Open source software can be fantastic. I run almost exclusively open software, and have for longer than I care to admit. And although I’m not a serious coder by an stretch, I fill out bug reports when I find them, and poke at edge cases to help the people who do the real work.
For 3D modeling, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between OpenSCAD and FreeCAD. OpenSCAD is basic, extensible, and extremely powerful in the way that a programming language is, and consequently it’s reliably bug-free. But it also isn’t exactly user friendly, unless you’re a user who likes to code, in which case it’s marvelous. FreeCAD is much more of a software tool than a programming language, and is a lot more ambitious than OpenSCAD. FreeCAD is also a program in a different stage of development, and given its very broad scope, it has got a lot of bugs.
I kept running into some really serious bugs in a particular function – thickness for what it’s worth – which is known to be glitchy in the FreeCAD community. Indeed, the last time I kicked the tires on thickness, it was almost entirely useless, and there’s been real progress in the past couple years. It works at least sometimes now, on super-simple geometries, and this promise lead me to find out where it still doesn’t work. So I went through the forums to see what I could do to help, and it struck me that some people, mostly those who come to FreeCAD from commercial programs that were essentially finished a decade ago, have different expectations about the state of the software than I do, and are a lot grumpier.
Open source software is working out its bugs in public. Most open source is software in development. It’s growing, and changing, and you can help it grow or just hang on for the ride. Some open-source userland projects are mature enough that they’re pretty much finished, but the vast majority of open-source projects are coding in public and software in progress.
It seems to me that people who expect software to be done already are frustrated by this, and that when we promote super-star open projects like Inkscape or Blender, which are essentially finished, we are doing a disservice to the vast majority of useful, but still in progress applications out there that can get the job done anyway, but might require some workarounds. It’s exactly these projects that need our help and our bug-hunting, but if you go into them with the “finished” mentality, you’re setting yourself up for frustration.
Software testing against a functional description is an very important step in creating a functional end product!
That was done by a separate department separated from the programmers that received the error reports whith what was the issue and with a suggestion for a patch.
The test was done after a software review was done.
I am not a developer too, but using Linux in different flavor since a proper gui has been included. Cao is the last thing to force me keeping a windows solution. Freecad and opensacd are in the position of pro-engeneer or catia v4 from the 1995 (!) . Yes, 30 years ago. Thanks but a big no for me. Like going back to horse for the daily commute to work.
In contrary, Kicad, since a long time, has been able to compete with their proprietary opponents. I’ve thrown eagle and it expensive license under the bus at the first use of kicad, even if some basic fonction needed wasn’t even implemented: Easy to use, easy to adapt to your workflow, easy to install and maintain…
Linus Torvalds said we will go nowhere with the actual way of doing it in the open-source world , and explained in details why.
Maybe, but for us hobbyists, FreeCad works fine. I can sketch out a panel with relative ease, export to dxf and laser cut. Simple 3D parts for printing are easy. Ie. it works well enough for me for the little I need/use it. And it just gets better. Not a hard core user building a Boeing 777 jet with it. I spend more time on programming as that is my area of expertise.
Two years ago, I wrote a book that made heavy use of Freecad for mechanical illustrations and the results were “professional” by any reasonable definition of the word.
I don’t understand the perpetual disapproval Freecad gets. Is it equal to some kilobuck commercial package? No. But like you, I think it works fine for what I need it to do.
Examples: (Warning. Possible shameless self-promotion)
https://hpfriedrichs.com/mybooks/mmm/bks-mmm-gallery1.htm
Can’t disagree with with any of this.
My gripe with FreeCAD is all the different workbenches.
When things to side-ways, it’s hard not to wonder if talent isn’t wasted on seldom used “look what else we can kinda do” workbenches, while the core has bugs and deficiencies.
Better to do one thing well, THEN add to it.
It is mostly usable. Every couple of years I give it an honest “go”. Haven’t stayed so far, but also haven’t tried the latest version.
Still, Thank you to all those working on the project.
meant ” …When things GO side-ways, …”
For CAD work you need exactly two workbenches: Part Design and Assembly. If you need something special like generating a gear or stuff like that you load that workbench and that’s it.
It’s really not complicated.
And the part workbench (because, you know, mirror and symmetric isn’t in the PD WB) and the Tech draw workbench (because you need to export your drawing to PDF for the factory to make it), and sometimes, the Sketcher WB because, you want to add text to your model (this probably the most confusing one, at least for my logic)…
In the end, you’ll use them all. That’s not that bad, BTW, you just need to learn it, like Gimp or Blender. It’s not as intuitive as Fusion360 or Onshape, but, IMHO, as efficient now.
We definitely need to be more honest with ourselves and others about the state of projects. Especially when we recommend them to others!
I think a lot of open source projects are over-sold by (well-meaning) OSS evangelists (usually NOT those working on the project!), who often don’t actually understand what real-world uses entail, or that someone else might want a feature they don’t, or fail to recognise that some OSS projects have poor or non-standard UX and docs.
And then when someone finds an issue with an OSS project having a bug or lacking a feature, they’re far too often told “it’s OSS you can fix it yourself”. Even as a dev, that’s rarely a helpful answer, and the majority of people aren’t devs. (Again, this doesn’t usually come from those working on the projects; though they do often ask you to signup to [platform] to file a bug report, in a specific format – which for many people is still too complicated.
I use a solid mix of OSS and commercial software. Some OSS is solid; some is flaky; some it’s easy to extend or fix, but much is too convoluted to learn how the source code works.
I think keeping OSS to the Linux principle of “do one thing and do it well” helps a lot, but we definitely need to be more honest about the state of many OSS projects. And also consider how we view it compared to a “beta” feature from a company – which we usually crap on them for!
Ubuntu updates frequent. :) and :( ?
Lots of Ubuntu issues, we find.
AI Overview.
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian Linux.
Ubuntu is a free, open-source operating system (OS)
that includes desktop, server, and core versions.
Ubuntu high UX rating?
Just completed gcc c transparent portable 64 bit multiply accurate to 128 bits
on x86 Lenovo Celeron N5030, hp stream 13 4/32 GB, Ryzen 7 5700U, ARM Orange Pi zero 2W, Banana Pi M4 zero, Le Potato all running Ubuntu. :)
Tests worked on ARM Raspberry Pi 4B running RPiOS too.
OSs too obtrusive to only run transparent portable 64 bit fixed and floating point
arithmetic.
Arduino to the rescue? :)
Correction: hp stream 13 2/32 GB.
Previously stuck at Winds 10 1609.
I installed 22h2 on 2/32 which Microsoft degraded to 20H2.
Second hp stream 13 2/32 was stuck at 1511.
India hp manager reported hardware issue.
Contractor Ace [real named] installed 1909 on first 13 2/32 which prompted
me to try to install 22H2.
1909 still works well and is more reliable than 22H2 was.
Ubuntu no crash issues. :)
Didn’t FreeCAD recently release 1.0 though? 1.0 means finished, oss or not. It’s all about efficiently communicating. If your software is beta, then call it beta.