Linux Version?

Maybe they could make the 3D engine open source like the linux kernel. Then it would become bulletproof. Users could just purchase the distro that was loaded with the features they needed. A true industry standard for 3D design would begin. Bug testing/solving would become far more responsive. Files would be backwards compatible. Upgrading would not require a complete reinstall. Users could choose and configure the interface that they want. etc. etc. etc.....

Dom.

Stephan Rose wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Recent interviews I've read (I don't have the links, but I think they were posted here) seem to indicate that market pressure for supporting a Linux port is insignificantly small. UG and Pro/E can do it alomost for free because they came from UNIX and never (to my knowledge) left it. I believe Autodesk dropped support of UNIX as a platform.

It's a chicken and egg problem. We can only speculate that the market would appear if SW was somehow ported to Linux. The only indicator I can think of for what the market might be would be the installation demographic of the CAD systems that do run on Linux. I don't have that data, and I don't know if it's available.

A more realistic hope might be a Mac port, but even the Mac is only a puny fraction of the desktop/workstation markets. There are very good reasons why MS was found to hold monopoly power in the OS market (the remedies were unfortunately lame, though the conviction was upheld).

Now that would be nice..I am actually primarily a programmer for a living. The Solidworks stuff I do is more of a side-thing that occasionally comes up but is far from my daily work.

I have played with the thought of starting development on a cross platform capable 3D Solid Modeller after I finish my current Project (Cross platform EDA, which is another area where the Linux world is rather dry in).

Only question is...what are the chances if someone like me were to start such a project of gaining any market penetration?

Then again I suppose the success of my current project might be a good indicator of that.

Well I talked to a UG sales person and he highly recommended to stay away from their Linux version as he said that it sadly isn't as stable as their windows version. I tend to almost believe sales people when they badmouth their own products. Though my conversation quickly ended with the guy when he asked me to fork over 2,000 euros for a 40 hour course before even considering giving me a trial.

As much as I really like Solidworks, Pro/E is an option I might play with. I'd really hate to switch though honestly...as I really enjoy using SW.

Autodesk made it onto my shitlist. Inventor is what I actually learned with and made my first experiences with. I used to enjoy using it. But it seems that every release of Inventor gets slower and more bloated than the previous.

Honestly I don't find Mac to be any better choice than windows. Quite the contrary. Windows at least only is a software lock-in. Mac is both a software and hardware lock-in. No thanks!

And actually Linux's and Mac's market share are roughly equal at the moment I think.

Though If they did do a Mac port...doing a Linux port at that point in time wouldn't be so terribly difficult anymore. Especially if they were to use a cross platform library such as wxWidgets. Write one set of code...support Windows, Linux, and Mac. I use it quite a lot.

innews: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I don't know how anyone would know what the Linux market share is. The distribution methods are all over the board, from purchased box sets, to downloads, to sharing cd's (all legal, of course). I've personally loaded a single Ubuntu cd onto 6 different PCs (all of which came with Windows pre-installed). So it's pretty hard to know what the installed market is much less what the potential market might be.

In my experience, cad users are more likely to have an interest in fringe technology, especially if it looks like it is a better solution. So I'd think small shops would be quite likely to adopt. However, from what I've seen of large corporate IT departments, they'd fight it tooth and nail. The are so entrenched in the one true Microsoft way.

Personally, if there was a Linux port of SolidWorks, I'd change immediately. SW is the only reason I ever use Windows (which, sadly, is what I'm posting from - SW running).

Hopefully, enough people will show interest that SW considers it. I doubt it though. SW is becoming more Windows centric with every release. Just look at the 'new' search feature for an example.

"ed_1001" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

One way is watching internet connections. For What It's Worth.

Yeah, I doubt it as well. SW Corp took the prophylactic off a long time ago and has been inserting it deeply into the M$ orificial sheep herd.

..

Amazing,.. Win98 @ 1.14% (Grandma,Grandpa and TOP (sorry Paul), still running on it!?!?)

..

A primary issue for a modeler software developer would be file compatibility with other software. If a user is isolated from all other software, they would not adopt the software. The capabilities and features would initially be of secondary importance.

It's not worth a lot. That is a measure of how many hits their customers have for each OS and even that is skewed. About 1% were Vista users before it was released. There were about 670 million pc users worldwide three years ago. So if it is an accurate reflection of the entire net, there were roughly 7 to 8 million Vista beta testers. According to Microsoft, the real number was about 5 million.

My guess is that the percentage would vary greatly depending upon the type of website. Business selling to the 'typical' web user would get a higher than actual Windows component, and a lower than actual Linux (or any other minority) component.

I thought I was hearing things too when he said that to me and considered making an appointment with my doctor to have my ears checked.

I honestly have absolutely no way to verify the validity of his claims since nobody I know uses it so I can't go anywhere to try it out.

Those stats are highly unreliable though.

So now which one is right??

Those server stats are too dependent on the website hosted by the server company. A company that's more MS centric will have fewer Linux hits than a more Linux centric server company that attracts more linux related sites.

I think about the only meaningful statistic would be google.com as any user regardless of OS is equally likely to use it. Unfortunately google is smart enough to not give out that information...

What he probabably means is that the Windows version crashes much less often than the OS, whereas with *nux, the opposite is true.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Market support for better performance seems to be lacking too. :(

TOP

When SW first came out it didn't have market support.

Microsoft market share just sloshes. It is an apple ripe for picking. SW is taking from others. And if you look at VISTA's share it isn't exaclty a winner. This could mean pent up demand.

TOP

Why in the world would the files be incompatible? If you are talking about the format that the software writes, it is no different than today. That's what we have neutral formats for (iges, step, etc.). If you mean incompatible at the OS level, that isn't an issue with any other type of file, so why cad files? On my linux boxes I can read Fat32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, dos, etc., etc., ad naseum. The only thing anyone would need to do is write in a MS file format (because they don't want to be compatible with anyone else).

innews: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

got to admit i just dumped the pc in favour of the mac and i now love the computer again

I also wish to see SW on a reliable OS. SW users would certainly set up a machine specially on that OS. But it seems that linux'share is not close to 10%, or even 5%. What kind of conclusion decision makers will make on these figures? And over all, remember that this NG reflectes only a 'special' part of SW users. (advanced/ aware/ geeks/ ... pick your own)

The thing is, global market share of Linux actually is completely irrelevant.

Does the average joe use SW? No. So does the Average Joe's OS really count? No.

Really the only single figure that matters is this: How many SW users use Linux? What's the percentage there?