Linux in the cloud for living) I can't completely switch to Linux. When it comes to day-to-day usability, OSX (for me) wins hands down. I get UNIX shell with very refined UI/UX, etc. Windows 7 and on have been rock solid (Vista was a flake; 2000 and XP were pretty good for their time, though). They do what they are told to do and run without hickups for months (although the forced updates on non-enterprise version is probably annoying). 

3. This bring us to Linux. Linux on a laptop or desktop remains to "need serious improvement". Even on my "Linux certified" Dell precision from last year I spent a day troubleshooting stupid things like TouchPad double clicking and broken CPU deep sleep after upgrading to Ubuntu 20.04. I've been using Linux since the late 90's (started with RedHat 4.3, I think) and every year I see a bunch of posts how year XXXX will be Linux's year, yet it still gets los in the margin of error. The ecosystem is ridden with inefficiencies and dysfunction. Any project that doesn't have adult supervision (AKA majority financing from MS, Intel, Google, or Oracle in most cases) goes into the rabbit hole of "oh, we have three desktop managers that are mostly incompatible, I don't like how this button is styled... now we have four desktop managers" or every 3 years some moron decides to scrap the touch pad drivers and start over because "the way kinetic scroll wasn't elegant in Synaptics Touchpad", so now there is no kinetic scroll and the driver is back in "Beta".
Server market is a different story. Even MS now runs it's data centers (cloud etc.) on Linix, and is one of the major contributor to the project, including the "patent war chest". But that goes back to my "heavy adult supervision".

4. When it comes to programming, you get what you pay for. There are teams in India, Russia, Armenia, Cypres etc. that are bar-none excellent and there are bottom feeders. Curiously, in the USA there are teams that are top-nothc, and there are bottom feeders. Good engineers cost a LOT everywhere in the world. The big 3 (MS, Amazon and Google) pay close-ish to US rate in India now. I work with teams in Mumbai, Tokyo, Haifa, Dublin, Vancouver BC and Stockholm regularly and they are as good as our US teams in every regard because we apply the same hiring standards across the board. I have also had a displeasure to work with a team in India before that was horrible. They were dirt cheap to hire (thus they were hired by our corporate overlords) but in the end it would've been cheaper to just pay them to do nothing; they did more damage that it would've cost to write the thing from scratch in the USA. This is very similar to "China makes crap" argument. In reality China can make top-notch products or complete garbage, depending on who pays for it and how much.

Regards
Yuriy


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## BaronJ (Sep 19, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> I don't understand why this is a bad thing? We all like to eat and have somewhere to live. I know I enjoy being paid for my work efforts.



Now where did I say that this was a bad thing !


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## fcheslop (Sep 19, 2020)

Well gentlemen having read through the the thread my poor singular brain cell is fully overloaded
The only thing I know about clouds are they are full of precipitate and sooner or later you are going to get peed on 
Not a new idea just have a look for the Waste Makers book 
Keep well n safe
frazer


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## Cogsy (Sep 19, 2020)

BaronJ said:


> Now where did I say that this was a bad thing !


Sorry - I must have mis-interpreted the tone of your comment and just assumed...


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## BaronJ (Sep 20, 2020)

Cogsy said:


> Sorry - I must have mis-interpreted the tone of your comment and just assumed...



No problem


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## goldstar31 (Sep 20, 2020)

Being honest( well?), I haven't a clue about  computers or clouds  or Eye pads- apaart from after a bloody needle is suck in mine.
But it is 'Battle of Britain Day of 80 years ago. I guess that when it was my turn to out on a uniform and see my comrades literally burn to death, I got the use of a 1917 Underwood Tripewriter. It had probably been hanging about since the days of the Wright Brothers- or at least The Graham White Company at Hendon-
before the formation of the British Royal Air Force. Goldstar 31 dates back to when an airman had-- and I quote 'sleep with his horse' because we were a cavalry outfit once upon a time.
 Now what is the fuss about all this?  I confess to having made more money with my late wife's portable type writer than I have ever done with its successors!
I packed my traps when computers were in their infancy-- and retired from working for some daft buggers that carried on-- and I had the privilege to offer condolences to their widows at the 9 minute ceremony at the local crematorium. Oh the Joys of it all

Do you realise that people in the North Eats of England are clutching their mobiles whilst getting free food from the Food Banks?
Before all this - yet another plague, I audited some charity accounts for a donation to a virtually bankrupt model railway society. Yes, they got some of my hard earned cash as a donation.


Where are were really going??? Answers on the paree money in any Realm

Mutter, mutter, mutter

Norman


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