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  • Author Author: dougw
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Which CAD Licensing Model Is Preferred?

There is a big debate occuring now due to changes to the Eagle CAD licensing policies.

I am hearing:

  1. the old Eagle licence policies are more attractive than the new policies
  2. low cost crippled versions are not very attractive as they ultimately result in paying full price or wasting the learning curve investment
  3. there are limits to what makers are willing to put  up with, whether it is performance, cost or learning investment, but they are willing to put up with a certain amount of it when necessary
  4. products that push these limits will alienate some makers and not enjoy wide-spread acceptance

Given that manufacturers want to generate a continuous revenue stream from each product, what is the most acceptable method of extracting cash from makers?

  1. subscription (obvious continuous revenue)
  2. pay-per-view (obvious continuous revenue)
  3. advertising (Google & cloud model)
  4. pay-per-product (not continuous, but users will by new product when new products provide better performance)
  5. perpetual license with maintenance fees (normal CAD model)
  6. other

If any of these is a low enough cost it will gain users, but assuming they are all the same cost, which is preferred?

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  • I voted "maintenance fees", perpetual license + annual maintenance, but perpetual license + optional upgrades would be the real preference.

     

    To add to this, I accept that some kind of hardware locking may be required to discourage casual copying - I prefer things locked to a MAC address - because you can then use a USB network adapter like a dongle if you want.

     

    I don't approve of penalties if you don't pay maintenance every year (although two products, at least, that I use apply this (Keil/ARM and Matlab)).

     

    The least hassle I've had is from EasyPC (Number one systems) - perpetual license, no locking on standard product and optional upgrades at about 15% of new price. I've never missed an upgrade because they are cheap, have always offered something, never screwed up old designs and I feel I'm more likely to get good support for the latest version (I wish other suppliers would do the same but I don't know of any who do image).

     

    MK

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  • I voted "maintenance fees", perpetual license + annual maintenance, but perpetual license + optional upgrades would be the real preference.

     

    To add to this, I accept that some kind of hardware locking may be required to discourage casual copying - I prefer things locked to a MAC address - because you can then use a USB network adapter like a dongle if you want.

     

    I don't approve of penalties if you don't pay maintenance every year (although two products, at least, that I use apply this (Keil/ARM and Matlab)).

     

    The least hassle I've had is from EasyPC (Number one systems) - perpetual license, no locking on standard product and optional upgrades at about 15% of new price. I've never missed an upgrade because they are cheap, have always offered something, never screwed up old designs and I feel I'm more likely to get good support for the latest version (I wish other suppliers would do the same but I don't know of any who do image).

     

    MK

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