"This last month we also had a hectic turnover, because Autodesk changed the terms of the free version of their Fusion360. There is a full load of new limitations that restrain much the use for personal/hobby users. For example, the g-code you export from Fusion360 to CNC machines (that cut objects out of a block of material), is now making the machine running slower (and therefore raising the production costs), for no apparent reason other than nagging the users into buying a subscription. As a result, we saw a massive migration of users to FreeCAD, and it's really thrilling to see people discovering FreeCAD and learning it and liking it."
"We'd like to take a moment to congratulate all the new devs that are stepping up lately to submit fixes for the #FreeCAD project. Thx for leaning in! The commit log is becoming quite diverse and exciting to follow"
This is the first time I've heard of this change to Fusion360, and my initial reaction was to lower my opinion of Autodesk. But on second thought it seems like a good compromise: hobby users still get the functionality for free, but it dissuades use of the free version in commercial manufacturing.
How do you segment hobby CNC from commercial CNC usage?
Seems like “how quickly they need the job run” is a good compromise. For commercial use time is money, for a hobbyist something taking a bit longer is pretty inconsequential.
The alternative you’d suggest is just to cut the hobbyists off. How is that better?
"This last month we also had a hectic turnover, because Autodesk changed the terms of the free version of their Fusion360. There is a full load of new limitations that restrain much the use for personal/hobby users. For example, the g-code you export from Fusion360 to CNC machines (that cut objects out of a block of material), is now making the machine running slower (and therefore raising the production costs), for no apparent reason other than nagging the users into buying a subscription. As a result, we saw a massive migration of users to FreeCAD, and it's really thrilling to see people discovering FreeCAD and learning it and liking it."
Seems also to be reflected in contributions: https://twitter.com/FreeCADNews/status/1321931951658422284
"We'd like to take a moment to congratulate all the new devs that are stepping up lately to submit fixes for the #FreeCAD project. Thx for leaning in! The commit log is becoming quite diverse and exciting to follow"