Open Source Engineering Software?

pipingguy asks: "A long-time subscriber to my piping design/engineering-related discussion list inquired about Open Source engineering software (and expressed an interest in moving to Linux), citing the high cost and often poor customer support of the commercial packages. Since there are quite a few non-Software Engineers reading Slashdot, I thought I'd ask a 'somewhat larger' userbase by posting the question here. What Open Source engineering software is out there and useful?"

Comments

The "Bill Gates" Advantage

[michael_cain]

This question nicely illustrates what I have sometimes called "the Bill Gates advantage" relative to open source in some fields. For the most part, an open source solution requires that there be people with the knowledge of the specialized field where an application is used, the programming skills to build the tool, and the willingness to do so without financial reward. Most open source applications depend on the generousity of volunteers for their expertise. There are exceptions, where companies that sell services based on open source code can afford to pay a relatively small number of developers to work on the code itself. Even in those cases, the initial version of the application is often done on a volunteer basis. A firm selling an application can use that cash to hire both kinds of experts.

Please note that this is not a comment about the relative quality of code or support. Just that the commercial software model does address the issue of acquiring and directing needed resources directly.