EEVblog #965 - The (Autodesk) Eagle Has Crashed

[EEVblog]

Dave, concerning the what you said : "profesionnal don't use eagle" is quite wrong

Come on, I didn't mean there isn't a single professional or company  in the world that that uses it, of course there are.
But in general it's not considered a tool that used in the professional industry.

[EEVblog]

The 6->2 Layers and needing to get it online is a show-stopper for machines that do not get windows-updates and staid offline. The old standard version was at around 500€ and, doing 4-layers, now we need to pay that every year plus get the production environment connected to the internet. 

But you were limited to 160mm. I can't see there being many people using this license, probably why they dropped it.

[EEVblog]

Dave,
in your video you compare the old prices for the perpetual license directly to the yearly prices of the new pro subscription.

Doh, yeah, that was dumb 
I did shoot this at midnight!

[jpanhalt]

I wouldn't be half as annoyed had I not just paid for the 'Maker' license on December 29th 

What's in a name?  I had the regular academic/non-profit/non-commercial license for years.   When I upgraded from 7.2 to 7.7, I find I am now "premium."   I don't have a clue to what that means.  It acts the same.  Has two signal layers.  I think "premium" is a bit like a "good customer," which really means a customer who pays too much.

John

[Stupid Beard]

The 6->2 Layers and needing to get it online is a show-stopper for machines that do not get windows-updates and staid offline. The old standard version was at around 500€ and, doing 4-layers, now we need to pay that every year plus get the production environment connected to the internet. 

But you were limited to 160mm. I can't see there being many people using this license, probably why they dropped it.

One thing to consider with that is that the hobbyist edition was exactly the same as the standard edition with all options (schematic+pcb, 6 layers+auto router), but was not usable for commercial work. That cost $169 (or something like that) and I think a lot of hobbyists bought that specifically to get the ability to do 4 layers.

The comparison for hobbyist license is a lot less favourable when you consider that. And, lets face it, 4 layer boards are cheap and as readily available as 2 layer boards for everybody now so there's no barrier to using them. Why would you want to impose an artificial one with your choice of tools?

[nctnico]

I have a feeling of deja-vu.
I used to freelance copywrite for ADSK (still do sometimes), and I remember hearing almost the same arguments a couple of years ago when they moved their own software to subscription. 'They're robbing me! I will switch to ArchiCAD!' / 'They killed 3ds max! I'll move to that buggy open-source 3D stuff I heard about!' and all that. Well, did ADSK suffer losses? Did they lose their market shares? Nope. It's Autodesk, after all.
Same here. The fact that EAGLE is not a requirement for a job is, actually, something ADSK won't tolerate and will do their best to change. Will that mean that hobbyists will have to find some other tool? Maybe, maybe not. Solo architects working on small projects like cottages actually liked the subscription model (at least here in Russia, where they finally were able to ditch the pirated versions and stop worrying about lawsuits).

The big difference between the drawings of a cottage and a circuit/board layout is that it is unlikely the drawings of the cottage need to be changed after a couple of years. Finished is finished because the bricks are laid. Also there are a gazillion alternatives for Eagle. Just look at the list somewhere posted on this forum and you'll find there are over 50 competing packages which do the same as Eagle. It is not like Autodesk can become an industry standard for schematics and PCB design.

[rrinker]

 The subscription model for ANY application software is just idiotic. You're putting a lot of faith in there being a server on the other end for your programs to phone home to.  IMO PC gaming has gone way downhill since everything became centralized servers (to support consoles, and too many games are crappy ports of the console version instead of the other way around like it used to be). Subscription models make sense for the back end of business applications, especially for smaller businesses that just can't afford a dedicated IT staff to manage it all. But for the end user software? Silly. At least some things don't constantly phone home - so if you go away for a couple of weeks and take a laptop with the software loaded but don't have an internet connection, it will still work. Other things try to contact the master server almost constantly - that's just horrible
design.

 I never really used Eagle, just started with KiCAD and I guess this is part makes my decision - I'm not about to try Eagle now. Immediately bookmarked the page Dave linked in the first post, plus if you have Kindle Unlimited there is a book called KiCAD Like A Pro you can borrow for free which has helped me figure out a few things. I'll know I've got it when I get my first board spun and my project works just like it does on the breadboard.

[bluetopia]

Jetbrains did this to me with their PHPStorm software not long ago.    I was a bit annoyed, I would much rather just buy one version of any given software and be able to use it indefinitely.  Their model isn't too terrible though because they do at least let you keep a perpetual licence after you've had the subscription for a year.   Every 12 months you can get a new perpetual license that lets you use any version that was available at that time indefinitely.  That's a much more reasonable model imo.

Good thing I decided to go the KiCad route I guess when I first got into this hobby, don't have to worry about this

Honestly, if the subscription companies did this, I'd have less of a problem with it.  My biggest issue is not necessarily the monthly fee, but rather the fact that if you decide to stop paying, it's gone.

Once you hit a certain threshold of monthly payments, you should get to keep the current version at that point.

[Kelbit]

If you're a company that needs to do light PCB work (entry level), Diptrace is worth a look. Does everything that Eagle ever did and more.

As for those of us who need a bit more of an upmarket product...I've been taking a look at midrange PCB tools recently, and my conclusion is the best tool for a small to midsized company is probably - believe it or not - Cadence.

Yes, I know how nuts that sounds: Cadence, the second most expensive PCB layout package second only to Mentor, as a solution for a small company? This seems pretty crazy considering that Protel/Altium has dominated this segment for the last 20 years or so.

Cadence has made some interesting moves in the last few years in regards to OrCAD. The old OrCAD codebase has been scrapped, and OrCAD is now basically a stripped down version of Allegro, which is Cadence's premium ($20k+) PCB package.

You can get a OrCAD Professional seat for significantly less than the price of an Altium seat (less than $5k, whereas my local Altium rep wants $10k all in for a permanent Altium seat), and since the 2015 release the feature list is basically comparable to Altium.

Also, Altium apparently has a master plan to screw over all their customers by introducing a "premium" product called Atina that is intended to compete at the Allegro/Xpedition level next year - which means that Altium Designer is likely going to get feature-frozen, and knowing Altium, I doubt they'll be taking any time to even bother fixing long standing bugs. Considering this, I think you'd be nuts to *not* look at something else.

[Brumby]

Dave,
in your video you compare the old prices for the perpetual license directly to the yearly prices of the new pro subscription.

I noticed this as well ... but it didn't worry me too much.

I will never be comfortable with subscription based products and would need a very compelling business case to even consider one.  I also steer clear of cloud based "solutions".

Why?  Several reasons.

A.  The first and foremost is that I will be relying on an external party that is responsible for providing the signal to the software I am using to say "You can keep functioning".  Anything happens to that company or the their signalling mechanism and I would be stuffed.

B.  The next is functionality of the software - and it's implications on my established work flow.  Who's to say they won't remove or re-engineer a function I use in an upgrade?  I will then have to stop doing productive work until I develop a new work flow ... and that might involve researching other software and even the possibility of new hardware.  What has taken years to refine and become efficient now has to be tossed out.

A case in point is Windows 10.  I simply cannot move to it.  For one particular task, I have hardware, software and a work flow that I have been running with for nearly 6 years.  The software runs under XP, it does not run under Win7 ... unless I set up the XP virtual machine.  I wanted to move from XP to Win7 to get access to some developer features, but only made the move because of that XP virtual machine.  I have had to modify my workflow slightly .... by adding a start of XP mode at the beginning of a session and a shut down at the end.  If I allowed myself to get pushed onto Win10, I would be dead in the water.

I would not want that from any update of any such important software.

C.  Following on from that, let's say I can refuse any updates and still continue to use the software.  It seems somewhat stupid to keep on paying and paying for an old, unchanging piece of software.  Yes, there is an argument that I am paying for the ability to upgrade - but I look at that as saying I am paying for the potential to kill my workflow.  If somebody writes a piece of software and gets paid for the sale of that, they they get rewarded for their effort and I get to use a program that will perform consistently.  If they then decide to move to Patagonia and live in the forest, it's not going to worry either of us.

D.  Security.  I do not have any Cloud based data storage.  To me, it is a highly uncomfortable notion that security for my data on a Cloud based service is in the hands of that service.  Sure, I can encrypt data before sending it there, but that involves an extra overhead I have to manage in both the sending and retrieval processes.  The only external data connected with what I do is with a website and a Photobucket account.  A portion of what I do is used by another party for their eBay presence, but they are responsible for that.  Local DRP is covered.  Knowing where my data is and how access is controlled, gives me comfort.

E.  Transient network issues.  Sure a 14 day "heartbeat" check will get around air travel and other temporary network interruptions, as far as client software functionality goes - but if there is a server component involved, then everything stops.  Same argument for web based and Cloud based services.  If everything is on my own computer (and I include my own network) I have the security of knowing that whatever goes wrong is within my control to fix.

F.  Casual user.  I have a couple of pieces of software that were way more than I really needed - but ones that I actually shelled out some real money for.  I didn't use them much, but they were there.  One of them I got at a release version 7 and then got a free upgrade to release 10 some time later.  My infrequent use made this fair value.  I didn't do any more upgrades until it got to release 19, when I had a need for a particular project, so I stepped out and spent a bit more than I would normally.  I can see myself rolling with that version for a couple of years.  A subscription based system would see me dumping that software - or at least staying with the last paid version forever more.

G.  Lost motivation of the developers to put value into their software.  Why should they make much effort when they are going to get paid anyway?  Human nature and corporate bean counters are going to move into the low expenditure, high return paradigm.  Getting paid for doing nothing is attractive on that side of the fence.  Not on this side, though.

H.  Other issues, such as project archiving as Dave mentioned.  Maybe I'm naive, but it seems ridiculous to pay for a subscription for 10 or 20 years for a piece of software that you might have to resurrect.


Last of all ... I just don't like it.  It smacks of laziness, greed and control.  I don't begrudge a developer for getting paid for their work - but the outright sale model seems to have been good enough for quite a number of years.

[Brumby]

I started my above post with nothing much to say.

Seems I had a bit more on my mind.....

[mswhin63]

Quote from: EEVblog on Today at 18:23:55

>

Quote from: electronic_eel on Today at 11:07:05>

Dave,
in your video you compare the old prices for the perpetual license directly to the yearly prices of the new pro subscription.

Doh, yeah, that was dumb 
I did shoot this at midnight!

The price to pay for being the first to get the information before others

[zelea2]

To ease your transition to KiCAD:

There is a Eagle version floating around called attemp to aid the downloading of pirate software removed by moderator which predates the Autodesk acquisition.
It has all the layers enables, no ads and no expiry date.

[AlanS]

Apart from all of the issues ennunciated above by our colleagues they haven't even gone to effort to SELL the benefits to me. It feels like here it is - take it or leave it.

[Technics]

I picked up a license just six or so weeks back and am pretty disgusted. We were assured it wouldn't happen a just a few months ago. Why the hell would anyone design something in a software package without knowing what it will cost them to keep using it in a few years time. They could jack the price up any old time. Given the apparent penchant for Autodesk to say one thing and almost immediately do another any assurance in that regard would be pretty worthless.

[Brumby]

Why the hell would anyone design something in a software package without knowing what it will cost them to keep using it in a few years time. They could jack the price up any old time.

I missed that one!

[JaseG]

Yet another product that Autodesk have ruined.

I've worked with a lot of their products over the last 10 years and it's consistently getting worse.  Their support network is terrible.  The way they license all their software is terrible. 

Don't for a second think that they will allow you to use this new version for more than a few years / major versions.  We have data backed up for clients that was generated in 3dMax and Maya and we can't open it in the correct version because they will not provide us with a valid license.  We must be a small company that they don't care about - we only have 1000's of autodesk licenses at different sites around the world....

[mcleod]

I am so bummed.

I have been waiting to purchase Eagle until Autodesk released a new version, I had high hopes they would add features. They have, but the subscription licensing "feature" is a deal breaker. I really have not liked Kicad, but I guess I should give it another shot. I started working for myself a couple years ago doing contract work and I just don't quite have the budget Altium, PADs, etc yet.

[Howardlong]

The use-case of being on a plane or otherwise disconnected from the Internet is a very valid one, I was caught by exactly that scenario a few years ago, very frustrating.

The Microchip compiler HPA annual sub model is reasonable:

O Perpetual for the versions made available during and before your subscription
O Two MAC address locked licences per subscription
O It only phones home during licence installation
O Reasonably responsive licensing team in the event of needing to move a licence
O One downside: when it goes wrong it can be a bitch to diagnose, the same for all Reprise-based licences.

[bernroth]

After 20 years of working with Eagle (I started with the DOS version), all ends with 7.7.0 
I loved that piece of software.

I installed KiCAD yesterday.

Thanks to all which have posted the links to the videos.
A document with "traps for youngplayers" and "do and don'ts" with kicad would be nice.
I hope the workflow is not too different

[barnacle2k]

Diptrace in one word: Intuitive

I've been using it professionally for 3 years now, it is a good product.
At the time around the 1K pricepoint there was only Eagle and Diptrace. (now i would propably go for circuit studio)
I tried kicad but it was too clunky at the time.

User Interface & Workflow are the most important features of a PCB package for me. 
Almost everything in Diptrace works the way you would expect it to.
The workflow is quick and easy, there is no lengthy busywork if you just quickly do a simple board.
Also true for the library system, defining a new part is super quick.
If you need the more advanced features they are there but they are not in your way.
You can layout a board without schematic.
You can just copy multiple layouts into a single big file to create a panel.
Even for larger projects surprisingly capable (i've done a board with multiple 500pin 0.4mm pitch BGA's with it.)

Pro:
clean intuitive UI
good manual track routing (no push and shove though)
3D view with a lot of predefined models
BGA fanout
extensive part library

Con:
autorouter is garbage (isn't it always?)
defining board cutout slots is suboptimal
only one CAM export profile (global setting)
once you get into BGA packages you'll reach the license limits quickly
slows down when drawing a lot of complex geometry (8 layers of copper pours...)

[SeanB]

Subscription is fine for things like magazines. There is a new one each month, and you can read it at your leisure, and keep it around for later use.

A digital version, that is only valid for that month, and which is no longer usable afterwards at all is worse, even more so those that want you to use the "Special custom Reader software" that only works with the magazine, is a 200M download, buggy as shyte, crashes every so often on changing a page if the download is not fast enough for it, runs only if you have all the assorted software dependencies ( Net 3.0, Net 2.0 FFS, Flash version FarkingOldEnoughToBeOnPensionAndNoNewerEver, Java in assorted versions, all of which need to be there and running, along with a specific level of service pack) and, if you complain to them, they reply "works for us". However they pretty much all have come to realise that a downloadable PDF ( often the same one used to print the mag in some cases, as it has the bleeds still present) along with a simple browser based reader that works in most modern browsers is the thing the customer wants.

Seems like Cadence is still in the first stage, with the buggy DRM like actions, that will first of all annoy the paying customers, will not really cut down on the use of " non communicating" versions that have full unlocked capabilities, but will leave the paying customers really dissatisfied with them long term. Not like they are a de facto leader, they are not, just the pain of changing ( and finding that "alternative" software to move the older stuff over) is something that many will consider, after a short time of paying and not gaining anything useful in return, is actually worth it after all.

Look in real life where Real Media is, at one time they were the defacto media player, but now are a long time has been, overtaken by a plethora of players which are both faster, skinnable ( and even WMP is there with skinning, not just Winamp like it was earlier), have the ability to decode a lot more file formats and play them better. Having a player that sent statistics on every media item played on it as well did not make them popular when it came out.

[dimkasta]

I installed v8 today. It seems to have some silly bugs. Like no next option on right click when you try to select an object below something else. And the delete option on right click does not work.
Who knows what else is missing on closer look. It kinda feels half baked on a first look

I wanted to use something different for some time now. Kicad seemed very unintuitive, and seemed to require extra work for things that could be automated.
Perhaps now it's the time to revisit it and start working on the projects that I have been postponing because of layer and dimension limitations

[StuB]

We have data backed up for clients that was generated in 3dMax and Maya and we can't open it in the correct version because they will not provide us with a valid license.

My world exactly.  It's not just that they won't provide a valid license.  I still have one - I'm just not allowed to use it, and thinly veiled threats of legal action if I do.  It actually caused me to lose access to a third party product because, guess what, it's only available for those older versions.

One question though, what happens to all the PCB and schematic files that are kicking around on the web, can they be imported into something else or are they essentially now useless?

Thankfully, CadSoft made the Eagle file format XML-based with no funny blobs and a DTD included, at some point.  These files can easily be imported into other tools as long as they write a reader / converter for them - and I sure hope developers that haven't done so already, will (instead of relying on ULPs to output their own formats, which would require access to Eagle)

[f4eru]

Yep, you are right. It'S probably the right time to update (rewrite, actually) the eagle->kicad converting scripts