Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)

[Doctorandus_P]

I ran Altium for 3 years recently and in that time frame, not once did they ever address a bug that we reported.  We were very conservative in our reporting and fixes were indeed needed but never came. 

My personal record between reporting an issue for KiCad on Gitlab and a "Fix commited" is 28 minutes. It took me more then that to create a good bug report. For the last two years or so, about 200 new issues are created for KiCad on gitlab, and also about 200 are closed each month, and the total is fairly stable between around 1500 and 2000 open issues. A lot of the new issues get fixed quickly, while some of the older can linger around for many years, but often there are good reasons for that.

Also, for USD 400 you can get a year of commercial support for KiCad via https://www.kipro-pcb.com/#   and if you throw in the price difference of a single-year-altium-subscription, you can get a lot of personal attention to have custom features implemented. But there is a catch, and that is that the feature you want implemented has to fit with the long term goals of the KiCad project itself.

Now imagine if a company which has 20 altium seats decides to do this. That would be enough to put an extra full time developer on the KiCad project.

[PlainName]

An alternative method is to use Open Source software "for free", and then donate to the project

That's fine if the 'free' software does the job required, but cutting off your nose if it doesn't. Would you automatically go for Freecad when you really want Fusion 360, just because it's 'free'?

[Doctorandus_P]

I went for FreeCAD years before fusion360 existed. I am also strongly biased towards Open Source and the philosophy behind it. I've seen autodesk abusing their users as beta testers and then cutting them off when the new features start becoming valuable. I would love seeing 5D toolpath generation in FreeCAD, but simply can't afford the autodesk software, and that is separate from my thorough dislike of that company in general.

But I do agree that fusion360 does make sense for a lot of companies, while FreeCAD has not reached version 1 yet. FreeCAD has been run by hackers and has been hampered by lack of resources for many years now. And that also strengthens my point. Lack of resources is a mayor issue for many Open Source projects. FreeCAD is now slowly moving towards methods of gathering more resources to speed up development and it seems to be doing well, but needs a few more years.

And there are a lot of open source projects which have been competitive with closed source projects for many years. For example firefox, apache, many Linux distributions, KiCad, Blender, ansible and thousands of others.

Last time I checked, Blender received around EUR 3M of yearly donations and is an extremely healthy project. There also seem to be quite a lot of people who earn a living with open source software, for example with maintenance, custom development (Blender plugins, scenes, parts like animals and such, etc).

Also note that all of the top 500 super computers are running Linux:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer_operating_system

This is an excellent example for Open Source software. Commercial development would be extremely expensive, because of the limited amount of systems that need an OS for it. At the same time each company running such a computer very likely needs custom modules because these systems are often one-of-a-kind. Collaboration and Open Sourcing the stuff makes a lot of sense in this niche.

But you do have to choose your battles. Open Source is not (yet) a viable alternative for everyone or for each application. It's a complicated and diverse world we're living in.

[VEGETA]

well, let's better keep it about kicad without mentioning other unrelated software.

kicad is making nice performance in pcb design space which is a viable option for many. i am not the suitable person to judge but in my experience kicad really does a lot of stuff which previously were part of paid software... and it is going forward even more.

[Smokey]

My suggestion to Altium was to offer AD with a limit of two layers at 160 x 100mm (sound familiar?) for US$499 a year. That would have mopped up a lot, a lot of people. Response: crickets.

Two layers isn't enough anymore.  Standard spec 4 layer boards are so cheap now it almost doesn't make sense to restrict yourself to 2 layers and have unnecessarily convoluted layouts to try to save money on the board.

Note:  Obviously if you are going to make 10,000 of something then the math looks different.  But if you are making 10,000 of something you probably already have your pro level tools sorted out.

[Kasper]

well, let's better keep it about kicad without mentioning other unrelated software.

Yes, let's keep this 'Circuit Studio' thread about kicad.   

[VEGETA]

well, let's better keep it about kicad without mentioning other unrelated software.

Yes, let's keep this 'Circuit Studio' thread about kicad.   

well, you got me there 

however, comparing CS to its market competitor is somehow related to this thread... but bringing stuff like freecad or blender is completely unrelated.

[Doctorandus_P]

however, comparing CS to its market competitor is somehow related to this thread... but bringing stuff like freecad or blender is completely unrelated.

"plainname" started the FreeCAD thing, I only responded to that. But I do agree I went a bit (too) far.

[EE-digger]

well, let's better keep it about kicad without mentioning other unrelated software.

Yes, let's keep this 'Circuit Studio' thread about kicad.   

Kicad is just about the only set of matches that could light a fire under Altium's bottom so in that respect, is relevant.  However, Altium will remain stone deaf until the lost revenue reaches some critical mass. 

But in some ways, Altium is like our government (US).  It may very well hit a critical threshold but then turn around and do something stupid to address the problem. 

Dave probably knows exactly what to expect from them, having been a live observer.  I haven't kept up with his comments though and it would be professional on his part to not divulge the inner workings.

How about AD Lite?  Perpetual license for $1,000.  Restrict it to a fairly good board size, net and component counts.  These three numbers would have to come from AD user experience though.  It wouldn't make sense for Altium to shoot itself in the foot but there must be a set of numbers where all involved communities can be happy.     

I have a meeting at 10am with an Altium "agent".  We'll see what response comes from that but it's likely they never heard of CircuitMaker Pro.   

[EE-digger]

Interesting.  Had a nice discussion with "my" sales rep.  I was offered a huge discount for a perpetual AD license.  My comments regarding several paths for a entry level product will be passed along to a high level individual.  I mentioned how impressed I was with Kicad after 9 years with AD and decades before in PCB/CAD.

[Smokey]

Interesting.  Had a nice discussion with "my" sales rep.  I was offered a huge discount for a perpetual AD license.  My comments regarding several paths for a entry level product will be passed along to a high level individual.  I mentioned how impressed I was with Kicad after 9 years with AD and decades before in PCB/CAD.

All they offered me was a "huge discount" on a single seat individual subscription license for a year.  You talked to a better person than I did.

[EEVblog]

This thread is now 3 1/2 years old. Is it safe to call the Circuit Studio patient dead now? 
(I don't mean close the thread BTW)

[Smokey]

This thread is now 3 1/2 years old. Is it safe to call the Circuit Studio patient dead now? 
(I don't mean close the thread BTW)

With all the wacky business decisions they make, it it totally out of the question that they could neglect a released product for 3+ years only to then change course and make it a priority again?

[EE-digger]

I would say it's in cryo suspension but it's value as a revenue stream is tiny.  It would only come to life to counter advances by Kicad and others.  IMHO of course.

Part of me says pay for maintenance one more time in case they do something wacky and release it, and the other part of me thinks I'm an idiot.

[EEVblog]

This thread is now 3 1/2 years old. Is it safe to call the Circuit Studio patient dead now? 
(I don't mean close the thread BTW)

With all the wacky business decisions they make, it it totally out of the question that they could neglect a released product for 3+ years only to then change course and make it a priority again?

Well, when I worked there they actually made the PCB tool optional extra, so anything is possible.

[H.O]

I have tried so hard, several times, to give them money for renewed maintenance on my CS license but it has been impossible. I would have gotten nothing for that money so I thank them for that.