Fusion 360 just added Eagle inside it! Thoughts?

[hlavac]

It looks like Autodesk managed to fuse Eagle derivative inside of Fusion 360.
I don't know, too good to be true?
Not really fan of subscription model... Somehow I always see them jacking up the subscription price in the future so high we will hit the moon...

They may give nice temporary discounts now, but I'm pretty sure they will make up for it later when I 'm locked in...

Anyway, it is pretty interesting they have added Eagle in without rising the price (so far). The CAD part is pretty good... must... resist... temptation...

[PKTKS]

No surprises.

Being bounded to that LICENSE-WARE  model
**if ** they do not add value for the money...

chances are that today they will be more and more
obsoleted by large adoption of  good quality open source
CAD/EDA tools.

Bottom line: Those folks are NOT used to competition.

They really don't want competition - they've locked out
all competition by controlling underlying vendors and
firmware blobs with bundled license-ware daemons.
Crippled OS to the maximum extent of control

These days are gone. Adding value for the thing will
just  buy  them some time... IMHO until some change
they will be forced into

** IF ** eventually those "embrace and extinguish" works or not..

wait to see
Paul

[daqq]

Given the subscription only model, Eagle is dead to me and all future development in it is irrelevant.

I don't know, too good to be true?

How is that good? Mandatory integration is never good.

[nctnico]

A subscription model could be interesting due to lower the upfront costs but it also means you are renting your own IP. Stop paying and you'll be locked out of your own IP.

[PKTKS]

A subscription model could be interesting due to lower the upfront costs but it also means you are renting your own IP. Stop paying and you'll be locked out of your own IP.

EXACTLY.  They want YOU as a  TENANT only...

This is deeply linked to proprietary "FORMATS" in which
they have  been quite diligent to keep closed and proprietary.

I remember first time around the ~2000s when an open source
library to "read" assets based on R12 was launched... and very soon
they LOCKED OUT all formats with a proprietary "CERTIFIED" R12.

They KO the project and since all our assets are bounded to a proprietary
format.. you are doomed and hopeless stuck with a no way to go (read)
all your assets.

Putting a huge ASSET BASE into a vendor locked down format is
to say the least - something not very clever..

They have you in their pockets:
- YOU PAY FOR THE HARDWARE
- YOU PAY THE BILL OF YOUR ASSETS
- they actually own the property of both
 as your hardware will not function wo the locked
 drivers or formats (some versions are dongle based)

I had enough of this on the 90/early 00s.
dumped them as soon as possible

Paul

[Karel]

We are still using V7.70. It's extremely stable and reliable (at least on Linux). Subscription is a no go.
I would like to buy a license for the Professional/Ultimate version of V7.70 for personal use but autodesk doesn't want my money 

[beanflying]

Ignoring the issues with Eagle it does fit into Fusion 360 and seems to work fairly well.

10 minute case with one of their examples. All I did was use the Fusion insert Derive on the existing board and do the usual sketch bits, created mounts using the PCB dimensions etc. The key thing here is in a workgroup type of situation if the Layout whiz changed the position of the holes or moved a component then the derived model gets auto updated.

So without looking closer I would think it is more an easier way for Designers and Mech Eng's to make the working bits look nice instead of forcing an amalgamation.

Conspiracy nuts aside it is just another 'feature' that in my case I won't use much as I don't play Eagle but I do play with Fusion on their FREE sub $100k licence.

[PKTKS]

(.)
Conspiracy nuts aside it is just another 'feature' that in my case I won't use much as I don't play Eagle but I do play with Fusion on their FREE sub $100k licence.

hardly "FREE"  as your assets are stored into a proprietary format.
They do own the intrinsic asset in that format by law.

Just a business model - it pre dates open source
and before that  it was a very cost one

A few less than half dozens "partners" in the clubs

Open source formats and soft to handle them
changed a lot that limitation

Paul

[beanflying]

If I ever hit the $100k threshold for Fusion then I am likely to be fine with justifying the annual subscription at that time. I used to use Coraldraw back in the day and I paid more in actual $ to keep that updated than several years of Fusion license.

As to proprietary most of the more modern CAD packages are like that so you are trying to peddle some sort of conspiracy with no foundation so don't!

For information and NO conspiracy I attach a list of the formats you can export into from Fusion.

[PKTKS]

(..)
For information and NO conspiracy I attach a list of the formats you can export into from Fusion.

Don't get me wrong.  There is no conspiracy. Just Business.

I have tried to "export" several times... Results will vary a lot
depending on your files but the bottom line ?

They DO NOT MATCH - SAME PROBLEM WITH EDA formats.

Not even EDIF succeeded. You still won't have the thing as is.

I tried that countless times.. No go. EACH CAD/EDA vendor
still fallback to own format - even EDIF failed ..

They are not "inter-operational"
no conspiracy. Business .

You do the math if it worth it or not.
Today there are alternatives

There was not such thing by 90 or early days
Zero alternatives

Paul

[PlainName]

If I ever hit the $100k threshold for Fusion then I am likely to be fine with justifying the annual subscription

That's not the issue. There have been many products where the 'private' or low-count usage has been free, and over time the features available or level at which you start paying has dropped. Ultimately, you end up paying just a little for the basic version and then the price starts going up. Well-known password manager and remote access vendors spring to mind, here.

Additionally, the type of vendor who sells only subscriptions also tends to dictate what version of the product you can run (must be the latest, 'to reduce support costs') so if the new version screws your workflow or worse, it's just too bad. Excellent example of this is Kaspersky where their new 2020 version prevent subversion being able to commit changes to a repo held on a NAS. Fortunately, in that case I persuaded them to let me keep running the 2019 version, but next year it looks like I'll have to jump ship if they haven't fixed things. Of course, I don't have any designs stored with Kaspersky so it would be just the loss of a useful tool rather than being locked out of my IPR.

Worth also looking at the recent Sonos u-turn. They did that because of the massively bad PR they got, but if it had just been a few people who got burned, Sonos wouldn't have even shed a crocodile tear before gouging them some more. The more people that see subscriptions as perfectly OK force the ones that see ahead to the bent-over rogering that's on the way into a smaller percentage that's less able to do anything about it.

[beanflying]

snip

They DO NOT MATCH - SAME PROBLEM WITH EDA formats.

Not even EDIF succeeded. You still won't have the thing as is.

I tried that countless times.. No go. EACH CAD/EDA vendor
still fallback to own format - even EDIF failed ..

They are not "inter-operational"
no conspiracy. Business .

You do the math if it worth it or not.
Today there are alternatives

There was not such thing by 90 or early days
Zero alternatives

Paul

That might be the case with Eagle to other PCB software but with Fusion apart from the normal STL (faultless every time) export I do for 3D printing the couple of time I have exported a sketchup model it has been fine too. The reality is this is adding a feature such as it is to existing software and has nothing really to do with export options.

..
That's not the issue. There have been many products where the 'private' or low-count usage has been free, and over time the features available or level at which you start paying has dropped. Ultimately, you end up paying just a little for the basic version and then the price starts going up. Well-known password manager and remote access vendors spring to mind, here.

....

Your two totally unrelated software packages as a warning fine. But what complete dick in CAD development would ever obsolete current clients designs by forced disallowing reverse compatibility the backlash would be HUGE and the lawsuits crushing? Even the dummies at Microsoft have managed to leave Office largely able to do that  for over two decades and if anyone was going to screw it up they would be a prime candidate.

The Subscription/Cloud model is and will always be a concern no matter which software and there is already another 'dedicated' thread on that https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/proof-that-software-as-servicecloud-based-will-never-work-for-long-term/msg2729318/#msg2729318 Really zero need to re fight the war in this thread or every other thread where subscription or cloud is mentioned.

Back on topic I would call it a benefit but no use to me as I work for myself/contract and don't use Eagle. If on the other hand I was to do a job for someone with an Eagle based board it would be easy to say yep no worries send me the link to your work group and I can do some Mechanical work for you.

[PKTKS]

(..)
The Subscription/Cloud model is and will always be a concern no matter which software and there is already another 'dedicated' thread on that https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/proof-that-software-as-servicecloud-based-will-never-work-for-long-term/msg2729318/#msg2729318 Really zero need to re fight the war in this thread or every other thread where subscription or cloud is mentioned.

Thanks I was not aware of that discussion

**VERY** interesting postings... 

Paul

[m3ch]

This "Locked into a proprietary format" bollocks is just that, absolute bollocks. You can export in step along with a host of other file formats, likewise, the cloud integration is painless, you can take all you files offline into a local archive if you want to make your life difficult, you can take the whole program offline for up to a month at a time if you need to.

As for cost, it's cheap as, and if you are earning less than 100K US a year derived from it or a student etc, it's free.

[MitjaN]

I also agree that proprietary format is a non-issue. You'll always have that. The formats for interchange (step, gerber) have a limited feature set, while the format's native to each tool have full feature set, but you cannot really count to open them anywhere else (obviously there are exceptions).

One of the issues I see is cloud integration. It requires workflow change. And people are obviously resistant to it.

Standalone tools offer you the capability to switch versions whenever you like. So if you want to switch to new version 4 years after it came out (for whatever reason), you can do it. You can usually also run different version side by side (old version for current projects, new version for small new project to test the stability ...). You can also store the specific version for decades so you can still open and edit designs that are 20 or more years old (I know of companies that have a couple of Win95 PC's in storage with specific versions of development software siting in storage. Heck with storage being so cheap, you can store complete OS, libraries and development tools in a VM image. And in some industries (medical/automotive) it might be way cheaper to modify the existing design with the same version of the tool it was used to make it due to certification issues.

The way I see it with cloud integration somebody else has a power to specify you which version you should use. And I imagine that when the cloud part gets its version upgraded sooner or later the desktop side of it will have to follow. And if the desktop version will require OS version bump, you might be screwed. Especially if you are running different SW and some of it does not want to have OS version bumped. Then you are running shop with two different OS versions. And to top it off, the new OS version does not run on some of your hardware.

Just look at how Windows 10 upgrade is done. Sure you can get the version that leaves the upgrades up to you, and you might even get the access to specific version of the cloud part of the solution, but you have to be a big player with a lot of internal IT resources.

I think that we are becoming more and more aware that the SW dependency management is a real PITA with no obvious silver bullet. And the old way of doing allowed is/was way more flexible to different setups.

[PKTKS]

Well..

depending on how much longer you have been dealing
with such issues... your opinion will vary.

I am dealing with that for a while... long enough
to have in between  Accel TANGO and OrCAD
PADs, PROTEL, Altium .. EAGLE binary blobs ...

then EAGLE XML then KiCAD...

Bottom line: with some RARE cases 99% never could
be that easily imported... "EXPORTED" sure they may be

But trying to put the thing back into another workspace..
Well...  I am still to find a single one case .

BTW.. even among versions.. Some formats are
not even perfectly matched just because library changes

OrCAD when making transition to Cadence made a good
"recipe"  by converting old libs on the fly..

for those not used to handle them .. libs at that time
were largely made by the user.. custom libs.. A real
time consuming problem.. today you take libs for granted
on the internet...

Nevertheless the results are never the same.
Obviously your timeline with these tools should be long enough
to hit such under the hood pitfalls...

Paul

[nctnico]

for those not used to handle them .. libs at that time
were largely made by the user.. custom libs.. A real
time consuming problem.. today you take libs for granted
on the internet...

The libraries from internet are not free in many cases. About a year ago I switched to a different PCB package from Orcad. I did manage to convert the footprint libraries but I did had to write some scripts to tidy up the padstacks. Fortunately the tools allow to export/import the padstacks to/from XML.

[PKTKS]

The libraries from internet are not free in many cases. About a year ago I switched to a different PCB package from Orcad. I did manage to convert the footprint libraries but I did had to write some scripts to tidy up the padstacks. Fortunately the tools allow to export/import the padstacks to/from XML.

EXACTLY. You hit the point of trouble.

In my case I had not one but several of these issues.
Each one in a very specific way must be handle.

The older OrCAD cases even have "classes" of trouble
while SDT and ESP use BITMAP libs versions starting
to also employ vector libs. Fortunately they care to convert
that themselves as long as you have a working functional
library repository.

My most recent problems were to convert KiCAD 4 formats
to KiCAD5 formats which unfortunately changed quite a lot.

Another mind boggling thing happens when grid misalignment
caused by different grids used in different libraries clash.

I have another set or parsers just to realign the grids to
a default of 10 mils (which i rather use mostly) avoiding
a complete mess when opening such "EXPORTED" things.

Time consuming and never - never they match at first try
Libraries just are not identical. Not even between versions

Paul