SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the slow-death-of-proprietary-software dept.
EAGLE, The Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor is an ECAD (electronic computer-aided design), proprietary software for creating printed circuit boards. Cadsoft, the company that created it, sold EAGLE to Autodesk in June.
Hackaday reports
Autodesk has announced that EAGLE is now only available for purchase as a subscription. [Previously], users purchased EAGLE once and [could use] the software indefinitely (often for years) before deciding to move to a new version with another one-time purchase. Now, they'll be paying Autodesk on a monthly or yearly basis.
Before Autodesk purchased EAGLE from Cadsoft, a Standard license would run you $69, paid once. [...] Standard will [now] cost $15/month or $100/year and gives similar functionality to the old Premium level, but with only 2 signal layers.
[...] The next level up was Premium, at $820, paid once. [...] If you [now] need more [than 2] layers or more than 160 [sq.cm] of board space, you'll need the new Premium level, at $65/month or $500/year.
New Subscription Pricing Table for Eagle[...] The [freeware] version still exists, but, for anyone using Eagle for commercial purposes (from Tindie sellers to engineering firms), this is a big change. Even if you agree with the new pricing, a subscription model means you never actually own the software. This model will require licensing software that needs to phone home periodically and can be killed remotely. If you need to look back at a design a few years from now, you better hope that your subscription is valid, that Autodesk is still running the license server, and that you have an active internet connection.
The page has well over 100 comments, with many saying the equivalent of "Goodbye, EAGLE; Hello, KiCAD".
KiCAD is gratis and libre, cross-platform, has been adopted as a software development project by nerds at CERN, and has seen marked improvement in recent years.
Previous:
CERN is Getting Serious About Development of the KiCAD App for Designing Printed Circuits
Scripts Make the (Proprietary) Cadsoft EAGLE-to-(FOSS) KiCAD Transition Easier
Some time back, anubi and I conversed about how EAGLE has been DRM'd for quite a long while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @04:21PM
I'm curious how this is even legal. Autodesk is the largest player in this market space, the numbnuts that approved this acquisition should be sacked and forced to give the public back what they allowed to be stolen from the public.
CAD products are extremely expensive, removing competition to keep the prices down is really not good for the public. The people using this software will mostly continue to use it as they're in most cases businesses, but this is going to put a lot of undo strain on smaller firms. The worst thing, is that this isn't Trump making America great again with rightwing economic policy, this is that sell out Obama's people approving it.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:52AM
They have a product called AutoCAD Electrical, but it doesn't appear to be intended for PCB design.
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad-electrical/overview [autodesk.com]
AutoCAD itself has been used for that purpose. I'm guessing that it would be tedious to use for a large project due to, I'm assuming, no auto-routing or auto-placement capability.
http://www.artwork.com/acad/pcb_app/pcb.htm [artwork.com]
What I'm trying to say is that PCB layout software is a specialised type of CAD software which AFAIK Autodesk did not offer before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @08:27AM
tedious to use [...] no auto-routing or auto-placement
A lack of PCB-specific Design Rules Check / Electrical Rules Check would seem to disqualify it from the start.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]