Time wastage daydream of why there's no popular solid modeling software that is community maintained.

[bnemec]

Anyone interested in a fruitless conversation about “what if” CAD could have had a community maintained player?

When I consider the various popular community maintained projects I see many similarities to the CAD community and one glaring difference.

First, what do I mean by "community maintained"? Well, pretty much along the lines of Open Source or Free Software (not Freeware as in free beer) where the changes are managed through a subset of users, carefully vetted implemented through a branch and merge process. My grasp of it is that if a group of users want some feature they can go get the code, make a branch and go to work testing and using. That branch is available to the entire community to use, once/if the feature is well integrated and accepted by the community then that code can be merged back into the project. It is "innovative" "collaboration" that has been going on since before GitHub.

What do I see as similarities between the larger community maintained projects?
1) some relatively small percentage of user base is very passionate about the software and the drive for continued improvement is a part of their life and they truly enjoy seeing others usage of the software expand and improve. To those people it’s priceless.
2) nontechnical (software speaking) users requesting feature changes/improvements
3) mixed bag of technical and nontechnical people entering bug reports and tracking
4) businesses in the surrounding areas making a profit from services provided.
5) support wikis/blogs/forums
6) very complex systems used by corporations and educational institutions as well as non-profit clubs and hobbyists.

What I see and differences
1) In Community Maintained, the relatively small percentage of passionate, involved users are the controlling group for the direction of the project, Private CAD that group of people have very little affect regardless of the schemes that may be employed to make them feel that way. (If the path to profit aligns with something they want make it look like it was their doing; win-win.)
2) feature changes/improvements move and are tested at the pace of popularity not perceived profit in community maintained projects.
3) bug tracking in Solidworks is… well…
4) there’s nothing wrong with making profit from Free Software, it’s good and very important part of the project. Any substantial business is going to need support, that’s what is paid for. Sometimes the 3rd party, for profit businesses will kick back resources to the project to make sure it continues to grow as the success of the project is essential to the success of that, for profit business.
5) I don’t need to expand on this one.
6) I don’t see huge spread here. I’m sure there are differences but a macro perspective shows examples of both types of systems in all the above areas; albeit likely different distributions.


The concept is that the software can grow according to the ideals of the most motivated users, not according to some disconnected marketing think tank looking for good graces from the board who’s members have never used the tool. The systems are all in place and concepts all exist, have for decades. People tend to say, well that kind of software is never as “good” (stable, usable, performance, function) as the private, closed source products. Sighting resources as the main reason, “They have WAY more money and resources to put into the software than those Open Source people do.” I’m not sure that’s true, and even if it is, look at what DSS did with all their resources “The Platform”. Take a minute if you will and Imagine if all of the effort from all of the good API developers from the various CAD systems over the years would have been on the kernel and UI/peripherals of a solid modeling system. Of course there would have been disagreements and we would likely have a couple of forks that continued through (think RPM vs Debian distros of Linux) but in all the system is alive and well and I’m not afraid to update to newer version.

[JSculley]

https://www.freecadweb.org/

[Frederick_Law]

Such software will not become engineering software.
Unless it get through all tests and certifications.

Add to the chaos with forked development.

First it need to start with a 3D model kernel. Or create one.

[bnemec]

Such software will not become engineering software.
Unless it get through all tests and certifications.

Add to the chaos with forked development.

First it need to start with a 3D model kernel. Or create one.

Are you referring to all the "tests and certifications" that the highly acclaimed Solidworks has gone through?

Seriously though, what are those certifications? Self certified? Is there an independent consortium that verifies and certifies CAD software?


Also, Can you please expand on what you have in mind when saying forked development would cause chaos? I was thinking that the forks are major diversions where one substantial group wants something that is incompatible with the other so the code diverges. The differences would be obvious and not hidden behind marketing speak, so the hypothetical companies that would be using it would have to decide which fork to move forward with next time they update. Example might be one moves in favor of adding features that streamline top down modeling methods and the other doesn't implement the features as they are not the focus of a sub group. Both groups would continue to contribute and improve on the kernel and even other common UI components. But, I'm wrong a lot so be nice to hear other people out.

[Frederick_Law]

Probably no certification. Since SW can't even count and have internal round off errors.

The chaos of which fork to use? Will files in one fork work on another?
Each fork divide resource on development.

How long did Linux took before it became "main stream"?
If we can call them "main stream" now.

[bnemec]

Probably no certification. Since SW can't even count and have internal round off errors.

The chaos of which fork to use? Will files in one fork work on another?
Each fork divide resource on development.

How long did Linux took before it became "main stream"?
If we can call them "main stream" now.

Same can be said for SE, SW, Inventor, Dassult Platform, etc. Which one to use? Resource divided.

Talking about divided resources, if all the API programmers working as part time CAD/PDM admins and part time engineers spent that amount of time working on one solution that is guided by the community of users instead of disconnected execs that answer to investors I think we would be decades ahead of where we are now.

[DanPihlaja]

Technically, isn't that what FreeCAD is?

https://www.freecadweb.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD


However, I do not know how much support it has or how well it works.

[MJuric]

Anyone interested in a fruitless conversation about “what if” CAD could have had a community maintained player?

the biggest issue with this approach is and always will be "Who's responsible?". While this is perfect for "Bob" who wants to do something in his garage or as a small business owner anything over a few seats and the person responsible wants to be able to pick up the phone and call someone when something goes sideways.

For the most part the business community does not go for this type of thing and the business community is who is using the product. How many companies do you know that are using open office over MS products? I've used open office a couple times and for the most part it is comparable...and free. So why are companies spending millions on Excel when they could have Open Office for free...they have someone to call when something goes sideways.

To me this "Free CAD software" would have to have VAR's that support it or it's not going anywhere.

However, like other free software, could you have the software for free and just charge for services surrounding the software? This puts the the "Buck stops here" at the VAR level rather than the "Seller level" but I think something like that could work.

So what I'm thinking is, the software is developed. The "Maker" downloads it and uses it for free with only free support. The business downloads it for free and then calls the "VAR" to set up a contract for support, installation and so on. I think that works. So if you want support you pay, if you want to self support it's free.

[mike miller]

..................

So what I'm thinking is, the software is developed. The "Maker" downloads it and uses it for free with only free support. The business downloads it for free and then calls the "VAR" to set up a contract for support, installation and so on. I think that works. So if you want support you pay, if you want to self support it's free.

Just one little problem. No VAR in their right mind would sign a support contract for software that any random user can edit. That would be akin to taking out insurance for the integrity of Wikipedia.

Open-source has always been appealing to users. The problem is no one wants to take full responsibility for a software they don't own and can't fully control. Therefore no one except the geeks can use it in a business environment.

[bnemec]

Just one little problem. No VAR in their right mind would sign a support contract for software that any random user can edit. That would be akin to taking out insurance for the integrity of Wikipedia.

Open-source has always been appealing to users. The problem is no one wants to take full responsibility for a software they don't own and can't fully control. Therefore no one except the geeks can use it in a business environment.

ok. You're saying VARs have any control in what DSS does to/with Solidworks, PDM, Manage?

On the flip side, the VARs would likely have people like Alin or Artem or others like that who would be very active in the community and likely part of the approval group of what forks are merged back into the main code base. See, this would mean that if a VAR has a customer that really needs something and that VAR has a good programmer they could pull the files that would need modified to change the behavior. Now they could build this and deliver to their customer as a "hot fix" at the same time enter a push request to get that functionality back into the main. The most active community members would have say in if and when that happens. In the mean time it may be on the nightly or weekly builds so that those lucky folks that can always jump on the latest version with out a care can be using it.

[MJuric]

Just one little problem. No VAR in their right mind would sign a support contract for software that any random user can edit.

I agree. That is why the only way I see it working is if there is some level of control.

So for instance let's say you have 50 national VAR's. The VAR's would be able to test and accept/reject any changes to the software.

So I see it like this.

1) A basic platform is developed.
2) people test it, play with it, break it etc.
3) a "Final first release" is agreed upon.
4) VAR's are created. To some degree the VAR's become the sales force to business level users. They sell their services, not the software.
5) The community starts working on and playing with new features, addins etc.
6) New features are tested, played with, broken etc
7) VAR's are part of the testing, breaking
8) The community can release and play with whatever they want
9) Only "VAR Approved" features and add in's are added to the "Approved Released" version

You kind of end up with the best of both worlds. High end users that have no or few seats to support can just download the software, install any add ins they want and deal with it as they see fit. Business level users have a "Supported" version that they can go to the VAR's to with issues and problems.

Business that have specific needs can "Outsource" specific development to the community allowing them to have specific tools for their needs much like third party unsupported addins for SW and other systems except at a Tier 1 level because the developers of the software are developing the addins. This also allows the developers to get paid for specific work.

You don't think the support your paying for isn't worth it and think you can go it alone, you're not held hostage to subscriptions and your software forever stagnated at whatever revision you stop paying at.

Frankly I think it's a great idea. However like any new idea I'm not sure if it's a winner or not

[zxys001]

Anyone interested in a fruitless conversation about “what if” CAD could have had a community maintained player.



Blender is the closest to what you're describing.

..and FreeCad.

..the one I thought would make it years ago was... https://www.opencascade.com/

[Ömür Tokman]

A free and community supported CAD software would be great.

Humans are social beings, social beings have an instinct to seek a leader.
Foundations, communities may be large, but most of them develop when one person makes people accept their dreams and leads them until the formation bears fruit.
I think there should be a core staff for this kind of job. (aspirational, talented, politically minded)
Software developers have to convince people and maybe a few small companies to use the software.
The presentation of the core staff should be high performance and very successful.
AND they must persuade a rich man to support them.
In today's world, people care a lot about looks, I've tried using FreeCad a few times, but the interface isn't cool at all (though it's not technically important, people care about it) first impression matters.
Software developers who see the support of a wealthy and a curious community will be enthusiastic and highly motivated.
Both and every person does something on behalf of the community to feel appreciated.
It may seem illogical to you, but for a free cad.
a confident leader.
Convinced rich.
software developers who want to taste the desire to succeed.
Enough to give the snowball the first move.

Forking can happen even in companies.
This is an unavoidable situation, the father dies and the children part ways. That's why fathers should teach their children the importance of unity no matter what.

The important thing is that the core staff delay this bifurcation as much as possible.

Let the bifurcation happen, it would be nice if we had the chance to choose between free software.