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Autodesk Embracing Open Source 136

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fun-with-snowball-effects dept.
Seba writes to tell us that Autodesk appears to be embracing open source with the recent donation of their web mapping technology to the open source community. From the article: "A snapshot of the MapServer Enterprise source code is available today through the new MapServer Foundation, an independent non- profit organization with the mission of supporting and promoting open source web mapping. The foundation's charter members include MapServer Technical Steering Committee members, the University of Minnesota MapServer Project, the DM Solutions Group, and Autodesk."
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Autodesk Embracing Open Source More

Autodesk Embracing Open Source

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  • Autocad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dduardo ( 592868 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @04:52PM (#14132772)
    Great, so when are we going to see a native Linux port of Autocad?
    • It is damn sad that parent has been moderated "Funny".

    • Re:Autocad (Score:5, Informative)

      by ZoTo ( 645302 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:21PM (#14132996)
      Not until they can get out of their API agreement with Micro$oft which stipulates that that AutoCAD must not be ported to any OS other than Micro$oft and even then, must be a currently supported OS (no DOS, Win9x, etc). Prior to this agreement, AutoCAD was ported to Mac and Sun as well as the DOS/Win3.x platform.
      • Any particular reason they got into this agreement with MS? Seems strange to artificially limit your market like that....

        -Z

      • Re:Autocad (Score:3, Insightful)

        by shione ( 666388 )
        Proof that such an agreement exists please. (an online article would suffice). Autocad is the only program thats keeping me on XP and I would be peeved that they're not allowed t port it over to other OSes. I remember prior to r12 Autocad came with a dozen or so different exes.
      • Wouldn't this violate some type of anti-trust law? I'm confused on how msft can require a software developer to lock in their product to one and only one OS. Could I sue for such behavior?
        • Shouldn't that apply to game consoles as well?

          Didn't the "beloved" Sony sign an agreement with RockStar to keep GTA San Andreas on the PlayStation 2 platform for a period of time?

          Oh, I forgot how slashdot works, When a company is beloved here they're cheered for blindly and all is forgiven...

          • Re:Autocad (Score:2, Insightful)

            by similar to mh2 ( 900985 )
            If by "cheered for blindly" you mean "lambasted by anti-Sony articles for a straight week after the rootkit debacle", then yes, you're quite right.

            Ignoring the whole "slashdot is one person!" fallacy, has it EVER been popular opinion here to like Sony? I don't know, maybe a good while ago, but as far as I can remember their cartel arm has always been hated, and that arm's been twisting the electronics arm resulting in DRM-laden products, and their products have mostly been shoddy anyway.

            Oh, and I despise th
            • Nope, the general sentiment around here is pro Sony and anti Microsoft when it comes to game consoles. You may wanna search slashdot for the articles/discussions regarding the arrival of XboX360 and dig through the comments, you'll see tons of "I'm waiting for PS3!!!one1!!1".

              I couldn't care less about any gaming console, I don't own any and I don't plan on buying any. The whole GTA San Andreas thing came up because I was expecting RockStar to have a PC version when they released it.

              I try my best to not ster
              • Maybe that's because Sony has a successful console with dozens, if not hundreds, of great games and microsoft has a failed console with 2 good games. And no, neither of them are halo.

                I don't think you'll see much pro-Sony sentiment around here if they blow it in the next generation and don't have a huge lead in the number of quality titles available exclusively for their platform.

          • Re:Autocad (Score:2, Interesting)

            by kubrick ( 27291 )
            I must have missed the antitrust lawsuits aimed at stopping Sony's illegal exploitation of its monopoly status in the game console market.

            Oh, that's right. There weren't any. Unlike Microsoft and personal computers.
            • Dude, I have mod points and I would mod you +10 Awesome point, but I can't :/ Thanks for realizing what I was trying to say :)

      • Re:Autocad (Score:3, Interesting)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 )
        Hummmmm. That makes no sense. While there are a number of specialized cad packages that are used in various industries (Mentor Graphics, Catia, etc), they have held more than 50% of the general cad market, and I would bet more than 75% of MS market, for a long time.

        Why would Autocad sign an agreement like that? In addition, why would MS sign it? These days, MS avoids anything on paper or e-mail (MS: we lost all of our backups of those e-mails that concerned this case; Judge, you know that we get virus jus
    • ...The Win32 "Animator Studio" was ok too, but holy crap, that old DOS Animator Pro was one of my favorite programs ever. I'm quite fond of Gimp and its animation plugin (whose name eludes me for the moment) but I fell in love with PC animation with Animator Pro. I still use the term "Vgrad" from time to time! :^)

      Oh, and the "Poco" script language... Man. I never thought I'd see the day where I missed running anything from DOS.

      C'mon Autodesk, dig up that ancient code and release it into the wild! I'd e
    • I remember someone quoted a while back from autocad saying that they would only do that if linux had already attained around 30-40% marketshare of corporate desktops. So probably not for a very long time.
    • I think the offical reply is when enough customers what it on it, I think if you want CAD solution of linux you should sponser something like brl-cad, it has potential but is far of having the same features as autocad.

    • Re:Autocad - Don't count on it (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      For insight into AutoDesk's true position on open source and intellectual property rights, you may want to listen to this radio program (Forum - KQED) [kqed.org], which features Marsha Sterling, General Counsel for AD. I believe she was decidedly on the closed source side of the fence.
    • I'd settle for a Linux port of the license manager, so I can use the office linux server, instead of an unreliable windows workstation, to serve licenses.

      There's a linux port of the 3rd party software they use as a license server, but it doesn't work with autoCAD.
    • Not until the it makes sense in the marketplace.

      Autodesk's decision to focus on the Windows platform for AutoCAD was perhaps the smartest decision the company made from a business standpoint. Just put all the plusses and minuses for single versus multi-platform support (make sure you make that single platform Windows) for a product like AutoCAD and, in hindsight, it's a no-brainer.
    • When they hire me! Bwa, ha, ha, ha... (I live 1.5 mi. from them) Please ignore my SIG line, I'm running Windows and it won't let me edit it... (it's a joke stupid...)
    • These crazy bastards ought to realize that porting Autocad to Linux could greatly help to sell the Autocad product. There are MANY large networks out there running ten's and hundred's of strictly Autocad stations tied to central file servers. Enabling a company to convert such networks to Linux based ones would save that company tens of thousands of dollars in software licensing and down time due to infected/broken Windows boxes. These fools at Autodesk KNOW this but simply refuse to make the port.

  • A little too late? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @04:53PM (#14132775)
    Is this perhaps in response to GMaps being so widely used by various web applications out there? It seems like everyone these days is using GMaps integration (Dodgeball (duh), crime statistics (as seen on Slashdot), frappr, etc).

    I don't have access to anything done by AutoDesk, but is it as viable a platform as GMaps?

    • Re:A little too late? (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Go and get the code at:

      http://www.mapserverfoundation.org/ [mapserverfoundation.org]

    • Re:A little too late? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Björn ( 4836 )
      Interestingly I just heard about the MapServer Project yesterday. The person talking about it was very enthusiastic. More info can be found here [umn.edu]. A snippet:

      MapServer is an OpenSource development environment for constructing spatially enabled Internet-web applications. The software builds upon other popular OpenSource or freeware systems including Shapelib, FreeType, Proj.4, GDAL/OGR. MapServer will run where most commercial systems won't or can't, on Linux/Apache platforms. MapServer is known to compile

      • I feel like nitpicking today.

        MapServer is known to compile on most versions of UNIX/Linux, Microsoft Windows and even MacOS.

        Shouldn't that read:

        MapServer is known to compile on most versions of UNIX/Linux, MacOS and even Microsoft Windows.?

        After all, MacOS is UNIX. Of the three platforms listed, Windows is the odd man out due to lack of being derived from (or a version of) UNIX.

      • This is somewhat confusing, because the web-based mapping world can only come up with one and a half product names:

        "MapServer" is an excellent open-source web-based mapping app, which before today would have been considered the big threat to MapGuide.
        "MapGuide" is (was) AutoDesks web-based mapping system, one part of which is called "MapGuide Server". Much of this system was just open sourced.
        The "MapServer Foundation" has been established by Autodesk, the MapSe
        • Thanks for making that clear.

          Probably a clever move by AutoDesk though. This way they may be able to keep some control of a market that MapServer might have taken a large part of.

    • Re:A little too late? (Score:4, Informative)

      by pagameba ( 934522 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:25PM (#14133028)
      This is actually completely different. Google Maps is a javascript API that allows you to integrate maps into your web-based apps. Its very cool. But you don't control the server side of this, the data it uses, nor can you change the source of the app. ADSK's software is full set of both server and client side code that you can use and deploy without restriction (okay, with restrictions of the LGPL) and use for whatever purpose (commercial, personal etc). Google has legal restrictions on the use of their API.

    • Re:A little too late? (Score:4, Informative)

      by 2short ( 466733 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:26PM (#14133033)
      "...but is [MapGuide] as viable a platform as GMaps?"

      Is Picassa as viable as Photoshop? I'm not saying Picassa or GMaps are bad, because they are both quite good; but they're just not targeting the same functionality level as Photoshop or MapGuide.

      Google Maps is cool, but it has a long way to go before it is a MapGuide competitor. GM is certainly superior if you want to do something quick and easy, but if you want to run the server, control all the data shown on the map and the presentation, tie it into your databases, Google maps isn't what you want. MapGuide is.
          That said, I'm sure GMaps and MS MapPoint have something to do with this decision. They are taking over (and expanding) the low end of web based mapping, leaving MapGuide with the high end (which was previously all there was). Autodesk can see that eventually Google Maps etc. will grow in capability and begin to threaten it. Now people who are pushing what GMaps can do, or want to go a little beyond it can use MapGuide, and still not have to pay.
          Note that ADesk is not giving away MapGuide Author. You don't really need it to use the rest, or to do simple stuff. But it is pretty nice, and those of us doing really high end web mapping will still pay for it.

          Basically, this move tells me someone at ADesk is smarter than I thought. They are opening up stuff that has free competitors while those free competitors are still way behind. Makes sense. If people are going to use something free, it's still better to have them use yours.
      • This is a very good answer to the grandparents. However I do think Autodesk has a competitor: ESRI.

        In Florida and the south east (as well as other regions I believe) ESRI has a strangle hold on GIS tools. GIS being Geographic Information Systems. MapServer (the open source project that the foundation is being established for) and MapGuide compete with ESRI's ArcIMS and their newly released ArcGIS. IMS stands for internet mapping service, and while GMaps could be considered an internet mapping service, I

    • Re:A little too late? (Score:4, Informative)

      by imidan ( 559239 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:36PM (#14133108)
      The big deal about web mapping services for GIS shops is whether or not they work with the back end systems. In my state, more than 90% of the state, county, and local GIS departments run on ESRI software for their actual data services, so for them, putting data on the web with ESRI's ARCIMS [esri.com] web software is an easy way to go. Unfortunately, ESRI software is massively expensive. Fortunately, you can buy it in modules, so the web service is seperate from the database. Government agencies at all levels could probably benefit from open source web mapping tools, as long as those tools are compatible with the back end. Another very popular open source GIS web application is UMN's MapServer [umn.edu].
      • "The big deal about web mapping services for GIS shops is whether or not they work with the back end systems"

        Frankly, this is ESRI marketing. Every serious GIS app there is handles each others formats fine. Certainly they all handle ESRI SHP files, because as you say, ESRI is the leader, particularly in government. I personally use ESRI file formats all day, but almost never ESRI software. MapInfo is better on the desktop, and MapGuide is better on the web. (which is really saying something, as both ar
        • We're in the process of making a lot of changes to the way that we distribute GIS data on the web, and are considering some of the open source stuff (in part because, as you say, ESRI is never "easy"). I agree with you that a lot of the worry about data compatibility is ESRI FUD trying to keep you spending the tens of thousands of dollars that their software costs. It'll be interesting to see what develops on the web--what does it mean when anybody can set up these web services, and not just government ag

  • Cool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rbanffy ( 584143 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:01PM (#14132846) Homepage Journal
    No need to bash them or to compare their offer with gmaps... If it it good enough, it will stand on its own merits. If it is not, it will still depend on developer effort paid by Autodesk.

    Anyway, the more people benefit from this, the better for all of us.

    • Re:Cool (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      No need to bash them or to compare their offer with gmaps...

      There has to be a standard to compare them with, no? I checked out some of the University of Minnesota's offerings using this tech. I don't know it they are pushing the limits but I'm certainly unimpressed compared to what people have been able to do using GMaps.

      To just shrug it off and say it doesn't need to be compared seems shortsighted to me.

      • Re:Cool (Score:5, Informative)

        by Davorama ( 11731 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:23PM (#14133013) Journal
        Most of the good stuff is not showcased for some odd reason.

        If you want to compare to google start with ka-map at http://ka-map.maptools.org/ [maptools.org] but that's not the only interesting things going on.

        And realize that with these tools you get to render your own layers, not just lay data over google's background (maybe I'm not totally up on what all you can do with google's API though). Google has changed the web based GIS quite a bit but before them, mapserver was the best FOSS way to do it by far and it's still the way to do stuff where you need real control.

      • No offense, but you don't know squat about MapGuide. I some circles, people have been comparing GMaps against the standard (MapGuide) ever since GMaps came out. The result of this comparison is that GMaps is fast, easy to set up and integrate with, and looks awesome. It's just too bad can't run the server yourself, and you have essentially no control over the map compared to MapGuide.

        Google Maps is to MapGuide is to MapServer as Picassa is to Photoshop is to the GIMP. Except today, what Autodesk did is
      • Moderation 0
            50% Flamebait
            50% Interesting

        Who knew a legion of Autodesk TrollMods lurked on Slashdot? How could such a mild disagreement, merely citing disappointing personal experience with relevant details, could provoke them? I smell astroturf.

  • Maya? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does this mean I can be signifigantly less worried about the future of Maya after Autodesk's purchase of Alias?
    http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/press/press_release_d etails.jsp?itemId=3600004 [alias.com]
    • Autodesk has a whole lot of different products in different markets with different types of customers. The ways in they handle each of those products are pretty diverse.

      That means no, this will have little effect on how they deal with Maya, but it also means that you shouldn't make assumptions about how they will deal with Maya.

      Don't worry too much about it.

  • Title is completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitect ( 217483 ) <(digitect) (at) (dancingpaper.com)> on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:17PM (#14132967)

    The chances of AutoDesk embracing open source or anything like it is about as likely as their chief business cooperative, Microsoft.

    Everyone who is familiar with AutoCAD knows that AutoDesk is quick to embed any latest Microsoft technology and does everything in their power to de-stabilize their existing user base. Between file version issues and various Desktop modules, AutoCAD has become a house of cards that can now be replaced only by their recent Revit purchase. (Of course, before the purchase, they promised the user base that Desktop was the future--pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.) The entire product line has become an upgrade train, and since all their mid-range competitors have been squashed, no one can get off.

    This is quite sad because AutoCAD used to work on Unix. Much of the infrastructure still exists. (The archaic double-backslash or single forward slash path separators, for example.) Fortunately, the situation is so bad that there are many competing efforts to topple them. It will take some time, but an Open Source alternative could be derived from an emulator solution (IntelliCAD), a ground-up project (PythonCAD), a "ported" Apple solution, or an existing mature product (Cycas).

    But I am certain the title of this article is completely upside-down.

    • Re:Title is completely wrong (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:45PM (#14133199)

      Totally agree.

      It's really sad that Autodesk has gone from a stereotypical underdog -- a dozen guys in a garage struggling against the odds to make a CAD program that would work on an ordinary desktop PC -- to a cash-grabbing, customer-raping near-monopoly that would make even Microsoft blush with some of their underhanded sales tactics.

      Like this year's kick in their customers' teeth: "Buy Inventor, even if you're not ready for 3D yet, because we're giving it away really cheap as we retire AutoCAD 2002." Then, less than a month after the end of that promotion: "Inventor is now a subscription-only package. If you ever want an upgrade, you'll have to pay backdated subscription fees to the date when you purchased the Inventor package... and guess what? Because you bought AutoCAD 2006 as part of the Inventor package, you can never upgrade AutoCAD again without paying the exorbitant Inventor subscription fees."

      True story. They sucked their customers in, then they rammed them right up the Hershey Highway. An open source alternative cannot come too soon.

    • Erm...no. The title fits the article.

      Sure, Autodesk haven't been completely friendly with OSS in the past. I seem to remember that their mapping software didn't work well with Firefox... But TFA states that it has just been OSed, so maybe that bug will be fixed. And a company that OSs stuff must have embraced Open Source to some degree or other. That doesn't mean the are about to open source AutoCAD yet though...

      On a side note Microsoft has also embraced Open source to a limited degree and has released a



    • I agree with you. I've been using autodesk ever since version ten. I remember with the advent of softdesk (the precurser to architectural desktop) it was to be the perfect parametric cad program. Since then thay've lost unix and mac support. Not to mention iexplorer is required for install. Now with revit they have two upgrade paths that technically are not compatible but are both required. This company has no direction every upgrade cycle since 12 has been an adventure for CAD managers.

    • Re:Title is completely wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

      by optimus2861 ( 760680 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:14PM (#14133424)
      "It will take some time, but an Open Source alternative could be derived"

      I wish you were right, but I just don't see how. I don't believe the intersection of AutoCAD power users (primarily engineers and architects) and Open Source coders capable of writing an AutoCAD-like application (top-notch developers) is anywhere near large enough to take this on. There is virtually no "home user" base for AutoCAD, and developers who aren't also power users are going to have little appreciation for the kinds of things that an AutoCAD replacement would have to do. This isn't something you can hack together in a few months and start getting those engineers & architects switching to. It's got to be top-notch, polished, have all the needed features right away, and near-flawless cross-compatibility before any of the pros will even give it a look. And if you don't have the pros, you don't have anybody.

      As an engineer who does some AutoCAD work, I have to say I really think Autodesk's domination in the CAD field is even more than Microsoft's in either operating systems or office suites.

      • You are correct in that fully capable software is a long time off, but there has to be some short cut to a basic CAD for Linux. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but surely the market will soon support solutions derived from an existing renderer (Blender), 2D CAD (QCAD), existing 3D (Cycas [cycas.de], arcad [lx-office.com], ICAADS [icaads.com], OpenCascade [opencascade.org]) or a CAD/CAM (VariCAD [varicad.com]) before AutoDesk can turn their ship around. It doesn't even have to be OS/FS, although I would think a FS system could eventually take the market.

        • Disclaimer: I write libraries used in things like CAD software for a living. This post is based on my personal impressions of the industry as a whole, and does not represent the views of my employer or anyone else working in the business.

          I think fully capable, open source CAD software is a great example of why OSS works well for mass market applications, but will never realistically compete with traditional, commercial applications in a more specialist field. I think those who don't work in the industry o

          • Well, considering some larger AEC firms have written their own CAD systems in-house, a few of which are still in use today in the odd nook and cranny, and how incredibly pissed off almost everybody is at Autodesk (Bentley's promotional rhetoric wouldn't be remotely acceptable in most other fields), I could see an industry consortium getting together to do exactly that.

            Half the top 100 firms might pony up to sponsor a single coder for a few years with the promise of getting out from under ADSK's thumb at t

          • I agree with you.
            I think another clear example would be 3D modelling. Nowadays Blender is The OpenSource 3D modelling package but the comunity got it just because some propietary company decided to sell its rights & source.

            I think it would have been quite impossible to make those kind of programs by the O.S. comunity alone. The same can be said for OpenOffice (another big good program) the base code was donated by a propietary company (and it is giving some resources even now).

            So, I think it would be
    • Did you RTFA? The first sentance? AutoDesk set up a foundation for the MapServer project. It is community based, and financially supported by AutoDesk. They are helping move the responsibility from University of Minnesota to an independant foundation (like Apache). Still don't believe it?

      http://mapserverfoundation.org/ [mapserverfoundation.org]

      Maybe they see value in open sourcing something they were developing because it was too costly to compete with ESRI? or even to costly to compete with the free MapServer? Either way the

      • The only value AutoDesk sees in OSS is the way they can tie their proprietary CAD/GIS software into it. They don't want to do the work, but they want to charge you to use it. They would rather give away a clearly definable service to stay in control rather than loose the advantage to someone like, say, Google. They are trying to avoid someone else taking the lead as seen in SketchUp's Google Map linking [aecbytes.com].

  • file format extortion (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Autodesk has been ripping engineering firms off since AutoCAD R14. Everything since then has been fluff, and the only reason small firms pay the multi-thousand dollar fees to upgrade is because all the other firms are doing the same thing. Much like MS Word, they change the file format with every release and spare nary a thought for backward compatability. Which means that if you save a drawing with simple lines in R2002, you can't open it in R14.

    PS - you can run R14 on Linux, using WINE: http://www.archite [architectafrica.com]
    • dude, R14 came out in 1997, if the price of AutoCAD and CADD stations isn't an insignificant chunk of your company's product development budget, your company either has less than 4 employees or is doomed, and you should be using hand drawings rather than CADD, it's faster
      • Or use LT like my firm does. We use a mix of 2000i-2006LT, so we set the default save as as 2000 format. You don't have to update with every version release. I do agree however that nearing $4000 for a license is pretty steep, but AutoCAD was not meant for personal use. LT is still around $800.
      • but you can't email hand drawings.... many, many small shops have to deal with autocad to get business. Sure, it's only $x,000 for a license, but it's only the smallest part of what they do.. imagine paying $3,000 to read email! I've been on the IT end of some of this stuff and it's really fustrating. Much like with Microsoft Word.. if one customer [big corp with deep pockets and cheap contract] upgrades you either fork out [at more than full price] or don't get business.

        For comparison, imagine the ou

        • If I was in a small mechanical or ae shop, I'd just have one copy of AutoCAD and import/export to/from cheaper or free internal CADD package. A tad of autolisp goes a long way to automatically pretty up the outbound drawings. You'd only need to update every 5 years or so, so divide $3500 by 5 and it's not so bad

  • From the mouth of Autodesk... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cutecub ( 136606 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:27PM (#14133040)

    KQED FM's Forum program had Marcia Sterling, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of Autodesk on their program recently.

    The discussion covered Intellectual Property in information technology.

    I'd be willing to bet, based on Marcia's responses during the discussion, that Autodesk is definately NOT embracing open source.

    Also represented on the program was the EFF and Stanford Law School.

    Link to Nov 21 Forum broadcast [kqed.org]

    -S

  • Are the AutoDesk file formats even open? I've been trying to find a nice and stable converter (to eg. PNG/Flash and so on) for these formats for Linux for quite a while.

    • Re:DWG DXF open formats? (Score:4, Informative)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @05:44PM (#14133183)
      DXF has published spec, there are commercial apps such as Able Graphic Manager (and others, try googling something like "dxf bitmapped converter"), there are also converters for AutoCAD's own native DWG format to other vector formats. I myself find it best to just do screenshots of rendered models and drawings, better looking than any converter since there's just too many variables going to an extremely complex vector CADD file to bitmaps formats.
    • Openoffice can read them, and most any cad software. Like the other poster said though, there's a lot of variables and from my experience if it's an extremely complicated file you'll probably have to try a lot of different software to get it imported the way you want. Of course, I was using a raster to bitmap converter on high resolution graphics, so that may have been why I was having some issues getting programs to import them well. :) I did get better results with autocad files than some of the other
    • Kingpin, try what I use: DConvert.exe (obainable as a public file at Opendwg.org). I think it works under wine.....
  • Notice anyone missing? [opendesign.com]
  • At the end of the article:

    "Autodesk, Inc. is wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With over seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media, and wireless data services fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers create, manage, and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers turn ideas into competitive advantage by becoming more productive, strea

  • OpenAutoCAD? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:40PM (#14133635) Homepage Journal
    How about an open source app, or just a nonpriced app, that can import AutoCAD files, edit them, and export AutoCAD?

  • Speaking as an 11 years Autodesk client... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bullfrog ( 19683 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:52PM (#14133744)
    Autodesk is rapidly becoming a software rental company. Owning an AutoCAD license outright is possible, but upgrade pricing is more than their subscription pricing and every release you fall behind basically doubles the fee to upgrade. Once you are about 3 releases behind your permanent license reaches its "end of life" and is no longer upgradable, so you are forced to relicense the program at full fee if you want the latest version. Sometimes you are forced into the latest version by industry pressure. AutoCAD no longer writes to R14 format, only R12 DXF! So for the thousands and thousands of R14 users out there, open your cheque books and get with the program! Get new software! Stay current! Relearn (or ignore) the exciting new features. Oh, and you'll need new hardware too...

    What Autodesk are very, very good at is making money. They will not give up their upgrade gravy train, nor grant any rights to consumers that would disrupt that revenue stream. To keep their user base in line they have introduced the subscription model for upgrades. Skip subscription for a year or two and try to get back on and you'll be up for each year you skipped PLUS late fees. Stay on the subscription-go-round and you get a brand spanking new release every year, complete with MAJOR bugs and bloatware features like .NET integration. But guess what? You can only register and use the current version, so if it's out, you get it, and HAVE to use it. Too bad it may be bug-ridden and s-l-l-l-o-o-o-w-w-w, let alone not work properly with your customisations.

    To placate customers who are irrate at being force to use the current version, Autodesk graciously allow subscription clients to license the immediate previous release, but only while it remains the immediate previous release. Once a new release is out, you have to move up to the next previous release (which may or may not work with your customisations, etc.) If you require the use of any previous release they will, at their sole discretion, grant you temporary licenses to use a previous release (usually for 3-6 months at a time).

    And they wonder why piracy and abuse of their licensing is rife...

    Bullfrog
  • Everybody ask Autodesk for open formats, port AutoCAD to Linux... but it's a technical mistake!
    We must ask Bentley for freeing Microstation for Linux. Bentley has opened its .dgn format (and it's technically better than Autodesk's .dwg): http://www.bentley.com/en-us/corporate/opendgn/ [bentley.com]. Microstation was programmed first for Unix, but the last release to Linux was Microstation 95. Bentley only supports the Windows version today, it would be a very good present they free the Linux version code.
  • Autodesk killed off GMax about 2 months ago. It was a fantastic piece of free as in beer but not open source software. Lots of people relied on it, particularly in the game mod community. If you want to build aircraft for MS flight sim, it's one of two options. Battlefield 1942 supported it. Battlefield 2 released it's kit just in time. KnifeEdge software who've been promising an aircraft editor for their R/C aircraft sim have instead gone with a private beta for 3dsMax, citing licensing issues - this effec
    • The "free" version of Maya, ain't free. It's so hindered that you can't really produce with it, you can only learn.

      If you create something in Maya Learning edition, and then save it, even if you bought full version maya 2 weeks later, you couldn't open that cool model you made with the learning edition. So I don't think Maya free will be threatened, it doesn't really give away the goods anyway, unlike Gmax which was pretty awesome for lower poly modeling, i.e. game models and such.

      get blender instead. It's
  • For those who havn't used Autodesk's software, they are the microsoft of the CAD world. Their software is only popular because it of its wide spread use and the difficulty of converting software. AutoCAD makes IE look cutting edge and great to work with, and is probably one of the most bloated format's I've seen. Inventor, now on release 10, is still an incomplete product compared to other 3D software and Mechanic Desktop makes me want to draw on an etch-a-sketch.

  • Am I the only one? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28, 2005 @07:46PM (#14134110)
    Maybe people should do a little homework before [submitting,posting] and article... MapServer has been open source ever since the Univ Minnesota started it back in 1996. The story isn't that Autodesk is releasing a closed source software to the OSS community, it's that they are backing an open source software and community.

    I've been using MapServer for several years now, running it happily on various versions of RedHat, and lately a CentOS Linux box.

  • If they're embracing open source... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @07:48PM (#14134123)
    If they're so serious about open source, why don't they GPL the code for AutoCAD? Just kidding, I know they wouldn't do that. But I do wish they'd release a version for the Mac. AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and Mastercam are the only applications that keep us using Windows here. The rest of our work is done with free software or in-house software, which has, over the years, migrated from DOS machines to Windows machines to Linux and FreeBSD, and now, to the Mac, and with commercial software that has either a Linux or a Mac version. If only those three powerhouse applications worked on the Mac, there would be NO MICROSOFT SOFTWARE in this company!
  • $ ./configure
    $ make
    [snipped]
    gcc -shared IOAreaRule.lo IOAreaSymbolization.lo IOAreaTypeStyle.lo IOBaseMapDefinition.lo IOBaseMapLayer.lo IOBaseMapLayerGroup.lo IODrawingLayerDefinition.lo IOExtra.lo IOFeatureLayerDefinition.lo IOFeatureScaleRange.lo IOFill.lo IOLabel.lo IOLineRule.lo IOLineSymbolization.lo IOLineTypeStyle.lo IOMapDefinition.lo IOMapLayer.lo IOMapLayerCommon.lo IOMapLayerGroup.lo IOMapLayerGroupCommon.lo IOMarkSymbol.lo IONameStringPair.lo IOPointRule.lo IOPointSymbolization.lo IOPointTypeS

  • I thought MapServer already was Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ngunton ( 460215 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @08:24PM (#14134298) Homepage
    Could someone please enlighten me here? I thought that MapServer already was an Open Source project. In fact, I have played with it some. It is a very nice server-based solution for generating interactive maps. So what is this "announcement" all about really? Wasn't MapServer Open Source already? Is this some kind of takeover of the MapServer project by someone else?

    I don't know much at all about AutoDesk, I am just wondering what's really changed in MapServer land.

    TIA

    • Re:I thought MapServer already was Open Source (Score:4, Informative)

      by enjahova ( 812395 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @09:13PM (#14134505) Homepage
      MapServer was and is opensource. It was a project at University of Minnesota. What happened here is that a MapServer Foundation was created to oversee the project (like the Apache foundation). Autodesk is financially supporting this.

      The difference is that a more official structure, or foundation if you will, is given to a very necessary project. Now competition in GIS internet mapping should just be between MapServer and ArcIMS, and hopefully MapServer will catchup/surpass ArcIMS soon.

      http://mapserverfoundation.org/ [mapserverfoundation.org]
  • Anyone here actually administered autodesk systems? What a crapshoot...

  • Yeah...uhhh...it's AutoDesk. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They're about as friendly to open source as trees were to Sonny Bono. The only reason AutoDesk even exists is due to the income they extort from past customers that are forced into upgrading a bunch of AutoCAD licenses at $1000+ USD a pop every year so they can open drawings from their clients.

    Please, please don't ever use AutoDesk as an example of anything positive ever again.

  • CAD Formats (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jbengt ( 874751 )
    I would be much more impressed if they just published their file formats and opened them up for interoperability.
    As it is, in an attempt to force upgrades, they no longer support saving to their own file formats when those formats are more than a few years old. And they change the formats almost every year. And they've even started adding weak encryption in places for no reason other than to make the format harder to reverse engineer.

  • I thought I saw a flying pig go by... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by antispam_ben ( 591349 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:09AM (#14135849) Journal
    But then I read enough to see that this had nothing to do with Autocad, the .dxf file format, or anything that would Especially Good to be more open-source-like.

    Nothing to see here folks, move along now... Surely there's a Lego article you want to read and comment on...

  • Better article (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This article [directionsmag.com] provides a more neutral point of view of this move. It also has some opinions from the other parties involved.

  • Qcad (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jwhal ( 305686 )
    Anybody with any kind of (good) programming experience should be contributing to Qcad - make it do the things that Autodesk Land Desktop can do!!! If I could program, I would help. But I can't program worth a dime!!!
  • I remember 5 years ago, if you bought a license for Autocad's 3D Studio Max, you couldn't even sell it to someone else. I don't mean you couldn't sell copies of the software (illegal of course). I mean you couldn't sell the original box, manual, cd with the software on it; basically, everything you paid for. If you aren't satisfied with your $1000 investment, tough. No refunds, no transfers. You're stuck with it forever. Try and sell it online, like on Ebay, and your posting would be quickly deleted followe
    • And yes, I meant to say "Autodesk" instead of "Autocad". Software creating and selling other software with restrictive licensing terms is too terrible a thought to even imagine.

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