Author Topic: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?  (Read 40035 times)

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Offline VEGETA

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #25 on: April 23, 2018, 05:22:14 am »
I don't rent software, period, there are other arguments but this is the only one I need. Since I'm the potential customer I'm the one who gets to call those shots, otherwise I go elsewhere, which is what I've done.

Yes, especially that with the price you pay for rent you could own a better or a similar product.

Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #26 on: April 23, 2018, 05:39:35 am »
I don't rent software, period, there are other arguments but this is the only one I need. Since I'm the potential customer I'm the one who gets to call those shots, otherwise I go elsewhere, which is what I've done.

I did not have $10k for Altium, $6k for Solidworks, and $13k for Mastercam which is about what they all wanted.

I had been off maintenance with Solidworks for a few years and they wanted to charge me for each year to get back up to date which is pretty much a new full license. Altium would have been an all-new purchase - so pretty close to full rate. Mastercam may have cut me a break since I already own an out of date license.

Let's say the best case scenario would be about $22,000 to get all three. Then about $4,300/year for maintenance.
Or I can 'rent' Eagle and Fusion360 for $650/year. After 10 years, that would be $6,500. The same 10 years with Altium, Solidworks, and Mastercam would be $65,000.

I will 'rent' and be happy about it.
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Offline hendorog

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #27 on: April 23, 2018, 06:29:36 am »
I don't rent software, period, there are other arguments but this is the only one I need. Since I'm the potential customer I'm the one who gets to call those shots, otherwise I go elsewhere, which is what I've done.

I did not have $10k for Altium, $6k for Solidworks, and $13k for Mastercam which is about what they all wanted.

I had been off maintenance with Solidworks for a few years and they wanted to charge me for each year to get back up to date which is pretty much a new full license. Altium would have been an all-new purchase - so pretty close to full rate. Mastercam may have cut me a break since I already own an out of date license.

Let's say the best case scenario would be about $22,000 to get all three. Then about $4,300/year for maintenance.
Or I can 'rent' Eagle and Fusion360 for $650/year. After 10 years, that would be $6,500. The same 10 years with Altium, Solidworks, and Mastercam would be $65,000.

I will 'rent' and be happy about it.

Exactly, it can make a lot of sense. I would love to be able to rent Keysight Genesys/NI AWR and the full version of Sonnet software.

Cadsoft pissed me off when I paid the list price for Eagle - despite using Eagle I hadn't noticed the splash screen advert offering a 30% discount. I saw that advert seconds after clicking the payment through, but they ignored my emails asking to cancel the order, and/or for the discount to be applied. That lost them a customer immediately.



 

Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2018, 06:29:56 am »
How about looking instead at all the positive things they’ve done?
The one negative thing they've done (subscription) paired with the lack of software-stability after telling lies has so much weight, that this is not an option.

Exactly this.
 

Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2018, 06:33:26 am »
And this:
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2018, 06:57:27 am »
What stability issues are you referring to? I have not had any stability issues at all. Keep in mind, I am a user that is quite critical of Eagle. I am, however, giving them some credit for pushing the system in a positive direction overall.

As for the subscription model - I have not heard many arguments that I interpret as reasonable. I can see it being a problem in some cases for sure, but the loudest and most critical seem to be arguing from a position of emotions.
It makes perfect business sense to limit the amount of companies your company depends on to such a degree. You could wake up tomorrow with all your IP tied to a program that will only work for another month. If you buy software, you get to at least use it as long as you want. That's not emotional at all. Running a business is all about avoiding risks and taking them where they pay. Adding unneccessary risks without a considerable reward isn't making sense, though everyone will need to decide for himself at what point the money is worth it.

Let's also not forget that this partner has already proven itself to be volatile very recently.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2018, 07:01:05 am by Mr. Scram »
 

Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #31 on: April 23, 2018, 06:58:43 am »
I have not seen any of those errors on my ancient Win7 machine or my newer Win10 system.



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Offline Jeroen3

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #32 on: April 23, 2018, 08:34:20 am »
And here I am, routing a board with version 7.1.0 on Windows 7 (64 bit) for the last two weeks. A few days ago I had my first spontaneous crash, ever. It just hanged and quit. First time in years.
 

Offline rachaelp

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #33 on: April 23, 2018, 11:10:05 am »
How about looking instead at all the positive things they’ve done?
The one negative thing they've done (subscription) paired with the lack of software-stability after telling lies has so much weight, that this is not an option.

Exactly this.

If you really think Matt deliberately lied then there's little more that can be said here. Of course it's far more likely he said what he did, believing it to be true and then circumstances changed, Audodesk corporate policy became a factor, etc and he had no choice but to go to a subscription. It would make no sense for him to knowingly lie about it because he'd also know it would come back to bite him.

I'd agree the subscription would be a negative if Autodesk had continued developing EAGLE at the same pace as CadSoft but that's not the case. They've put and continue to put a lot of effort into making EAGLE have the features users have been complaining were missing for years. Yes there have been issues, and the stability did suffer a lot early on but it's getting a lot better again now.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2018, 02:56:49 pm by rachaelp »
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Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #34 on: April 23, 2018, 12:44:13 pm »
To me the switch of license options without prior announcement and without a grace period for existing
customers is highly unprofessional. As Autodesk is no small company where such a mistake can be the
responsibility of a single employee, I can only conclude that this was intentional to force customers into
the new model. Again, this is highly unprofessional and shows that they either have no confidence in the
future product development, or that they intentionally accepted to disturb their customers' business for
short term sales.

A semiconductor vendor that does this would be out of busyness soon, considering the damage this situation
causes for the clients which become unable to support/continue their products.

Considering the importance of ECAD software for product support, I see no reason why an ECAD vendor should
be judged by different standards.

It is ironic that Autodesk offers solutions for product lifecycle management, but is unable to implement
even the simplest PLM measures for a newly acquired software product. Failing to see that changing the
license terms is for many customers no different than discontinuing the product is unacceptable for a
software vendor specialized in professional software.

Consequently we have blacklisted Autodesk as we would blacklist a semiconductor vendor that fails us in such
a critical way. I can only encourage everyone to think carefully whether to build their busyness on a vendor
that cannot keep promises made six months ago, cannot communicated important changes in advance and does not
care at all about the fallout this causes for their existing customers.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #35 on: April 23, 2018, 06:08:49 pm »

If you really think Matt deliberately lied then there's little more that can be said here. Of course it's far more likely he said what he did, believing it to be true and then circumstances changed, Audodesk corporate policy became a factor, etc and he had no choice but to go to a subscription. It would make no sense for him to knowingly lie about it because he'd also know it would come back to bite him.

Bullshit. They said it wouldn't go subscription only weeks before taking it subscription, no large company makes major decisions like that on a whim, they lied. Note I'm not saying that Matt personally lied, he may well have been repeating what management above him said, but it is reflected on the company overall.
 

Offline KE5FX

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #36 on: April 23, 2018, 07:25:28 pm »
And here I am, routing a board with version 7.1.0 on Windows 7 (64 bit) for the last two weeks. A few days ago I had my first spontaneous crash, ever. It just hanged and quit. First time in years.

I've seen it crash once, maybe as many as 2-3 times, in over 10 years of use.  Really impressive, and very hard to maintain a record like that while you're adding new features to an older product.
 

Offline rachaelp

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #37 on: April 23, 2018, 07:27:07 pm »

If you really think Matt deliberately lied then there's little more that can be said here. Of course it's far more likely he said what he did, believing it to be true and then circumstances changed, Audodesk corporate policy became a factor, etc and he had no choice but to go to a subscription. It would make no sense for him to knowingly lie about it because he'd also know it would come back to bite him.

Bullshit. They said it wouldn't go subscription only weeks before taking it subscription, no large company makes major decisions like that on a whim, they lied. Note I'm not saying that Matt personally lied, he may well have been repeating what management above him said, but it is reflected on the company overall.

It wasn't weeks it was at least 6 months, maybe longer. That statement was made by Matt shortly after the Autodesk purchase of Cadsoft was announced, the subscription came along when v8 was announced in January last year. Don't rewrite the timeline.
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Offline KE5FX

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #38 on: April 23, 2018, 07:47:47 pm »
It wasn't weeks it was at least 6 months, maybe longer. That statement was made by Matt shortly after the Autodesk purchase of Cadsoft was announced, the subscription came along when v8 was announced in January last year. Don't rewrite the timeline.

Actually, if you want to look at the timeline, the first elements of the subscription strategy came along much earlier than that, when CadSoft themselves tried to add MAC-based flexlm licensing at the introduction of V7.   You may recall how that was received on the NNTP support group, and how quickly it was walked back.

At the time, CadSoft didn't have enough money in the bank to stick to their guns and wait for the customer revolt to die down.  But Autodesk obviously does.  Bully for them, I guess.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #39 on: April 23, 2018, 07:48:47 pm »
It wasn't weeks it was at least 6 months, maybe longer. That statement was made by Matt shortly after the Autodesk purchase of Cadsoft was announced, the subscription came along when v8 was announced in January last year. Don't rewrite the timeline.

Actually, if you want to look at the timeline, the first elements of the subscription strategy came along much earlier than that, when CadSoft themselves tried to force an online requirement at the introduction of V7.   You may recall how that was received on the NNTP support group, and how quickly it was walked back.

Sorry mate, you are making a fool of yourself. Your correct answer to Rachael's post is: "Oops, sorry, you are right. I was mistaken about the timeline."
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #40 on: April 23, 2018, 08:19:53 pm »
I do remember it happened fast. 6 months is nothing if you ever happened to work in a big company.
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Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #41 on: April 23, 2018, 08:25:26 pm »
1. I don't really care much about confusion over the subscription.

2. I seriously doubt that the guy that said they were not going that direction had any idea the Autodesk was about to take over the hopes, dreams, and culture of the CadSoft world. During an acquisition - it often feels like it is going to be one big happy family. Later, they realize it is a cold dictatorship and their opinons are squashed like little insects.

I have built/sold two businesses and worked for 2 others that were sold. It is a confusing mess.

3. Again, this argument/discussion is largely based on emotions.
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Offline macegr

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #42 on: April 24, 2018, 02:39:53 am »
"The guy that said it" happens to be the person who leads the entire Eagle project at Autodesk.

Honestly we're doing him a favor by ignoring the old adage, and chalking this up to malice rather than incompetence.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2018, 02:42:26 am by macegr »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #43 on: April 24, 2018, 03:15:52 am »
I could swear Dave mentioned a much shorter timeline in his video about the matter but it's been quite a while now since I saw that. Perhaps I'm remembering wrong, although I do agree that 6 months is still a short enough time that somebody there had to know what the plan was.
 

Offline macegr

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #44 on: April 24, 2018, 06:12:45 am »
It was a handful of months, yes. And the statement was made by the one person privy to all internal roadmap discussions for the Autodesk Eagle project, and responsible for planning and assigning work to developers. If someone walked in and force-fed him his own words and enforced their roadmap over his, that must have been one hell of a humbling, ego-damaging moment. Usually people quit the company at that point in order to scrape together a few shreds of dignity.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #45 on: April 24, 2018, 06:34:19 am »
It was a handful of months, yes.

Can we please stop splitting hairs about the timeline? It was six months, as stated by rachaelp. The often-referred-to statement "it's not going subscription" dates from July 6, 2016 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/autodesk-buys-eagle/100/, reply #124), and they moved to a subscription model in January 2017 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-965-the-(autodesk)-eagle-has-crashed/).

Does this make it likely that Autodesk honestly didn't plan the transition to a subscription model in July 2016? I don't know. In my experience, company acquisitions are preceded by building a solid business case, which normally has a longer half-life than six months. On the other hand, Autodesk's annual budget and revenue planning probably happened at some point between those two dates, and may indeed have resulted in a change of tack. We'll never know for sure until Matt writes his memoirs...
 

Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #46 on: April 24, 2018, 06:36:56 am »
@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.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/autodesk-buys-eagle/msg977529/#msg977529
 

Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #47 on: April 24, 2018, 06:37:27 am »
Autodesk is full subscription going forward and this position is
non-negotiable. I know that for a lot of you this is not good news, but
there's not much that can be done about it.

I'm truly sorry guys.
Jorge Garcia

http://www.eaglecentral.ca/index.php/mv/msg/52901/168331/#msg_168331
 

Offline Karel

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #48 on: April 24, 2018, 06:38:46 am »
Autodesk is willing to throw its users under the bus, with no warning and even after promising otherwise, if it suits their purposes. This very real risk is enough to make people think twice about investing their time in the Eagle ecosystem (in addition to Autodesk's money grubbing license policies).

The pricing is not the issue (though it's more expensive for someone who makes a PCB every month). The part you're missing is that some of us prefer not to have our tools stop working on the day Autodesk decides Eagle isn't worth it anymore.
 
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Offline ebastler

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Re: Eagle 9 - any thoughts?
« Reply #49 on: April 24, 2018, 06:41:24 am »
@Karel -- yes, your first post links to reply #124 which I referred to. The eaglecentral link in your next post seems dead, and hence not helpful for dating the statement.
 


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