Autodesk Embracing Open Source

Seba writes to tell us that Autodesk appears to be embracing open source with the recent donation of their web mapping technology to the open source community. From the article: "A snapshot of the MapServer Enterprise source code is available today through the new MapServer Foundation, an independent non- profit organization with the mission of supporting and promoting open source web mapping. The foundation's charter members include MapServer Technical Steering Committee members, the University of Minnesota MapServer Project, the DM Solutions Group, and Autodesk."

Comments

Autocad

[dduardo]

Great, so when are we going to see a native Linux port of Autocad?

Re:Autocad

[shione]

Proof that such an agreement exists please. (an online article would suffice). Autocad is the only program thats keeping me on XP and I would be peeved that they're not allowed t port it over to other OSes. I remember prior to r12 Autocad came with a dozen or so different exes.

Re:Autocad

[similar to mh2]

If by "cheered for blindly" you mean "lambasted by anti-Sony articles for a straight week after the rootkit debacle", then yes, you're quite right.

Ignoring the whole "slashdot is one person!" fallacy, has it EVER been popular opinion here to like Sony? I don't know, maybe a good while ago, but as far as I can remember their cartel arm has always been hated, and that arm's been twisting the electronics arm resulting in DRM-laden products, and their products have mostly been shoddy anyway.

Oh, and I despise the Playstation, and the Xbox. Don't like the Gamecube much, though the Revolution looks rather promising. So I took your comment as a personal affront, which I shouldn't have, since it's just a troll.

Cool

[rbanffy]

No need to bash them or to compare their offer with gmaps... If it it good enough, it will stand on its own merits. If it is not, it will still depend on developer effort paid by Autodesk.

Anyway, the more people benefit from this, the better for all of us.

Title is completely wrong

[digitect]

The chances of AutoDesk embracing open source or anything like it is about as likely as their chief business cooperative, Microsoft.

Everyone who is familiar with AutoCAD knows that AutoDesk is quick to embed any latest Microsoft technology and does everything in their power to de-stabilize their existing user base. Between file version issues and various Desktop modules, AutoCAD has become a house of cards that can now be replaced only by their recent Revit purchase. (Of course, before the purchase, they promised the user base that Desktop was the future--pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.) The entire product line has become an upgrade train, and since all their mid-range competitors have been squashed, no one can get off.

This is quite sad because AutoCAD used to work on Unix. Much of the infrastructure still exists. (The archaic double-backslash or single forward slash path separators, for example.) Fortunately, the situation is so bad that there are many competing efforts to topple them. It will take some time, but an Open Source alternative could be derived from an emulator solution (IntelliCAD), a ground-up project (PythonCAD), a "ported" Apple solution, or an existing mature product (Cycas).

But I am certain the title of this article is completely upside-down.

Warning: The Following is not a publicity stunt...

[Chaffar]

At the end of the article:

"Autodesk, Inc. is wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With over seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media, and wireless data services fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers create, manage, and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers turn ideas into competitive advantage by becoming more productive, streamlining project efficiency, and maximizing profits."

This article was not written, endorsed, and paid for by Autodesk,Inc.http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=adsk&d=t . This article provides objective opinions. We are your friends...

Why should an article finish with a paragraph of marketing b*llsh*t? I mean, if you're going to pay a guy to write a nice article for you, shouldn't he at least try to not make it so obvious? Or is it just standard practice nowadays?

Yeah...uhhh...it's AutoDesk.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're about as friendly to open source as trees were to Sonny Bono. The only reason AutoDesk even exists is due to the income they extort from past customers that are forced into upgrading a bunch of AutoCAD licenses at $1000+ USD a pop every year so they can open drawings from their clients.

Please, please don't ever use AutoDesk as an example of anything positive ever again.

CAD Formats

[jbengt]

I would be much more impressed if they just published their file formats and opened them up for interoperability.
As it is, in an attempt to force upgrades, they no longer support saving to their own file formats when those formats are more than a few years old. And they change the formats almost every year. And they've even started adding weak encryption in places for no reason other than to make the format harder to reverse engineer.

I thought I saw a flying pig go by...

[antispam_ben]

But then I read enough to see that this had nothing to do with Autocad, the .dxf file format, or anything that would Especially Good to be more open-source-like.

Nothing to see here folks, move along now... Surely there's a Lego article you want to read and comment on...