Free Altium is Coming

[Rigby]

I don't understand AT ALL why you guys are shying away from showing unfinished designs.

I want EVERYONE to see my stuff before it's done, because after it's done changes are a lot harder to make.

Who cares if I make a silly mistake in the beginning?  I want to know then, not later.

Every designer has mistakes.  Every one of us.  Everyone.  Showing your design before its done is like asking, or offering, proofreaders to look at your stuff and offer input.

I would much rather have help when the concrete is wet than after I'm done and it's difficult to change.

[ludzinc]

I don't understand AT ALL why you guys are shying away from showing unfinished designs.

I want EVERYONE to see my stuff before it's done, because after it's done changes are a lot harder to make.

Who cares if I make a silly mistake in the beginning?  I want to know then, not later.

Every designer has mistakes.  Every one of us.  Everyone.  Showing your design before its done is like asking, or offering, proofreaders to look at your stuff and offer input.

I would much rather have help when the concrete is wet than after I'm done and it's difficult to change.

Good point!

I was thinking from the point where you pick up my untried footprint, and then pow three hundred boards are no good.

But peer review, often and early, is a bloody good thing.

[Wilksey]

I assume you can edit your design once it goes "public" ?
There are several things I would consider before designing anything with CM (though it's looking more and more likely I won't be using it for anything other than to see what it's all about), if other users in the community want to download your project, they are going to get a shock if it doesn't work because it is unfinished. Does that open you up to an onslaught of abuse from other community members pointing out that your design isn't finished?

If they DO lock the design after you have generated Gerbers, this will be a pain, if they don't, you could I guess, generate the gerbers (assume you can save these locally and not have to rely on "Altium PCB services"?) and then modify the circuit to "break" it if you didn't want anyone else to see it.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if they are going to implement version control for PCB / Schematic revisions?

[Bud]

There's another issue with that cloud storage approach. I assume that you can't export your project locally either. You'll be locked in Altium's cloud.

Next step they will force their files to only work with particular PCB houses.

Said it before and want to say it again: once you put your data on the cloud it is not yours anymore. There is a reason Altium wants you to work online, right?
Right?

[zapta]

Said it before and want to say it again: once you put your data on the cloud it is not yours anymore. There is a reason Altium wants you to work online, right?
Right?

No, they want to make you miserable so you will pay for the upgrades.

Their interest is not user happiness.

[Rigby]

Their interest is not user happiness.

I definitely see that point of view.

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE MODE TURN ON

I also see the other, because here comes a free Altium that people have been wishing for, for years and years.

They didn't do it before because they cared less about user happiness than they do now.

Here's the thing about cloud connectivity--it is required for effective license management for very short term license durations like what they are offering.  There are other solutions that exist, yes, and those are easily circumvented, so they're attempting to squelch that a bit.

And, since the client has to connect to validate that they're licensed anyway, might as well offer a cloud storage option.  "Hell, store everyone's stuff for free so we can see how they use it.  What kinds of errors are people seeing?  What parts are seeing lots of use?  Oh, we didn't see that in testing, what's going on?  Oh look at that, they're using it in ways we didn't predict, we can improve that and upsell a few of them."

It's not nefarious.  Read the EULA when you install and see what the agreement allows them to do and what it does not.  Then you'll know.

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE MODE TURN OFF

Until release we're all just speculating.

[Wilksey]

I also see the other, because here comes a free Altium that people have been wishing for, for years and years.

I am not sure it is what people have been wishing for...
It's not even Altium, in a recent interview I saw with Altium they have said they use parts of Altium, like the 3D renderer, so I wonder exactly how much is in there.

When I wrote to Altium a few years back asking if they were planning a free version, I outlined the fact that we wanted something that competes with the likes of Eagle, be it size limited or pin limited, remove the FPGA stuff and leave the rest of the "useful" stuff in, export to Gerber, open and print and save (if inside the limits) standard Altium files.

Yes, it is all speculation, or most of it, but they have created a new (old) product, I was personally expecting a "freeware" or "lite" .alf file that just reconfigured the GUI into a cut down mode.

[Rigby]

When I wrote to Altium a few years back asking if they were planning a free version, I outlined the fact that we wanted something that competes with the likes of Eagle, be it size limited or pin limited, remove the FPGA stuff and leave the rest of the "useful" stuff in, export to Gerber, open and print and save (if inside the limits) standard Altium files.

Well, except for the cloud-only stuff, which I don't see a problem with, but wouldn't specifically ask for, we're getting what you mentioned.

[Wilksey]

Only in a really unintuitive way, it's like they have made it as difficult as they can to bring out a "free" version.

It's a bit like when Aston Martin "made" the Cygnet, everybody wanted a "affordable" Aston Martin, but it was basically a different car (Toyota).  Circuit Maker isn't Altium.

[zapta]

Eagle model for the free version is "if your design is small enough then you get all the features for free". With CM is more like "if your design is small enough then you get only some of the key features for free because we want to make you miserable enough to pay"

These are very different attitudes.

[miguelvp]

Don't knock Freemium. It does work and people are happy to throw money at it.
Also the lease to use works too as Adobe is proving and Office 365 to some extent.
You can rent a virtual server with licenses and pay as you use it.

Like it or not it's heading that way for now, but it always cycles from desktop to server to desktop to server, ....

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Eagle model for the free version is "if your design is small enough then you get all the features for free". With CM is more like "if your design is small enough then you get only some of the key features for free because we want to make you miserable enough to pay"

These are very different attitudes.

While generally agreeing with you, Eagle's model is version is more like "if your design is small enough then you get most of the features for free, because we want to make you miserable enough to pay". If you want sheets, or more than two layers, or even to layout a board in 8cm x 10cm (as opposed to 10x8), then you've got to pony up the sheckels.

(Can you tell that my current spare time project is something that'd be really easy to do with sheets for different subsections, 4 layers, and laid out upright as 5x10 - but to make it accessible to its very niche hobbyist market I'm having to do the schematic as a single large sheet, and the board as a double-sided 5x8?)

I don't think the attitudes are really much different - except that, with CircuitMaker, Altium is making a carefully calculated attempt to leverage the 'sharing hacker' angle for added mindshare (and expecting that -> marketshare). The first things anyone coming into the hobby right now learns (rightly or wrongly) are that (a) Eagle has a free version that's widely used, (b) 'real' engineers mostly use Altium, and (c) they should aspire to be like (b).

The next thing they learn is that the only thing you get for free with Altium is an eye-watering pricetag. Now, Altium is giving them a stepping stone...

(Realistically, the others barely get a look-in. Kicad looks attractive until you actually decide to try it out, starting with reasons which have been well covered upthread and elsewhere - sorry guys; fix those issues and then you can start on world domination. Diptrace has a different but similar set of limitations to Eagle. All the others are, realistically, niche products in the hobbyist market with pricetags that, if not eye-watering, certainly make you wince and cross your legs.)

None of that is particularly a criticism - just an impression/observation. As I said earlier it makes no difference to me, unless they either come up with a native OSX version of CircuitMaker or it runs well in Wineskin/Parallels/etc.

Oh and some of us are introverts, or the kind of person who would rather sit down and nut out their own problems for the simple pleasure of it without inviting every clown on the internet to comment, or simply prefer to wait until we're good and ready before sharing designs and inviting critique. Altium's decision with CircuitMaker makes you pay for the privilege of not sharing, because it weakens their plan. Whether you consider that a fair trade off or not depends on your individual personality, attitude, and how much they charge for the privilege.

[zapta]

Altium's approach of charging for basic features such as keeping your design private or saving files locally reminds me of Omar Baba, the stingy airline owner from "Come Fly With Me".  Here is his version of pay as you go:

[Rigby]

No one is gonna make you use CircuitMaker.

I'm gonna give it a fair shake, and if I like it, I'll use it. If I don't, I won't.

[EEVblog]

Eagle model for the free version is "if your design is small enough then you get all the features for free"

Except if you want to use it commercially. Free Circuitmaker is free to use commercially.

[zapta]

No one is gonna make you use CircuitMaker.

I'm gonna give it a fair shake, and if I like it, I'll use it. If I don't, I won't.

It was supposed to be funny. The series is on Netflix BTW.

Anyway, Altium decided not to support my OSX computer and I am not going to change it just for that.

[Rigby]

Oh... Apologies.  Didn't watch the vid.

[ehughes]

One of the reasons I do like the cloud model is the same reason I like google docs.     The real time editing/collaboration features.       Imagine Google Docs without the cloud storage?   It would be dumb.   Some of the coolest features is being able to collaborate in real time and being able to share and get documents anywhere.

Now, this may not be as applicable for schematics/PCBs but I can easily imagine some really useful cases of real-time collaboration on the design.   

Also consider this.   Do you really design "offline?"   Unless you have have a  pile of datasheets from days gone by, the reality is that most people always design with an active connection.    I can see the point of doing a PCB route offline (as it is just you and those traces) but CM handles this case.  I personally have internet radio going,  email active, etc.   when I design.   To me an internet connection is somewhat like mains power.   It is a public utility that is just requisite for modern society.   No sane company is considering the use case of the person without internet, power who maybe at the bottom of the grand canyon.     That is a very small use case on the extra edge of the curve.

If you are concern about the use case where everything goes to hell where there is no internet for long periods of time then I personally will become a a pig farmer.  There will be much better money in Bacon if a solar flare sends us back to the 1800's.

My other thought is that Altium (read Amazon AWS on the backend) is many orders of magnitude better at storing files than ANYONE here.    Altium (and EAGLE!) have been around for 25+ years,  have a better balance sheet than many companies and they have real cash flow.    The purpose of circuit maker, EAGLE is to make money.   I worry more about open source projects who shutdown because of political disagreements.  The argument that someone else can take the code and move on only happens for the highest level projects.   The reality is the 99.9% of users simple don't have the time to re-engineer a piece of software.

Given the current state of the Open EDA tools (GEDA and Kicad) and their organizational/project structure,  I tend to think the chances of the them going to hell is much greater than a company with a real income stream.

Unfortunately too many people look at open source software from a religious and political viewpoint,  not from a perspective of actually getting something done.   For me the pragmatic viewpoint is that  organizations that are looking for an income stream are 100% more reliable long term.   Just use EAGLE as an example of this.   

What I am really hoping for is that this will cause the EAGLEs and Diptraces of the world to step up their game.    In the end,   we all will benefit.



 

[Rufus]

I worry more about open source projects who shutdown because of political disagreements.

A project shutting down doesn't disable the tool and delete all the work you ever did with it which is what Altium's cloud only storage allows.

If Altium shut down their cloud CircuitMaker becomes a waste of disk space and gerbers and prints are all you have left from whatever work you did on it.

It probably won't happen but where is the upside in taking that risk?

[Rigby]

I worry more about open source projects who shutdown because of political disagreements.

A project shutting down doesn't disable the tool and delete all the work you ever did with it which is what Altium's cloud only storage allows.

If Altium shut down their cloud CircuitMaker becomes a waste of disk space and gerbers and prints are all you have left from whatever work you did on it.

It probably won't happen but where is the upside in taking that risk?

We don't know CircuitMaker's failure modes.  The risk could be immense, and it could be purely imaginary.

[Rufus]

I worry more about open source projects who shutdown because of political disagreements.

A project shutting down doesn't disable the tool and delete all the work you ever did with it which is what Altium's cloud only storage allows.

If Altium shut down their cloud CircuitMaker becomes a waste of disk space and gerbers and prints are all you have left from whatever work you did on it.

It probably won't happen but where is the upside in taking that risk?

We don't know CircuitMaker's failure modes.  The risk could be immense, and it could be purely imaginary.

CircuitMaker's failure modes? It is Altium failure modes you need to worry about. What if there is another board re-shuffle that wants to change direction? What if Nick Martin manages to buy his way back in and wants to change direction? What if whatever Altium do with recently raised money is a disaster and they go bust? What if someone buys them out and decides to scrap the loss making CircuitMaker?

Do you think in any of the above cases they will re-write CircuitMaker for offline storage and let you download your designs as a parting gift?

I already posted here that I don't see they will make money from what they are currently proposing for CircuitMaker. That makes me a lot less confident it will still be around in a few years time.

I own the full package. If Altium went bust tomorrow all I loose is the possibility of buying future updates. CircuitMaker users (if there were any) would loose pretty much everything.

[Precipice]

It would be exceedingly odd if Altium couldn't import circuitmaker stuff...
'yay, you decided to upgrade to our professional package, have fun redoing everything from scratch'. Nah.

As long as there was at least a tiny bit of warning, I don't fear this calamity too much. Sure it's possible - but I've also got orphaned designs from several paid-for packages, because I can no longer get the dongles to work.

[_Sin]

Also consider this.   Do you really design "offline?"   

Yes. Because it's my hobby, not my job, and I have to fit it in where I can, be that at home (where I do have internet, but it sucks and I'd hate to be reliant on it - especially if there's even a modest requirement for bandwidth), or on the train to work, or on a plane going somewhere, or just on holiday in general where I'm often without a connection for large tracts of time.

And yes, I do keep around a pile of datasheets (digitally, obviously!) especially anything relevant to what I'm working on. Though in most circumstances I could just look something up on my phone if I really need a live connection. And yes, I'm aware I could tether my laptop to my phone, but that gets expensive real quick and isn't a catch-all solution anyway.

If this were for professional use you'd expect to have a contract with a SLA, and some provision to get the data out (because no sane company would stick their IP in a vault they can't actually access). But it's not for commercial use, it's aimed squarely at 'makers' and hobbyists and that, to me, undermines the assumption that always-on-internet is actually a reasonable assumption. And as it's free, I wouldn't expect the SLA either.

[Rufus]

It would be exceedingly odd if Altium couldn't import circuitmaker stuff...

I think they already said AD will import from CircuitMaker but not the other way round. That leaves the problem of finding $9000 or whatever to buy AD. If they shut down CircuitMaker they will probably offer a small discount - lol.

Import will probably be done by AD being able to connect read only to CircuitMaker vaults so a valid AD licence (possibly a current subscription as well) will be required to break CircuitMaker designs out of their jail.

People should start calling CircuitMaker storage jail, more appropriate than vault or cloud.

[kxenos]

If they said that AD will import CM's projects that means that there will be a way to connect with a friend's AD to the cloud and somehow save the files locally??
Else this will be possible only if you pay to make the project local.
But the bigger issue for me is not the cloud storage. I have in my computer projects I did 5 - 10 - 15 years ago and I haven't opened them since. IMO if a project doesn't take off within 6 months it never does.
The biggest issue is the default shared or public mode the projects will be in. I mean, OH is fine but in this way you remove the possibility for an amateur making any money from their work with your product without having them make an investment to keep their projects private. If they keep this investment comparable to the price of some boards or a partslist for a couple of boards that will be fair.