EEVblog #965 - The (Autodesk) Eagle Has Crashed

[EEVblog]

Eagle PCB CAD software, now owned by Autodesk have moved to a subscription model. No internet = No Eagle for you!
This is likely not going to end well for Eagle.
There is also a new pricing model.

If you want to move to KiCAD and need a tutorial course check out:
https://contextualelectronics.com/learning/getting-to-blinky-4-0/

[nuclearcat]

It is a trend, but i believe this "cloud subscription fashion" is EPIC failure, unless software makers will bear reasonable responsibility for support quality and provide feasible development roadmaps. Many of them just consider, hey, let's make this monthly payments and we will get rich and easily cover our monthly expenses without doing/changing anything, and we make sometimes new versions and fix some very noise bugs, but thats it.
Additionally it might work with some things that are needed "on-demand", like for example photo processing in photostudio, that are additionally also "short-shelf-life", he gets money from customer, he pays for subscription. Or let's say some "home accounting", that has tiny price, tiny demands and data wont be kept for long, and might be exported.
But circuit development... as Dave said project might have 10-20 years support life, and keeping subscription active just for that and keeping in mind that you might face issues with new versions (and often this days there is another trend - or update, or your license will stop) - will make price of support for such projects too huge on this specific software.
So, wont work, it will (and does that already) kill a lot of commercial software and gives green light for opensource solutions, like KiCAD.?
For me it is great opportunity to move colleagues to kicad.

[mjs]

Great timing. I was just about to buy licenses for our design team and had even a budget for it. While trying to do this, I found out that they're no longer selling licenses.

Fortunately we've got one team member fluent in KiCAD. I already asked him to give us a crash course on it. Maybe I'll just donate the budget money to KiCAD project..



 

[nuclearcat]

Great timing. I was just about to buy licenses for our design team and had even a budget for it. While trying to do this, I found out that they're no longer selling licenses.

Fortunately we've got one team member fluent in KiCAD. I already asked him to give us a crash course on it. Maybe I'll just donate the budget money to KiCAD project..

Or you can simply pay some developer to implement in kicad features that you might need, and it is a win-win scenario, you get what you need, kicad gets contributed code.

[LoyalServant]

More like the eagle has taken a dump on it's userbase.

No, I don't think it will end well.
I got pushed into KiCad hard several months back and it's probably a good thing that happened.

[imajeenyus]

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Like another user here, I had been on the point of buying a pro license for the software, for the few times I needed to do large boards. I cannot justify the subscription cost
of the pro version, just in the offchance I might want to make a large board occassionally, unless, as Dave mentioned, it's possible to just upgrade for a month. But what
happens if I need to then edit the board later? Another change to the subscription? Also, given that Autodesk use the cloud in their other products (e.g. Fusion360, which
I use), it's just a matter of time before they think on doing that with Eagle, in my opinion.

One point, and a question. The Cadsoft FTP server is still available here: ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/eagle/ with all the Eagle program files and ULPs.

Now, does anyone know what happened to the (extremely useful) listing of ULPs and scripts that used to be on Cadsoft's download page? The page on Autodesk's site
(http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp) doesn't list anything at all. I really hope they haven't screwed that up as well - I often referred to that list to find helpful scripts.

[chris77]

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. 

[jpanhalt]

One point, and a question. The Cadsoft FTP server is still available here: ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/eagle/ with all the Eagle program files and ULPs.

Now, does anyone know what happened to the (extremely useful) listing of ULPs and scripts that used to be on Cadsoft's download page? The page on Autodesk's site
(http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp) doesn't list anything at all. I really hope they haven't screwed that up as well - I often referred to that list to find helpful scripts.

I downloaded 7.7.0 early in January, but didn't install it.   Today, I installed it, and my code for 7.0 worked just fine.  I could not find several things that used to be on Cadsoft's page, such as a listing of changes by version number, user contributed ulp's and libraries.

Based on about 15 minutes of use, I have only noticed 3 changes in version 7.7.0, but suspect there are more:
1) A new header "Documentation" is added to the opening window in addition the usual six;
2) Additional layers and colors are added; and
3) The ulp I use frequently to import DXF  (i.e., import-dxf-1_6.ulp) is not there, but there is "import-dxf.ulp" instead.  As an optimist, I hope they are the same.

If I find any serious changes, I will post.  So far, so good.

John

[jpanhalt]

deleted -- quoted myself by accident

[iaeen]

Yep, this is why I tend toward open source alternatives when they are available. I would rather deal with a clunky UI/other quirks than have a company pull the rug out from under me.

As a software consumer, I always consider a subscription license to be a mechanism to get more of my money without adding value. Maybe I just don't consider upgrading to be all that valuable, but I think buying a license outright is better even if it costs more to stay on the most recent version. If you ever decide you don't want to buy the newest version, you can keep the old version going for a long time after the new version is released. It's like the old 80s era test equipment that I have been buying for my lab. They are clearly obsolete even by the most generous interpretation of the word, but I don't care since they serve my purposes.

In any case, I made the decision to go with KiCAD a while ago since I didn't even like the old pay-for-board-area/layers model... glad I dodged a bullet there.

[Razor512]

The issue with subscriptions is that no one can predict the future. One moment your business can be experiencing explosive growth, and the next, you can be a billion dollars in debt.

The problem is that for programs which are not reliant on a DRM server, if something like that happens, the product is still functional, it doesn't die when the CEO decides to blow all of the company's funds at a casino.

Another issue with subscriptions is that sometimes you don't need the latest version (if nothing that benefits your specific workflow is improved, then it is cheaper to stick with the non-subscription model) for . As seen with other programs that have moved to subscription such as the adobe creative cloud, the year to year changes have gotten smaller than before they moved to the creative cloud. Since they get continuous income regardless of what new features they add, they have mostly made tiny changes to lesser used functions, where in the past you would see large changes to many areas as they had to have at least some improvement for all of the most common workflows in order to convince people to buy an upgrade license.


The only time when these subscriptions become cost effective, is when each and every update improves your workflow, but even then they can just sell upgrade licenses that people can purchase each year, thus if the company goes under (no company will last for ever), it will just mean that next year's version of the software will not come out, but all of the old versions will still be fine, thus in 30 years someone needs to look at some archived work for whatever reason, they can do so without experiencing additional costs.

[electronic_eel]

Dave,

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

I think you forgot to clearly point out that you could always leapfrog a few versions with the old pricing (e.g. go from v5 to v7) and only upgrade when there where enough new features relevant for you. Also they had discounts for existing customers upgrading to a new version.

Now you have to pay continuously, regardless of what new stuff they are developing.

So I think for a great number of users it has gotten much more expensive with the subscription.

[StuB]

With regard to pricing, I also think that the loss of the Light license was glossed over a little too readily.  As mentioned in the video, most professional design studios aren't going to be the ones that use Eagle.  So who does use Eagle?  As mentioned "Most of the majority of their business is going to be that small, hobbyist hacker, one man band, 5 person company, whatever, they have them doing smallish stuff."

What sort of boards were those hobbyist hackers most likely to produce?  Small, two layer, and no need for anything too fancy?  Yes, and that's exactly where the Light version fit the bill - and it fit the bill for only $69 for a perpetual license

What does $69 get those people now? $69/15 = 4 months.  Sure, now they can have 99 schematic sheets - but if they got by with 1 before, then what are they going do with the other 98?  Double the board space - great, but if what they were designing before fit the 100x80 area, then the other 100x80 they gain is just a waste.

For that "hobbyist hacker", this is absolutely a price increase - and a steep one at that.  Where before a one-time investment of $69 was all they needed and they could probably make that back off of your Tindie/e-bay/whatever sales pretty quickly, now it becomes an ongoing cost that will always have to be factored into current and future products.  For people not selling at all, it goes from a $69 payment for something that they might use pretty regularly or get to use whenever they feel like it, to something that - hopefully - they realize will cost them continually or incidentally.

I'm not saying there aren't advantages - for the latter point: the documentation is always up-to-date, they add new tips and tricks, etc. - but for that hobbyist hacker, Eagle is looking rather bleak and I can fully understand why they might look at some of the alternatives.

[iaeen]

With regard to pricing, I also think that the loss of the Light license was glossed over a little too readily.  As mentioned in the video, most professional design studios aren't going to be the ones that use Eagle.  So who does use Eagle?  As mentioned "Most of the majority of their business is going to be that small, hobbyist hacker, one man band, 5 person company, whatever, they have them doing smallish stuff."

What sort of boards were those hobbyist hackers most likely to produce?  Small, two layer, and no need for anything too fancy?  Yes, and that's exactly where the Light version fit the bill - and it fit the bill for only $69 for a perpetual license

What does $69 get those people now? $69/15 = 4 months.  Sure, now they can have 99 schematic sheets - but if they got by with 1 before, then what are they going do with the other 98?  Double the board space - great, but if what they were designing before fit the 100x80 area, then the other 100x80 they gain is just a waste.

For that "hobbyist hacker", this is absolutely a price increase - and a steep one at that.  Where before a one-time investment of $69 was all they needed and they could probably make that back off of your Tindie/e-bay/whatever sales pretty quickly, now it becomes an ongoing cost that will always have to be factored into current and future products.  For people not selling at all, it goes from a $69 payment for something that they might use pretty regularly or get to use whenever they feel like it, to something that - hopefully - they realize will cost them continually or incidentally.

I'm not saying there aren't advantages - for the latter point: the documentation is always up-to-date, they add new tips and tricks, etc. - but for that hobbyist hacker, Eagle is looking rather bleak and I can fully understand why they might look at some of the alternatives.

The lower tier subscription does seem engineered to force an upsell. If you used to be on the lite license, you now have to pay for extra area that you probably don't need, and if you used to be on the standard license, you probably have to go for the pro tier since you would otherwise lose the extra layers.

I think it was too generous of Dave to compare the lower tier to the standard license (even though he did call out the downgrade),

[michelinux]

For a step-to-step tutorial guide with KiCad, I suggest:


Part 1/12 - Installing Kicad:


Part 2/12 - Creating a Schematic:


Part 3/12 - Custom Schematic Components:


Part 4/12 - Finishing the Schematic Design:


Part 5/12 - Associating Components with PCB Footprints:


Part 6/12 - Laying out a PCB (1 of 3):


Part 7/12 - Custom PCB Footprints:


Part 8/12 - Laying Out a PCB Continued (2 of 3):


Part 9/12 - Iterative Schematic Changes:


Part 10/12 - Laying Out a PCB Continued (3 of 3):


Part 11/12 - Copper Filling a PCB:


Part 12/12 - Exporting Files for Manufacture:

[StuB]

I just read the hackaday article as well, and they point to Garrett Mace's tweet;
https://twitter.com/macegr/status/821847340201848832

There's some real gems in there 

ADSK: New pricing includes access to the latest software and offers flexibility.
GM: It included a purchase of Eagle 5.6 PCB+Layout (I don't autoroute), and an upgrade to Eagle 7.

Exactly.  Previously you had access to the latest software if you wanted to upgrade to it.  If not, you had the flexibility of just skipping a version or two.  The flexibility that the subscription offers is only ever the latest version ( I should know - per their licensing, I'm no longer allowed to use an older version of one of their products.  A 4-digit-starts-with-a-3 product.  Yes, that means I can no longer work on those files and save them with that version (meaning anybody sending me a file is forced to use latest version as well.)  They actually e-mailed me and wanted to give me a call to work with me on making sure that I'm being compliant.  No, not a joke.  Yes, very sad. ), and at a higher cost unless it's highly incidental use.  By which I mean, a maximum of four months.

GM: an you elaborate on the flexibility? I use Eagle for business, I will never downgrade/lapse my main tools.
ADSK: You are now able to access EAGLE anywhere by using an Autodesk account. No need for installing and licensing on new machines.

So, it is a web tool now (like their "123D Circuits" - wait, where does that fit in with all this anyway?), or did ADSK goof up in that reply?  Unless it's a web tool, you do need to download on new machines.  At which point, licensing wasn't that much of a pain. 
On top of that: I can already access Eagle anywhere - it's on my laptop.  It's like this computer that I can just carry around with me anywhere - in the passenger seat, on a bus, on a plane or on a train, in America, in China, in Brazil and even in Spain.  Are they even familiar with remote desktop tools?  Even if I didn't have my laptop with me, I can connect to my laptop through e.g. TeamViewer.  It's not like a twitchy first person shooter, and working across it is just fine.  I can even use my mobile phone for the job if I wanted to torture myself (and I have used it as such to retrieve an account number from an archived e-mail one time when prompted for it at a desk.)

ADSK: revious pricing does not reflect our current speed of development under Autodesk.
GM: The feeling is that higher speed of development comes at the cost of Obsolescence As A Service.

My feeling is that the higher speed of development and associated costs is to try and fund development of Eagle into a contender with professional EDA tools, thus eschewing the "hobbyist hacker" entirely.  I never asked for a better autorouter, or BGA fanouts (not like it was impossible before - just tedious - but most hobbyist hackers would steer well clear of fine pitch BGA in the first place).  To me, the writing is on the wall for Eagle as a "hobbyist hacker" tool if they continue not just the trend of the subscription model, but their apparent approach to the development of Eagle in general.  In essence, those saying that Autodesk is about to lose nn% of their target audience: not really, because that nn% is apparently no longer their target audience.

[CJay]

Nice, I was just wondering if I should persist with or abandon Designspark and start with Eagle or some other package, this at least narrows my choice if I do decide to give up on Designspark.

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?

[PedroDaGr8]

Every day I am more and more glad I learned DipTrace instead of Eagle.

[nctnico]

They should at least keep one perpetual license option open. For me using software with a subscribtion model is a no-go because:
- Sometimes I'm not using software for months so I miss the messages the license is going to run out and therefore the software doesn't work when I need it most.
- Renewing licenses is extra administrative work which I'd like to minimize
- I need to be able to support projects for at least a decade so the software used for those projects must work as well
- Companies may go belly-up and/or abandon the software package which leaves the software inoperative

IMHO what Autodesk fails to see is there really is no reason to use a cloud based subscription model because people invest in CAD tools by creating projects, libraries and take the time to learn it. Ofcourse they could rent add-ons like an autorouter, advanced footprint creator, matched impedance router and that sort of stuff you may not need every day (just like you rent a big jack hammer to get rid of a slab of concrete in the garden) but the basic tools should always be available in order to be useful.

[kicken]

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

[electroworm]

Dave,
your price comparision doesn't take into account the old update policy of cadsoft. I bought my first full pro all included licence back in 2001 (version 4.10) and updated in 2008 to version 5 and in 2011 to version 6. The last update to V7 in 2014 I skipped due lack of useful new features.

The price in 2001 was about 610,- EUR. Updates had a 50% discount to full licences, I paid in 2008 280,- EUR and in 2011 460,- EUR (all excl. VAT). So I had to spent 1.350,- EUR (that's about 1,500.- US$) in total for a period of 13 years "newest version". Now Autodesk want to have 6,500.- US$ for that period of time.

Even if the price was getting higher and higher in the past, this is a huge step forward.

[Ontaelio]

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).
But the thing is, Autodesk seems to really intend to improve EAGLE. If (or, more correctly, when) they do, all will be forgotten and forgiven. Integration with Fusion, Inventor, Simulation, anyone? Yes, certainly not a hobbyist market, but a true path to that job requirement for sure.
So, as much as you may feel cheated, ADSK knows what it's doing. Is there a possibility of EAGLE failing and ceasing to exist in the future? Yes. Is it likely? In my opinion, not really. ADSK is no Google, after all. They moved towards circuit design for a long time, they didn't buy EAGLE on a whim, and they will follow their plan no matter what, so better relax and see where it's leading.

[johnmosborneuk]

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

No indication whatsoever from Autodesk that Version 8 was due to release with this new model! so 3 weeks later and likelihood is that there'll be no more version 7 updates 

It's likely that the maker community will now largely ditch Eagle in favour of other products so the community effort creating libraries will slow down

[f4eru]

Yeah. Kicad has really taken giant steps and is far far ahead of eagle.
it's useful for a pro environment even ! For Free.
So RIP Eagle.

[f4eru]

Dave, concerning the what you said : "profesionnal don't use eagle" is quite wrong
I saw two use cases :
1) 100 people company doing very good and complex pro equipment, ca. 7 electronics developer in Germany : 100% eagle
2) in biiiig companies with zuken or equivalent, HW designers often do quick things that don't land in production in eagle to not have to deal with the trouble to go to the CAD specialized colleagues

[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

[MarkL]

I downloaded 7.7.0 early in January, but didn't install it.   Today, I installed it, and my code for 7.0 worked just fine.  I could not find several things that used to be on Cadsoft's page, such as a listing of changes by version number, user contributed ulp's and libraries.
...

The change log is in their install directory in doc/UPDATE_en (or if you speak German, doc/UPDATE_de).  It has the blow-by-blow enhancements and bug fixes going back to v4.0.


EDIT/ADD: Similar to you, I also downloaded 7.7 but I'm not using it.  Starting with 7.3 and up, they went to a later version of the Linux Qt library and that reduced the graphics performance significantly.  Panning and zooming are no longer smooth, and the editing window is struggling to keep up.

The Qt change was NOT in the change log.  I had to open up a support case to find out what else had changed.

So, I've been stuck on 7.2 anyway since there was nothing compelling in later versions.  But now there's really no reason to go any further.

[grouchobyte]

Dear Autodesk minions and wanks:

This whole subscription idea is gaining popularity in todays software world... ya we know why you did it.

The assumption that a particular tool or software is worthy of paying for via subscription and that customers will comply and flock to your  bullshit app is flawed. Many of the reasons that it wont fly in Eagles case is supported by comments in this thread. Are you reading this  Matt, Jorge and Ed? If you want more revenue, make a better product and drop the subscription crap. You know full well what sucks in Eagle. You failed us license holders and you will lose something that you can never get back.....Customer loyalty.

At best your retarded move will spawn disdain and drive customers to other solutions.

In my case, I bought a pro licence to Eagle back in version 5.x  days because I needed more than 2 layers and 160x100 mm board size. It was a rough learning curve and I hated every moment of it.

Just recently, I started using Altium V14 and, besides the bloat and overpowering feature set the  library editor and layout editor are superb. Can't believe I waited this long to use Altium.

Tried various versions of AD before settling on this one. Seems V14 is the sweetspot in its legacy of releases

So, after 5 years with Eagle, its time to say GOODBYE and Goodriddens to Eagle. I can still import my older  designs into Altium and use my eagle libraries going forward, so its not a total loss to me.

So much for Eagle's future and the excitment of the Autodesk merger.


@grouchobyte

[julian1]

I don't have a problem with people charging money for software, and for developing software.

That said, I much prefer to have rights to the code, and the control that comes with it (why I run linux as well), and I don't like apps that phone-home.

In case it hasn't been posted - this 20 minute Kicad tutorial is pretty good. It covers essential information needed to establish a workflow, while not taking time laboring basic points.

[Howardlong]

I started doing PCBs seriously in 2006 on 4.16 layout+schematic+autorouter. At the time I compared against Diptace which seemed far more intuitive, but Eagle won the day because of its extensive library and despite its ass-backwards UI.

I did purchase one upgrade on 4.16 in 2009 to remove the sheet limitation.

I am now on an unlimited 6.2.0 layout+schematic licence and haven't seen a need to upgrade. The autorouter I found to be of little use nowadays as we've moved to serial busses. I never did like it anyway! One little trick is that I found I could copy and paste between the sheet limited autoroute version and the full non-autorouter version for the rare occasions I feel the need for some autorouting nonsense. The 3D might be nice but I'd imagine it's more work on my libraries which are now quite extensive, so I can do without.

So in ten years I made three purchases totalling about £1,500 on Eagle and can still open my projects from ten years ago without paying a dime. Features come slowly to these kinds of packages, any changes are very incremental and face the law of diminishing returns.

Whether I continue with Eagle or not for new designs that actually need the new functionality offered I don't know, but the new licensing model is certainly a great reason to look elsewhere.

[alan242]

Now, does anyone know what happened to the (extremely useful) listing of ULPs and scripts that used to be on Cadsoft's download page? The page on Autodesk's site
(http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp) doesn't list anything at all. I really hope they haven't screwed that up as well - I often referred to that list to find helpful scripts.

With a bit of google-fu I was able to get a list. Try this direct link
http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp?q%20s%20=uploaded_at+asc#5545931730586846846
It should display the ulp list in upload date descending order.

[Faith]

Autodesk is full subscription going forward and this position is non-negotiable.

Oh Autodesk, I beg to differ. Everything in this world is negotiable; except this time, where Autodesk is concerned, I'll be negotiating with my money.

And when I say "negotiating," what I actually mean to say is: Autodesk will not be getting any of my money anymore.

You see, I actually have a couple of graphic designers over at my company; and when Adobe decided to pull off this exact same stunt several years ago, I put out a stop order on all Adobe-related purchases. And as it turns out, our graphic designers are more than happy to stick to Adobe CS6; a product which is soon to be six years old.

Prior to this I actually upgraded our Adobe licenses every two revisions. And now? Take a guess.

Soon after, when it became clear that Autodesk was headed towards the same direction, I also terminated the maintenance agreements of all our full AutoCAD Mechanical licenses. This was in addition to the fact that Autodesk have clearly run out of ideas with respect to how to make their products better. When I asked a sales manager at Autodesk "what new features have Autodesk integrated into AutoCAD over the past five years to increase productivity" the only answer I got was "cloud."

Yep. Cloud. That's it. What a joke.

The fact is that AutoCAD, and many of Autodesk's other products, have been feature-complete for years. In my company there's a policy to save all CAD drawings as "AutoCAD 2004 Compatible" because of the sheer number of entities out there who are still more than happy to use AutoCAD versions from a decade or more ago.

It's obvious that Autodesk is afraid. They're afraid that their lack of innovation is going to hurt the pockets of their shareholders.

And it should. Except that instead of pursuing innovation to rectify their dwindling profits, they're resorting to scum tactics in order to stay afloat. And this is an absolutely sickening and disgusting behaviour which I have neither interest nor tolerance in subscribing to.

Cloud and subscription-based software models offer a grand total of "zero" benefits to consumers.

And the vast majority of the time, there's a long list of "negatives." Having to register and sign-in to use our software is bullshit. Having our email addresses harvested by hackers because the likes of Adobe know fuck-all about securing web applications is bullshit. Having to always be online and then have the software stop working because of software vendors who know fuck-all about scaling their authentication services up with demand is bullshit. Having to endure yet another day of zero productivity because of software vendors who know fuck-all about QA forcing yet another needless, untested and unstable update down our throats is bullshit. Having to endure running a company with higher operation costs (yearly payments) and less net worth (perpetual licenses are assets, subscriptions aren't) is absolute bullshit.

So, to end what is a longer-than-anticipated rant; sure, by all means, go subscription-only. Just don't expect me to be part of it.

[hans]

Back in the day CAD programs must have been absolutely amazing pieces of computer software, and truly a marvelous milestone of computer technology.

But time has progressed. Packages like Cadence and Altium have evolved and have grown to these giant beasts of programs, that require some learning curve, but ultimately pay off in a huge amount of functionality and productivity. This is what makes them worth their multi thousand dollar price tags.
Not to say you need all of those cutting edge features. Altium from 2009 will serve just as well, albeit with some quirks and bugs.

On the other hand, it seems like Autodesk is trying to capitalize this almost purely legacy tool. No commercial company, even a startup, in their right mind is going to entangle themselves in this extraordinary expensive licensing mess (let alone being it subscription based) when free tools like Kicad do just a good as a job. Both tools aren't perfect, but one is free and the other is far from it.

The last few years I've been keeping up with the updates of Eagle; and really so little changes. We got some "advanced PCB features" but it's still in this quirky old interface. Library management is a mess. Design annotation features are limited. DRC/ERC rule checking is very limited. The PCB editor just only recently got net names on the board; woah! That sounds like it was some kind sci-fi tech to implement after all those years.

IMO Eagle is way overpriced for what it is, and the 50$ a month to draw 4-layer boards is an absolute joke. Even hobbyists have progressed to that level of technology when you can order 4-layer proto boards for 50$ from China or OSHpark.

Like I said, this subscription model sounds purely to capitalize on people who find themselves rusted to Eagle, companies with strict policies or just the uneducated. If this subscription model isn't an initiative to change, then I don't know what is.

[HeywoodFloyd]

Via google I found CERN saying "The world needs a freely available tool for designing open-source hardware. Without it, designers do not have the freedom to share their work efficiently. KiCad is that tool, and you can help to develop it. "

https://giving.web.cern.ch/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=6

CERN's always had a strong position on open source (waaay back in the past they'd disallow military use, but eventually came round to allowing any use). (One could sometimes suspect CERN of reimplementing things not written by themselves  so good to see the moral support.)

[Hole]

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.

Oh, KiCad. Imagine a first time user drops two parts, connects them and then picks one part to move it around and all connections rip off....

I second you opinion on Diptrace. Part creation is super easy, intuitive and fast. Schematic drawing is nice, PCB creation works ok, I do autorouting with Freeroute and optimize by hand.

On the downside:

• I wait for the day it dies. Look at the website. Latest news from march 2016. Facebook? Very slow and rare activity. On the plusside the forums are activ and questions are answered.
• Uff. Copy protection made a lot of problems. I wish they would rethink there distribution model... Make it open source... :-)
• Some parts are stinking old concepts. Like part search. You enter the part, click on search and whoooooop, 8 threaded 4 GHz 32 GB machine goes into a deep sleep while looking through 100 kB of data...
• Part placing in PCB designer misses some modern features, too. On-the-fly measurment, auto aligning like in PowerPoint, working (!) font support, all such stuff.
• Annoying bugs are not fixed. Turn off a layer in PCB designer and parts are still pic ked... Diptrace really missis bug fixes.

If you can live with the freeware limitations (300 pin, 2 layers, no commecerial use) it is a great product to wait for KiCad to mature to something usefull.

[jpanhalt]

Out of curiosity, I searched on resources at CERN.   There are a lot as you might expect.  If one searches of EDA there, you get:

Electronics Design Software Service tools available at CERN

http://information-technology.web.cern.ch/services/electronics-design-software

NB: Neither Eagle nor KiCad are listed

John

[FrankT]

It makes me wonder what Autodesk's grand plans are for their other products.

I'm very impressed with Fusion360, their free CAD offering for makers, but I always suspected they would suddenly change their policy and start charging for software.  The cynic in me thinks they are just waiting until users have a built large repository of parts where they are commited to the product.

Anyway, this is an opportunity for other EDA makers to lure eagle users to their products.  Maybe we'll see some discounts.

[AE2RO]

Ahhhhh........this sucks, then i`m out
This is a complete deal breaker for me as far as using eagle 

[imajeenyus]

Now, does anyone know what happened to the (extremely useful) listing of ULPs and scripts that used to be on Cadsoft's download page? The page on Autodesk's site
(http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp) doesn't list anything at all. I really hope they haven't screwed that up as well - I often referred to that list to find helpful scripts.

With a bit of google-fu I was able to get a list. Try this direct link
http://eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/ulp?q%20s%20=uploaded_at+asc#5545931730586846846
It should display the ulp list in upload date descending order.

Thanks for that! They maybe hadn't uploaded them at the time I was looking. Good to see they still have the old ones (back to 1997!). Search feature is handy, especially since some ULPs (e.g. the DXF import ones) have multiple versions.

[jaromir]

http://information-technology.web.cern.ch/services/electronics-design-software
NB: Neither Eagle nor KiCad are listed

CERN is huge organization, made of many separate units, sometimes with complicated, none or just occasional interaction between them.
The fact couple of KiCad developers are at payroll of CERN doesn't mean that all their employees are KiCad enthusiasts. Friend of mine, working here, told me they even had ballet dancer on CERN payroll once and this doesn't mean they are enthusiastic about him or ballet in general.

[Simon]

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.

Try proteus, it has a way of it's own of working but for a yearly license of level 2 (ground planes and 3D CAD export) it is £135+Vat, I think it will still work if you don't pay but you don't get updates or support.

[ptricks]

The online subscription model or cloud based software is doing harm to a large part of the world that cannot get internet access.
I live in a rural area of the USA. We can't get internet to half the homes in the county. That means people in half the county cannot
use software from autodesk or other companies that choose this method.
High school students cannot even use educational or free versions of software because of this crap.

[f4eru]

All Hail The Cloud !! 

[Laertes]

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).
But the thing is, Autodesk seems to really intend to improve EAGLE. If (or, more correctly, when) they do, all will be forgotten and forgiven. Integration with Fusion, Inventor, Simulation, anyone? Yes, certainly not a hobbyist market, but a true path to that job requirement for sure.
So, as much as you may feel cheated, ADSK knows what it's doing. Is there a possibility of EAGLE failing and ceasing to exist in the future? Yes. Is it likely? In my opinion, not really. ADSK is no Google, after all. They moved towards circuit design for a long time, they didn't buy EAGLE on a whim, and they will follow their plan no matter what, so better relax and see where it's leading.

I agree and disagree.

For Maya and Inventor etc, they didn't lose anything. In those markets, when Autodesk made the changes, they were already market leaders in their respective areas. They could dictate whatever the hell they want, because people might complain, but they had nowhere to go. There are essentially no professional products that directly compete with Maya or 3ds Max or Inventor, and there weren't a few years back when they changed everything to subscription.

EAGLE, as it is in version 8.0.1, is nowhere near a professional tool. And at the pricepoint, there are quite a few tools out there that have comparable or better features, much better interfaces and potentially better pricing schemes.

Right now, and Version 8 didn't add many improvements on this part, as Dave said, EAGLE is a hobbyist/1-man-band/small company tool and most people use it that way. For this market, they will lose even more customers.

In the professional market, my experience is that people complain about subscription models, but most end up liking them anyway. Especially in larger companies with lots of bureaucracy many team leaders eventually realized that they could sneak in new licenses with a lot less effort because there is no large initial spending. And smaller companies tend to pay more for subscription-based software (because, unlike most large companies I know, they would have bought just a fixed license and no support contracts), but in my personal experience, they will quite frequently make use of being able to add one more seat for just two months because they just got in this new big contract and now they need one more seat until the job is done...

But EAGLE isn't in a professional place right now and if it wants to get there, it has some work to do - and even then, they will have other professional tools to compete against, unlike in the other industries...

[dimkasta]

On Version 8.0.2, the library editor is unusable on Mac

On 8.01 it used to freeze randomly with some cryptic message that a command is ongoing, which prevented you from closing the window or doing anything else. And you had to force quit the app. Now with 8.0.2 (which included a fix for this) the program crashes instead of freezing.
Well... at least it is an improvement on time lost... We don't have to manually kill the application anymore.

Anyway, I updated to standard last week. With over-taxation here in Greece, buying deductible stuff is more appealing than ever.

[Karel]

And what about this one:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/eagle-forum/eagle-8-0-2-blank-screen-on-load/td-p/6906897

Looks like they did a big overhaul and made a big mess...

[vivid]

Is there anyone who has used EasyEDA? It's much easier to use than other programs like Eagle.

EasyEDA is a cloud-based EDA tool suite which supports open source and working collaboratively. This software allows the used to design schematics and PCB anytime, anywhere around the world. and you can even order your PCBs from them or download the Gerber files to use with other company like oshpark.

The product has a huge library of schematic components, PCB footprints and packages with spice simulation, models and .subckts to boot.

Now imagine a free tool that connects you with your colleagues for doing the perfect design work together, or just adding a remote friend to have a look on your newly finished board, to look for errors or do some improvements.
This is fantastic, especially after the bad news concerning Eagle's lastest perverting by Autodesk. EasyEDA is a free software as well without any limitations. For Eagle, it is now only available for purchase as a subscription, you’ll be paying Autodesk on a monthly or yearly basis. The free version still exists, but for anyone using Eagle for commercial purposes.

Moreover, they also have a nice online Gerber Viewer which has a "Analysis results" function that shows various important measurements.

The following Youtube video from GreatScott provides a quick review of EasyEDA features.


I thought that it could be interesting for some people here.

[rachaelp]

Is there anyone who has used EasyEDA? It's much easier to use than other programs like Eagle.

EasyEDA is a cloud-based EDA tool suite

The biggest issue causing consternation amongst EAGLE users is the requirement for an internet connection and the permanent existence of the Autodesk servers for guaranteed future ability to edit designs. At least with EAGLE the freeware license would forever enable you to view/export your designs if anything were to happen and the product got shelved. A totally cloud based service would be a big step in the worse direction for all those migrating away from EAGLE for the long term supportability reason.

Now imagine a free tool that connects you with your colleagues for doing the perfect design work together

No serious hardware design company is going to rely on a free cloud based tool. It's not a risk worth taking. Possibly fine for hobby use if people don't mind risking losing everything they've done if the service were to cease to exist but not for serious work.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[CJay]

No serious hardware design company is going to rely on a free cloud based tool. It's not a risk worth taking. Possibly fine for hobby use if people don't mind risking losing everything they've done if the service were to cease to exist but not for serious work.

No chance, not even with software escrow (no idea if that could even work with a cloud app) would I rely on free, cloud based software if my livelihood relied on it unless I had a damn good alternative, even as a hobbyist I like my software and data where I can put my hands on it, internet licensing and cloud applications are a nightmare, unscrupulous or disonourable companies can deprive you of access any time they like for as little as a bad review.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/21/amateur_radio_fans_drop_hammer_on_hrds_blacklist/

[madires]

EasyEDA is a cloud-based EDA tool suite which supports open source and working collaboratively. This software allows the used to design schematics and PCB anytime, anywhere around the world. and you can even order your PCBs from them or download the Gerber files to use with other company like oshpark.

I prefer to have a local installation of an EDA tool with a perpetual licence to be able to open a circuit or a board to edit it any time. That might be tomorrow or in 10 years. Therefore cloud based stuff or subscription based models are an absolute no-go for me.

[MrBungle]

EasyEDA is a cloud-based EDA tool suite which supports open source and working collaboratively. This software allows the used to design schematics and PCB anytime, anywhere around the world. and you can even order your PCBs from them or download the Gerber files to use with other company like oshpark.

I prefer to have a local installation of an EDA tool...

It is coming, quotes below are from the following page: https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/EasyEDA_is_down_because_of_A_huge_DDoS_attack-JxPI0iASM

EasyEDA will provide a desktop version soon, the desktop version is always no need to connect web site. It will be OK to be tested, let us know if you want to help us to test the desktop version.

The desktop version will allowed you to save your file to your desktop...

[dimkasta]

To be fair, autodesk seems to be very active with new releases.
And I loved the new "avoid obstacles" routing. Such a time saver. The library issues seem to have been solved on OSX as well.

The only thing annoying me now is the size restriction on the standard version.

And a roadmap would be very nice. Even a vague one. There are a lot of people thinking to migrate to other software because they do not see any big picture or benefit behind a long-term commitment to eagle.

[madires]

Eagle users have just learned that they can't trust Autodesk. How could they take any roadmap seriously?

[dimkasta]

A Roadmap is not a locked release calendar. It is usually vague, it includes only publicly announceable stuff (usually greatly beautified), and is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Not something to be taken seriously. No serious professional would ever allow his business to depend on roadmap expectations.
It is just a description of what the plans for the future are, accompanied by an estimated release plan, usually grouped in yearly quarters.

Currently, the only thing that users know about Eagle's future with Autodesk is the increased monthly/yearly cost of usage (not even ownership) and bugs. Not such a great incentive for users that are used to having software that works forever.

[H.O]

Right, a roadmap should be taken with a grain of salt - that's an understatement when it comes to these people. Here's Matt from Autodesk speaking of the roadmap in July last year (the quote is from here.

@Dave, it's not going subscription.  So there.    At this stage, that isn't anywhere on my roadmap.  Thought about it.  Decided against it.  Can I say that we will never in the life of any product do that?  No, of course not.  That would be at best unfair, at worst dishonest.  But I have so many things that are more pressing.

Not anywhere on the roadmap, thought about it, decided against it. Right.
They didn't only change their roadmap, they did full 180° and did exactly the opposite. OK, he did say he couldn't promise it would never happen during the life of the product but it only took them 6 months. Given the choice of now or 5 yeard down the road, with even more time invested in EAGLE I'm glad they did it now so I could eject.

[Brumby]

Road maps of roads that haven't been built yet....

I wouldn't be planning a holiday with that much uncertainty, let alone relying on them - or even factoring them in - for business.