FreeCAD - New evaluation as Fusion360 switches

[graham-xrf]

From JOKO Engineering - probably the most able CAD designer to post on FreeCAD and SolidWorks has put a new video on YT ("new" meaning on Wednesday 16th September 2020).

I believe that FreeCAD is already awesome, and comes with the knowledge that you will never have to put up with bait-'n-switch crap from vendors like those behind Fusion360. I don't mind they want to sell their product, but I do mind them suckering me into so many hours of invested time before presenting me with a deal breaker!

That said, I tried FreeCAD because it's .. well.. free! OK - call me cheapskate, but I left the last of "le rat race" behind back in April, and so I do not need a licensed industry tool to do a hobby.

Is it Worth Learning FreeCAD? Can It Be Used Commercially? -JOKO ENGINEERING-

 

[Ulma Doctor]

thank you @graham-xrf , for putting this out!

 

[MikeWi]

I've been trying out and frankly I hate it. It seems to have a lot of features, but it looks so damn primitive, and it is so unintuitive coming from solidworks and fusion! I may have to buy an eaa membership and go back to solidworks. Bah.

 

[graham-xrf]

thank you @graham-xrf , for putting this out!

Thank you kindly - my pleasure sir.
For me, the big surprise was how, after about a minute from clicking on the software manager tool, there it was, apparently able to do everything I wanted, and a whole lot more I may never get to.

No "phone home", no inbuilt profiling, no date-driven "update locks", no vendor lock-in, now worries that a future "version" would try to be incompatible with itself, requiring "conversion" of all my past work files.

Given the investment of one's own time in the generation of the CAD models builds something of huge value value - to the creator. To have it locked to a commercial tool that can change or evaporate anytime requires.
1. Complete trust in the vendor.
2. A vendor policy and integrity to have the tool competently preserve that work
3. The vendor product remain fit for purpose.

I guess I have now run out of the "trust" part.

 

[Lo-Fi]

Onshape is still free. They've just been bought out, so only time will tell how long before they follow fusion.

I'll have a play with freecad, see what I make it it.

 

[ttabbal]

Onshape is free, so long as you don't mind all your data being public. There was a bunch of noise a while back about them possibly also having rights to your data, but I think it wound up being using a picture of a cool design for marketing type of thing.

Honestly, I like it, but it's also cloud based, more so than Fusion360 as it's a web site. They can turn off the servers tomorrow and there's nothing you can do about it.