Introducing Altium Discover, Altium Develop, and Altium Agile

[Doctorandus_P]

Other software - and even Kicad is terrible at this - require that everyone opening a file has to be using the same version, and there is no forward compatibility at all.

I agree that having "future compatibility" in KiCad would be very nice, but with an FOSS program like KiCad it is much less of an issue because you can always update to the latest and greatest stable version. There is no need to cling desperately to a 5 years old (or even older) version. In practice, for most people it just means they have to plan and coordinate a bit at which point they upgrade to the newer stable version. But I do agree that it can be a bit problematic sometimes. (I'll leave it at that, to not further hijack an altium thread with KiCad stuff)

[PlainName]

you can always update to the latest and greatest stable version

Providing you succumb to using the approved OS version.

[tooki]

Other software - and even Kicad is terrible at this - require that everyone opening a file has to be using the same version, and there is no forward compatibility at all.

I agree that having "future compatibility" in KiCad would be very nice, but with an FOSS program like KiCad it is much less of an issue because you can always update to the latest and greatest stable version. There is no need to cling desperately to a 5 years old (or even older) version.

As someone who worked at a software company long ago [edit: where I worked in the support department, helping customers with our software]: yyyyeah, I'm guessing you've never dealt with much corporate IT. In some cases, they will not install software outside of a complete OS image that they ghost onto the user systems, and they do that once or twice a year. They may (or not!  ) allow Windows updates to self-install, or they push those out separately, but applications are shit out of luck.

Yes, that is absolutely as insane as it sounds. But it's the reality in some companies. At the company I worked at, this meant that some users [edit: at our customer companies, not ours] were stuck dealing with bugs that we had fixed months ago, sometimes years.

While I was there, one customer's company upgraded to Windows Vista in 2011.  (Or was it from Win2k to XP? I don't remember the details, only that they were upgrading from prehistoric Windows to an already-obsolete Windows...)

Upshot being that just because updates are free of charge in no way means that all users can actually get said updates.

Altium's handling of file compatibility between versions is truly commendable. KiCad could really stand to do better in this regard. (As could a lot of software...)

[Doctorandus_P]

Yes, that is absolutely as insane as it sounds.

Just leave it at that. I've already heard and seen enough idiotic behavior of people to last me the rest of my life. I suggest you start looking for a job where the boss acts in a sane and responsible way.

[tooki]

Yes, that is absolutely as insane as it sounds.

Just leave it at that. I've already heard and seen enough idiotic behavior of people to last me the rest of my life. I suggest you start looking for a job where the boss acts in a sane and responsible way.

Huh?

Sorry, I see it wasn’t clear from my wording that the nonsense was not at my workplace. It was at customers. Our product had been fixed long ago, but some users couldn’t benefit from it because their corporate IT wouldn’t apply the (free!) updates.

Also, that’s not my current job: I said it was my job “long ago”.

[free_electron]

Just leave it at that. I've already heard and seen enough idiotic behavior of people to last me the rest of my life. I suggest you start looking for a job where the boss acts in a sane and responsible way.

Try that in aerospace. There needs to be a complete traceability including what software, what version, what os...
"you will use this setup". no installing of different versions or other tools.

I was stuck with a 4 year old version of Siemens NX that was no longer supported. Sorry. no upgrade. Not until a new project. For this existing project : this is the toolset.