Nipping at the heels...

[michael.12445]

...of expensive Windows-based CAD, bricscad has just released another beta of their CAD software that runs on Linux. Bricscad is based on Intellicad, which means it's an AutoCAD clone that reads and writes .DWG files. The previous Linux beta had horribly slow performance on redraws and regens, but this has been addressed in the current beta. AFAIK, when they finally release it for sale, it should go for around $325 - $450, based on the prices of the current Windows offerings.

There's also another company, in Italy (ProgeSoft) working on a Linux CAD program based on Intellicad.

Wonder if anybody at Autodesk pays attention to these developments?

Michael Evans
Togawa & Smith, Inc.

[thomas.stright]

I guess that depends if Bricscad supports all the 3rd party apps that run on autocad now.

[mjfarrell]

Sure they do, consider their purchase of REVIT and CAICE.
It's easier to buy the competition than to respond to it with
inovation and creative programming efforts.

[Glenn Pope]

There is also a group working on an open source CAD program for Linux. It's based off of PowerCAD. The cool part is since it open source it will be free. That is if it gets done. Right now it's in the earliest stages of planning.

[michael.12445]

The interesting thing about open-source is that, if released under the "GPL" public license scheme, no one could buy up the rights to it and remove it from the market. CAD seems to be one of the last applications to be tackled by open-source programmers, as there are already some very good open-source office suites, databases, web browsers, e-mail clients, bitmap image editors, sound applications, etc.

Michael Evans
Togawa & Smith, Inc.