Hello Autodesk (specifically Matt),
In your last post about the path forward for EAGLE Make licenses, you
maintain that a "Paid" license (i.e. one that you are paying a subscription
for) will only function for 14 days without an internet connection.
I think that Autodesk has underestimated how much of an issue this will be,
especially for professional design houses. These design houses are
important as they support, and encourage, EAGLE to be used in a
professional manner. The recommendation from a design house to new
companies/clients go a long way to creating new customers for EAGLE (I know
Stratford Digital has influenced many companies to get an EAGLE license
because that is what we recommended, Olin has stated the same for his
company).
I think the main issue is that we professionals need our current version of
EAGLE to run forever. But I think there is a path forward with a small
tweak. I would love it if Matt could respond to this suggestion:
EAGLE License Recommendation
No one has an issue with requiring the internet on installation or
upgrading of EAGLE. If a subscription is valid then either of these is
allowed. If the subscription is not valid or can't be verified (i.e. no
internet connection) then neither is allowed BUT the software continues to
work indefinitely as it did at the time of the last call home to Autodesk
license server.
This means there is still a reason to pay subscription cost:
active support access to new features with new versions
This allows for the support that professionals will need to be able to
prove can be provided decades down the road (it happens all the time). It
allows me to create a virtual machine with a specific version of EAGLE on
it and know that in the future that software will work as it did during the
initial project development. It also allows for use in walled-off security
environments.
We also need a method (officially supported) of having multiple versions of
EAGLE on the same computer at the same time with the ability to configure
each install to update or not automatically. This is absolutely required
as some clients, for various reasons, specify specific versions of EAGLE to
be used.
This also puts a burden on Autodesk to make sure that their updates are
significant enough to warrant people continuing subscriptions. That is a
good thing and will give users some confidence that a subscription is worth
it. The value of any change since v6.6 is pretty limited, hierarchical
design is a good idea but not fully implemented. And we're still waiting
on completion of the differential pair routing from v6. It seems the main
additions since v6.6 is two, unasked for and highly restrictive licensing
changes. So there isn't a lot of trust in the EAGLE community right now.
Autodesk has said good things but little has been delivered yet.
I think the above is a good compromise. If Matt doesn't agree then please
provide your suggestion as how I am going to be guaranteed to be able to
support projects a decade in the future. For this argument, "trusting
Autodesk will allow it" will not be accepted as an allowable answer. It
may be 100% true today but when you leave to retire in the Bahamas or the
entire team is sold off to another global corp the policy can instantly
change (see last 6 months).
Cheers,
James
--
James Morrison ~~~ Stratford Digital
http://www.stratforddigital.ca
--
EAGLE support forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca :: Where the EAGLE community meets.
