Eagle v8 licensing...

http://www.altium.com/eagle-switch/altium-designer/

It was just a matter of time...

--

EAGLE support forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca :: Where the EAGLE community meets.

Joop14 wrote:

 

http://www.altium.com/eagle-switch/altium-designer/

 

It was just a matter of time...

 

--

EAGLE support forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca :: Where the EAGLE community meets.

 

I have to think that not many EAGLE users would be in a position to take up that offer. Even with the 40% off its going to be over $5000 and that only comes with one year of support and updates. After the first year you'd need to pay another $1500/year for a maintenance contract for support and updates. If you don't keep up on maintenance payments you'd likely be stung for back payments if you ever did need to update so realistically, most professional users are going to want to take that option rather than risk getting stuck with a problem and having to find a lot of money to get back onto maintenance in a hurry.

The people who will go for this would be those who were considering it anyway because they regularly do high end boards and the additional features of Altium would be a benefit but the full price was too much for them to swallow. For the majority of smaller companies the cost of Altium and the ongoing support cost is still likely too much. Yes Altium has some really nice features but EAGLE's really easy to use and can do moderately complex boards quickly and easy enough such that the step up to Altium isn't justified by the cost. If EAGLE adds better routing features then this need even for high end boards may be reduced.

So for the $500/year for an EAGLE Premium subscription, I could buy this for at least 10 years for the equivalent of the promotional price of Altium and for that I get 10 years of support. If I factor in the cost of maintenance I could have 4 EAGLE seats for the same price as 1 Altium seat in that 10 year period. Now, I know there is an issue with no perpetual license but in one of Matt Berggrens posts he stated that they would give an equivalent v7 license to fall back on with v8 subscriptions and a promise to ensure that a design could always be saved in a completely v7 compliant format so we then have a way to use EAGLE perpetually (See here: https://www.element14.com/community/thread/58485/l/eagle-license-recommendat-ion)

Best Regards,

Rachael

Hi,

Please do not tear from the context.

Gerald

---

On 22.02.2017 08:45, Rachael wrote:

Hi Doug,

 

Yes I agree with you, the worst thing for me is what this licensing change

has done to the community. There is far less general chatter on these

forums, I rarely see posts from some of the previous long time users

anymore and I do find this very sad. We'll just have to see how things turn

out I guess, I'm hoping once the dust settles some of the original long

time members of these forums will start to visit again.... I hope so, their

experience is valuable and their help was always appreciated....

I'm hoping Jorge, Ed and Richard (haven't seen him on here for a while!)

will be around for the foreseeable future so it's not all change. I suspect

any new tech support people will be on the Autodesk official forums rather

than here though.

 

Best Regards,

 

Rachael

Since I'm probably one of the long time users, and at least periodically

visiting nearly every day, here is my status:

(I find it very difficult to sort all my thoughts about this issue, so

excuse me if it's a bit messy or repeating.)

I am still reading the forums almost every day. The autodesk

forum has a larger threshold to visit (nntp forums show in my already

open email client), and as long as this forum is on nntp, I will keep

reading. Opening a browser creates too much distubances being met with

whatever banners there will be on whatever startpage you got.

Posting new suggestions or answering questions has become less relevant,

as I have not yet decided or found it worthwile to even evaluate v8. If

there was no hassle or unknowns with creating an autodesk account or

whatever surprises there will be, I probably would have jumped right

onto it with exitement (hey, for all I know I already got an autodesk

account, and I would have to find out what it was). I feel I kinda lost

the mutual relationship with Eagle and I don't know how to act. I have

had extremely good contact deep inside the experienced cadsoft

development team through these channels. Pre 8, I have seen

issues on 7.7 that I would like to suggest improvement for, but I am too

confused to bother. Previously I have been suggesting improvement and

posting bugs, and sometimes helped others, and my issues have mostly

been taken care of in the next revision. I guess this would have

continued with autodesk, if I just found a reason to jump in and opened

the money flow.

Regarding moving to v8.

Now that I know I can postpone any expenses until I really need that

offered new functionality, I can basically wait until they are all

mature and really gives value for the money. At the same time, being as

experienced as I am, I feel I should contribute to suggest the

priorities and directions the new versions take. But I can not give

relevant feedback until I play the game (and pay to play). Compared to

the old days, testing new versions have become a threshold that I am

reluctant to step into. The new licensing system is a bit scary

territory with a lot of unknowns. Maybe it's just the way my old brain

works.

Currently I am about to finnish another complex 16 layer design on v7.7

wich I have been working on for quite a few months (the workload was

very unknown when I started). After this is done, there may be a few

revisions to clean stuff up, then silence for an unknown period, and

maybe smaller periods where the full version is needed again. The new

exiting v8 features came a little late, but I would love to have full

modular designs when I started. I have quite a few re-use candidates on

this board. Going forward, there is no way for me to plan when or how

long I need a license, I have to do guesstimates. If there are delays,

the cost impact is unknown. This may probably be avoided if we calculate

to "throw money at autodesk" to practically get a permanent license, and

if I did continuous pcb development, that would probably be an ok

solution, but I don't do this continuosly. I will move into FPGA

development to get this product running. The best solution would be no

doubt to relax all these unknowns, pay a predictable sum for a permanent

8.x and not worry while I do my real work. At the same time, I could

have posted suggestions and bugs to the nntp forums, while helping out a

couple of noobs while I am at it.

All this said, I guess there must be an economical reason for Cadsoft

selling Eagle. I hope it wasn't just for a quick profit for the owners,

but rather because of difficult times ahead. Having said that, I think

cadsoft could have raised the price if they had the manpower to add

functionality.

Am 22.02.2017 um 12:05 schrieb rachaelp:

Jan Cumps wrote:

 

So why do I have to pay what I do not need forever?

Isn't this what the new license policy allowes you to do?

Yes it is! When you don't need Premium, you drop down to Standard.

Indeed! And when I need the premium again, but my financial situation

changed and disallows my to subscribe again, I can't use the software I

already paid maybe thousands of dollars already for to start a new

project. What a super exiting new feature, so cool!

Rene

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

sorry, but hoping (also hopping and dancing) and praying we can do it in the church.

In business we have concrete facts.

I don't do church, I do do business. I'm also not hoping and praying or hopping and dancing.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

The fact is that, if Autodesk has a disaster in its territory, for example earthquake or internal political problems in the company,

millions of users can also close their company or minimum their software.
Then we all have the huge problem of fixing the billions of damage, with all sorts of court actions.
If we both have a local problem, others are not affected.
If other clients have their problems then we are both not affected by these local problems.

This is the next big problem with such a kind of licensing policy.
These are facts, not belief or hope.
The license is broken!

I'm sure Autodesk has plenty of servers spread around the world so an earthquake or similar shouldn't be an issue. Internal political problems within the company likely won't shut the servers overnight either. If anything were to happen, I'm pretty sure I could migrate my data elsewhere if I absolutely had to but I have v7 anyway so can always fall back on that. If all the concessions Matt Berggren gave in another thread come to fruition (and I believe they will) then all v8 subscribers should get an equivalent v7 license entitlement.

I'm going to be regularly testing v8 -> v7 compatibility when I go to v8 to ensure I can go back at any point and if that ever breaks you can bet I will be letting Autodesk know about it very quickly. So, I really am not worried and I believe I can mitigate pretty much all the risks associated with the new licensing model.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

We have been waiting four years for a serious and well-functioning software update.
I have not V7 pro, but only V6.xx. pro, because the V7 is a scrap.
So I wanted to skip V7 and I've always told Cadsoft, synonymous I have written this in the German and English forums.
Now with Autodesk, the promised number 8 is here, but with the same weak uptrend.
And come all the time with hopes and prayers .. I can do that in the church, not in the business market.

I agree, but EAGLE has been starved of resources for years so important new features didn't come to fruition. v7 is pretty good and very stable though so I don't think it's scrap. It may not be a huge step up from v6 but it did improve the library management significantly throughout its releases. Hierarchical design is there but it's a bit of a kludge at the moment, it's usable but it's not ideal. This is one area I hope they will finish off properly in v8.

Again, I'm not doing any praying. They'll have to show that they are actually giving good new features or they'll lose more people to other ECAD packages if they don't see there being significant improvement for their continued subscription money.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

You must be able to continue working if Autodesk does not update the software.
Otherwise hell is going on, and all this on the whole planet.

Just because Autodesk has a subscription philosophy ... well, this is a "hard tobacco" ...
Should productivity remain stuck on a global scale?

I just don't see there being a huge risk to not being able to continue working. There are some issues with the new licensing yes, but nothing so severe that it'll completely kill my productivity overnight. I'd always have an out if the worst happened.

Gerald, at the end of the day, for you this licensing change is clearly something you clearly can't accept. That's fine and I respect that, but for me I can make it work. I don't think Autodesk will make the changes you are asking for though

I know we are at polar opposites on this issue, I don't think we'll ever completely agree on this topic. Hopefully we can agree to disagree and move on to have better discussions on other topics in future.

As I said in another post, the biggest issue for me is what the licensing change has done to the EAGLE community, this is the thing for me which is hardest to accept, it's quite sad that what was once quite a busy community with lots of people around to offer help and support seems to have been fractured with a lot of the long time users dropping out of sight. I hope once the dust settles and things calm down, that some of these people come back....

Best wishes,

Rachael

Morten Leikvoll wrote on Wed, 22 February 2017 11:23

Since I'm probably one of the long time users, and at least

periodically visiting nearly every day, here is my status:

Hi Morten,

You are indeed one of the long term users I was referring to and I have

personally missed your input into the forums in the last month or so. I do

appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts today and I hope I

see you back on here more frequently once you have had time to fully digest

the implications of the changes on you

Best Regards,

Rachael

--

EAGLE support forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca :: Where the EAGLE community meets.

Congratulation! now we are confirm.

Full into the target.

Yes that's what i meant.

Yes, DIN A4 with all layers, ok, but minimum 8 layers (will say in business quoting: "half of the full", "fifty / fifty chance" )

because you have power planes for complex chips with more then one power voltages, also complex routing with the pin hungry chips.

FPGAs, µProcessors with 1000 pins or so, are now nearly standard.

The last 4U backplane was 6 layer high but we saved space because we didn't mounted all components.

Now, you'll see I'm flexible also in discussions.

But right now, we need "nails with heads".

The first problem,  like atomic explosion, is after expiring the license period.

I can't often enough argument this.

Best Regards,

Gerald

---

CadSoft Guest wrote:

 

Am 22.02.2017 um 12:05 schrieb rachaelp:

Jan Cumps wrote:

 

So why do I have to pay what I do not need forever?

Isn't this what the new license policy allowes you to do?

Yes it is! When you don't need Premium, you drop down to Standard.

 

Indeed! And when I need the premium again, but my financial situation

changed and disallows my to subscribe again, I can't use the software I

already paid maybe thousands of dollars already for to start a new

project. What a super exiting new feature, so cool!

 

Rene

 

 

 

Hi Rene,

Yes I take your point. But for me, the cost of the premium license is relatively insignificant when compared to other costs involved in designing electronics. Even on a relatively small project the cost of prototyping a design will be the dominant cost in the early stages even before you consider things like certifications and production transition costs. If the cost of the Premium subscription was not financially viable I think that would be the least of my worries. I appreciate that everybody is different and have different costs but I would just factor in an amount for keeping EAGLE on active subscription into my budgeting and then either buy annual subscriptions or put the money to one side to cover the cost of the licensing. At the end of the financial year you'd then either be on budget or you'd have a surplus which you could put towards something else you'd like. I'm looking at this from a business perspective. I'd likely have upgraded every 18 months to 2 years when a new version came out with the previous licensing so on balance the new change isn't costing me any more. Personal users will likely have a different view and I do feel for the previous Maker license owners who have no path to an equivalent v8 license.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

Yes, DIN A4 with all layers, ok, but minimum 8 layers (will say in business quoting: "half of the full", "fifty / fifty chance" )

because you have power planes for complex chips with more then one power voltages, also complex routing with the pin hungry chips.

FPGAs, µProcessors with 1000 pins or so, are now nearly standard.

So what we are proposing is an intermediate "Standard Plus" which would do DIN A4 size up to 8-layers for somewhere between the Standard and Premium license costs? I think that would be fair. Lets see if anybody from Autodesk is reading and whether they will consider it

Even with large FPGA's and uProcessors you can do an awful lot in 8-layers, even less layers sometimes. You can usually construct all the required power fills required to power a device without needing a whole layer for each if you are careful how you split the planes out to ensure you don't leave high speed signals running over splits in planes and messing up their signal integrity. It can take a bit of thought but its doable.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

The first problem, like atomic explosion, is after expiring the license period.

I can't often enough argument this.

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

Best Regards,

Rachael

Hi,

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

Yes, DIN A4 with all layers, ok, but minimum 8 layers (will say in business quoting: "half of the full", "fifty / fifty chance" )

because you have power planes for complex chips with more then one power voltages, also complex routing with the pin hungry chips.

FPGAs, µProcessors with 1000 pins or so, are now nearly standard.

So what we are proposing is an intermediate "Standard Plus" which would do DIN A4 size up to 8-layers for somewhere between the Standard and Premium license costs? I think that would be fair. Lets see if anybody from Autodesk is reading and whether they will consider it

 

Even with large FPGA's and uProcessors you can do an awful lot in 8-layers, even less layers sometimes. You can usually construct all the required power fills required to power a device without needing a whole layer for each if you are careful how you split the planes out to ensure you don't leave high speed signals running over splits in planes and messing up their signal integrity. It can take a bit of thought but its doable.

Yes, also agree. With that we can live. Big projects are other pair of shoes.

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

I also hope that Autodesk read this.

I feel that we have just 14 days after the disaster to finishing all open projects also saving our files and changing to an other tool.

Best Regards,

Gerald

---

Hi Gerald,

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

Yes, DIN A4 with all layers, ok, but minimum 8 layers (will say in business quoting: "half of the full", "fifty / fifty chance" )

because you have power planes for complex chips with more then one power voltages, also complex routing with the pin hungry chips.

FPGAs, µProcessors with 1000 pins or so, are now nearly standard.

So what we are proposing is an intermediate "Standard Plus" which would do DIN A4 size up to 8-layers for somewhere between the Standard and Premium license costs? I think that would be fair. Lets see if anybody from Autodesk is reading and whether they will consider it

 

Even with large FPGA's and uProcessors you can do an awful lot in 8-layers, even less layers sometimes. You can usually construct all the required power fills required to power a device without needing a whole layer for each if you are careful how you split the planes out to ensure you don't leave high speed signals running over splits in planes and messing up their signal integrity. It can take a bit of thought but its doable.

Yes, also agree. With that we can live. Big projects are other pair of shoes.

Ok, that's good. Lets see if they are reading and what they say then.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

I also hope that Autodesk read this.

I feel that we have just 14 days after the disaster to finishing all open projects also saving our files and changing to an other tool.

You see that's where I think you are being too pessimistic. If you can revert to an existing v6/v7 licence and open your design and it be fully editable then you aren't in any difficult situation. If they were to change things so the required call back period for the v8 subscription was linked to the length of your subscription would that alleviate your concerns? I don't know if this is something they would consider though.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Hi Gerald,

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

 

Yes, DIN A4 with all layers, ok, but minimum 8 layers (will say in business quoting: "half of the full", "fifty / fifty chance" )

because you have power planes for complex chips with more then one power voltages, also complex routing with the pin hungry chips.

FPGAs, µProcessors with 1000 pins or so, are now nearly standard.

So what we are proposing is an intermediate "Standard Plus" which would do DIN A4 size up to 8-layers for somewhere between the Standard and Premium license costs? I think that would be fair. Lets see if anybody from Autodesk is reading and whether they will consider it

 

Even with large FPGA's and uProcessors you can do an awful lot in 8-layers, even less layers sometimes. You can usually construct all the required power fills required to power a device without needing a whole layer for each if you are careful how you split the planes out to ensure you don't leave high speed signals running over splits in planes and messing up their signal integrity. It can take a bit of thought but its doable.

Yes, also agree. With that we can live. Big projects are other pair of shoes.

Ok, that's good. Lets see if they are reading and what they say then.

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

I also hope that Autodesk read this.

I feel that we have just 14 days after the disaster to finishing all open projects also saving our files and changing to an other tool.

You see that's where I think you are being too pessimistic. If you can revert to an existing v6/v7 licence and open your design and it be fully editable then you aren't in any difficult situation. If they were to change things so the required call back period for the v8 subscription was linked to the length of your subscription would that alleviate your concerns? I don't know if this is something they would consider though.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Hi Rachael,

Il 22/02/2017 14:12, rachaelp ha scritto:

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

I also hope that Autodesk read this.

I feel that we have just 14 days after the disaster to finishing all open projects also saving our files and changing to an other tool.

You see that's where I think you are being too pessimistic. If you can revert to an existing v6/v7 licence and open your design and it be fully editable then you aren't in any difficult situation. If they were to change things so the required call back period for the v8 subscription was linked to the length of your subscription would that alleviate your concerns? I don't know if this is something they would consider though.

 

you are hoping that it is always possible to revert to an older version

(I have a full 6.6 pro license, schematiclayoutautorouter), but this

is an hope, not neccessarly a truth. Please, consider a scenario in

which you need to maintain a big project for a long time and for some

reason (dismissions, incompatibilities, lack of support etc.) the old

design is no longer editable and also it is not possible to revert it to

a v6/7 format. This is an atomic explosion: you can not access to your

data. It is possible that older subscription are no longer

available/supported (obsolete), newest are not fully compatible and

perpetual v6/7 are too obsolete.

This can easily happen if revenues will be not enought and Autodesk will

decide to stop Eagle and no one will buy the "Cadsoft" division. They

are trying an experiment and the success is not guaranteed. They have

taken into account to lose customers like me, if 95% of customers are

like me the experiment will fail.

In such scenario you can cope if you have, for example, the release you

used at that time in a virtual machine. In a perpetual model this works,

in a subscription model not. Said that, I can not accept a license model

in which the software functions expire. I can accept a maintenance model

because the software never expires, I lose only the right to upgrade and

the support, not functionalities. I have some tools in a maintenance

model: if I stop the maintenance and after a while I will decide to

restart, I will have to recover the lack of maintenance period, which is

expensive, at limit I will have to pay the full license price, but I

never and never lose the functionalities of the software, never. This is

a very big worth, this is vital for me.

Why Autodesk refuses this schema? Revenues are similar... They want to

"got married" you with their products: if you decide to change the tool

you will have to pay for maintaining the old projects: you will have to

pay twice!

I am satisfied of Eagle, but if nothing changes, I will have to switch

to an alternative. This only and only and only due to the new license

model.

Kind regards

Alberto

Alberto Vignati wrote:

 

Hi Rachael,

 

Il 22/02/2017 14:12, rachaelp ha scritto:

 

Gerald Schwarz wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to ever change no matter how much you argue against it. As I said, I don't see it as a huge problem as I will just either budget to keep an active subscription (whether I decide to use the budget or not) when I go to v8 (I am not going to yet) or just fall back to v7. I'm going to regularly ensure I can take my designs backwards once I go to v8 so it's never going to be an issue for me. I might even automate the process so it's all done for me!

I also hope that Autodesk read this.

I feel that we have just 14 days after the disaster to finishing all open projects also saving our files and changing to an other tool.

You see that's where I think you are being too pessimistic. If you can revert to an existing v6/v7 licence and open your design and it be fully editable then you aren't in any difficult situation. If they were to change things so the required call back period for the v8 subscription was linked to the length of your subscription would that alleviate your concerns? I don't know if this is something they would consider though.

 

 

you are hoping that it is always possible to revert to an older version (I have a full 6.6 pro license, schematiclayoutautorouter), but this is an hope, not neccessarly a truth.

 

Nope, I am not relying on any hope of backwards compatibility with v7. Please read all my post. I will regularly check things go backwards to my perpetual v7 license and if that ever breaks I will be straight onto Autodesk to get it resolved. There is no hope, only certainty. If at any point a v8 update ceases to be enable me to go back to v7 I will not use that update until it's resolved. Simple. I have v7 forever, I have a plan to mitigate backwards compatibility and I am happy with it.

Alberto Vignati wrote:

 

Please, consider a scenario in which you need to maintain a big project for a long time and for some reason (dismissions, incompatibilities, lack of support etc.) the old design is no longer editable and also it is not possible to revert it to a v6/7 format. This is an atomic explosion: you can not access to your data. It is possible that older subscription are no longer available/supported (obsolete), newest are not fully compatible and perpetual v6/7 are too obsolete.

 

Yes I understand the argument but I think I have this covered. I agree, just being able to open up the exact version of EAGLE I used and know it will work forever is by far the preferable option but I think my way of mitigating the risk is enough such that if I was ever in this situation I could revert to my old v7 license.

At the end of the day, for me this licensing change is far less horrible/evil than the flexlm style licensing Farnell tried to do to EAGLE which I assume was to introduce a maintenance system. I hate flexlm type licensing as it means it's not usually possible to legitimately use your license on multiple machines (not simultaneously) without having an annoying dongle situation to provide node locking for this (I don't want node locking and dongles are a failure point. You can lose a dongle or it could stop working and you'd be stuffed until you could get a new dongle. I've seen this before and it usually happens when you have a critical deadline....) or a network license server which makes it impossible to take your laptop away somewhere and still use your license unless that was also hosting your license server too, in which case if you are away and your laptop got stolen, whoops you can't use your EAGLE again on your main network until you've rebuilt a new license server.... It all gets annoying very quickly with flexlm style licensing and to me risks much more down time so the current online activation seems much less of a pain.

Don't get me wrong, I would prefer to be able to have the ability to make the current subscription version permanent (maybe with a final payment to convert the license) if I ended the subscription but that isn't currently an option so I am not going to worry about it as I can mitigate the risks in other ways.

Best Regards,

Rachael