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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: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday January 21 2017, @06:47PM
I purchased a copy of the size-limited $70 version of Eagle over a year ago. I am going to look into switching to KiCAD today; I had thought about trying it before but never had the impetus.
The main thing I would want to convert over is "packages" or part footprints, as entering them takes some time. Fortunately, I've only done hobbyist stuff with Eagle, and I don't think I would rebuild any of the projects that I've already done, as I would prefer start over and do them better.
Any other tips for getting started with KiCAD?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:30PM
Brian Benchoff, the honcho at Hackaday, has been doing a series called Creating A PCB In Everything.
I would have titled it Creating A PCB Using _________.
He has gone through a few ECAD packages so far.
Last month, he did Part 3 of 3 on KiCAD. [hackaday.com]
.
WRT the previous mention of importing EAGLE files:
KiCAD Import formats, esp. EAGLE [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [kicad.info]
Their crappy forum software/configuration doesn't allow me to index that page down to the comment by RWB.
Anool there mentions (as does BsAtHome in this (meta)thread) that the tools still needs a bit of polish to avoid hand work.
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