Migrating to cloud + subscription - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2022, 09:25:54 am
content: Is this the future for Altium? I note that generics require an A365 account so are only accessible when cloud connected, and from there it's a short hop to ensuring continued subscriptions. I can't see any technical reason for that, so I am wondering if this is a portent of Altium following Autocad in protecting revenue streams.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 07:31:17 pm
content: It's not just about money."They" want to keep the threshold of entry very low for stepping into this cloud stuff, but low hanging clouds is nothing but mist to blind you.They take the opportunity to take your data as a hostage to be able to force you into whatever whim they are going to think up at some undisclosed time into the future.Now they're just nibbling at your toes and finger tips.In a few years they'll bite off an arm or a leg.For me it's very simple.I am never ever going to give into stuff like that, and am not afraid to support the good stuff.I've donated more to open source projects then I've ever paid for commercial software.

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 08:52:12 pm
content: Depends what they are doing in the cloud.Anything having to access the cloud will always be slower than the local PC.A lot of the free stuff has matured now so why buy or rent ?

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 09:08:50 pm
content: QuoteDang. I thought that was just age-related circulation issues.QuoteWell, yes. I am not anti-cloud as a matter of course, just that I see it as a sub-feature rather than a necessity. I can see that hosting PCB data in the cloud makes it a lot easier to collaborate but the data shouldn't be a hostage to the cloud. And if I'm not collaborating then there's no reason to use it. Which is why I asked about the generics - that's a cloud-only feature and I can't see a reason for that.QuoteWell I ain't going to rent, so that's a third of your question sortedFree stuff is OK but relies on someone implementing some feature or fix because they feel like it. A commercial enterprise may not feel like it either, but at least you can actually withhold money (or not spend it) to let them know how you feel about it. Also, currently, the free stuff isn't up to the paid stuff - Kicad, for instance, won't run on Windows 7 and the authors don't give a toss.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 12:32:21 am
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 23, 2022, 09:08:50 pmOK, Windows 7 lifespan was October 2009 to January 2020. You're pushing your luck for anyone to actively support software on that for free.You can pay for your own KiCAD development or features, etc. seehttps://www.kipro-pcb.com/Would still be cheaper than an AD setup.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 10:23:10 am
content: QuoteI think you are missing the point. In fact, I think you unwittingly reinforced the point I was making!

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 09:26:46 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 24, 2022, 10:23:10 amAdobe, Autodesk, and many others no longer support Windows 7 for years now.Kicad not running on Windows 7 is a complete non-issue that no one should care about.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 09:37:43 pm
content: There is a difference between not supporting and actively breaking.Is Linux rubbish because no-one supports Wine? No, if it runs it runs and, so far as I know, most shops don't support Wine but don't go as far as stopping it working.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 09:54:26 pm
content: They didn't actively break it, it was unsupported for a while, then python 3.9 came into play: "Note that Python 3.9.0 cannot be used on Windows 7 or earlier." Straight from the Python website.https://forum.kicad.info/t/windows-7-soon-to-be-no-longer-functional-for-6-0/27149Quote

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 10:12:50 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 24, 2022, 09:54:26 pmWhich is an utterly stupid move to make. Especially for a programming language that is supposed to be cross-platform.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 10:37:50 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 24, 2022, 10:12:50 pmAs was mentioned above, Windows 7 lifespan ended 2020.Its not a current platform.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 10:54:05 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 24, 2022, 10:37:50 pmNobody cares except Microsoft. Windows 7 is still widely used so it makes a lot of sense to keep supporting it. Forcing people to upgrade is just a waste of time (if they can upgrade; I can't use Windows10 for example because I can't read anti-aliased text).

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 11:39:35 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 24, 2022, 10:54:05 pmhttps://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwidehttps://www.isunshare.com/windows-10/choose-whether-to-smooth-edges-of-screen-fonts-in-windows-10.htmlhttps://www.laptopmag.com/articles/adjust-cleartype-windows-10

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 04:11:20 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 24, 2022, 09:26:46 pmI care about it. Windows 7 is the last viable operating system that Microsoft has produced so I continue to use it. Everything other than my main laptop is on Linux already but I still have a few things that require Windows so this machine is on Windows 7 for the foreseeable future. I run KiCad on it just fine though, I just stopped at whatever version I got used to years ago, it does everything I need.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 04:13:28 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 24, 2022, 11:39:35 pmThe only reason it even exceeded 50% is that it was pushed incredibly aggressively. The over the top malware-like methods they used to try to force adoption (along with being forced to use it at a former job) were enough to ensure I will never let it touch any of my personally owned hardware.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 10:16:29 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 24, 2022, 11:39:35 pmI have no idea what that shows (either my adblocker or AV prefer not to let me look at it) but "context-free statistics" returns 6.73 BILLION hits on Google. There's a lesson thereIf you wanted to play raw numbers games then everything except Android should be obsoleted by now. But sticking to the PC, the vast majority of those W1[0|1] users will have acquired it simply through it being on the PC when they bought it - they had no choice and probably care even less. So long as it browses to Facebook it's a good 'un. But a small subset of all those are not using PCs to be online snowflakes but do real work, and a subset of those will be designing PCBs. That's the target dataset, and I guarantee you that the percentage of W7 to W1[0|1] in that set is very different to the general population.It doesn't end there either. We are not looking at existing users but potential users. Although now, I guess, we should be looking at ex-users and would-have-but-couldn't users. Any idea what those numbers are?QuoteTechnical quibble. For the purposes of this thread and my point, you could transfer everything to python. Open source, isn't it? Stopped supporting an OS in daily use by millions because, don't fancy it and 'you get what you pay for'.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 08:56:00 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 25, 2022, 04:11:20 amWhat are the chances you said the same thing about Windows XP.Anyway, you can try Kicad V6 on the linux machine if you want to see the new improvements to usability.Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 25, 2022, 10:16:29 amIt shows that 84% of windows users are on a later version than 7.How they got there is interesting but not really relevant to any OSS project.Do you have a spare HDD? Throw it on a give it a try. Or linux, either works.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 09:45:04 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 25, 2022, 08:56:00 pmI stuck with XP until I built a new machine, then I went to 7 and adapted pretty quickly. I had to use 10 at work for almost 2 years, I never adapted, I hated every day of it. 7 had a few visual changes compared to XP but fundamentally it worked pretty similarly and unlike later versions it was highly customizable and didn't constantly update and install shit I don't want, occasionally even uninstalling stuff I did want, claiming it to be incompatible. I don't even know how many times I deleted stupid Candy Crush and other trash from my Win10 machine. Updates, updates, updates, always hijacking the machine at the most inopportune times.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2022, 10:24:22 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 25, 2022, 09:45:04 pmYou may want to look at LTSC in the futureQuotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2022, 12:57:06 am
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 23, 2022, 09:08:50 pmThis relationship goes both ways. Users are generally not an asset to open-source projects, so contributors couldn't care less how many people are using it. If anything, users are a liability; they generate support requests and asinine complaints like 'it doesn't run on an out-of-support, 13-year-old OS that, whether we like it or not, is no longer supported by one of our core underlying tools'. So yeah, the people that actually are contributing to the project aren't going to put their effort towards features targeted at making users that can't be bothered to even maintain an up to date system happy. Such features are of little to no benefit to the contributors, who have no problem running a modern Python on their machines (probably on Linux...). It might even have concrete drawbacks to them, like being stuck on an ancient Python version. Who wants more whingey curmudgeons that refuse to get with the times associated with their project anyway?On the other hand, individual customers, especially hobby users, have no weight with commercial entities either. If you want something different like say a perpetual not-cloudy license of their software, or support for Linux. Or anything, really, your option is going to be 'pound sand'. At least with open-source offerings you could potentially implement such support yourself, find an interested developer, or pay someone to implement it for you. It even has a good likelihood of getting upstreamed.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2022, 01:43:30 am
content: QuoteYou're not here to make friends, are you?There is not "can't be bothered" about it - if that were the actual attitude we'd be running whatever Windows version Microsoft saw fit to push last update time. Those of us not accepting that are actually pretty bothered about maintaining a workable system.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2022, 02:04:47 am
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 26, 2022, 01:43:30 amThis. I was very much bothered and had to jump through an inordinate number of hoops in order to keep Microsoft from ****ing up my PCs. It would have been far, far easier to just not resist and go with the flow, but god dammit these are *MY* machines and I will install the OS that *I* want, on *MY* terms and schedule. I don't know what universe they're operating in that replacing the entire OS automatically as a recommended update and using practices indistinguishable from malware to trick the user into doing so is in any way acceptable.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 05:59:39 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 26, 2022, 01:43:30 amThat's kind of my point. Open source developers have no obligation to you, they're not working on their projects to make friends, and they don't need more non-contributing users that have demands that make life difficult for them. Supporting ancient operating systems definitely qualifies.You should take your issues up with Microsoft, and perhaps take this opportunity to migrate to an operating system vendor that is less user-hostile. Your reasons for not upgrading may be perfectly valid, but you should not at the same time expect everything to continue supporting the ancient operating system. That is the cost of the decision to continue running it, and that is on you, not the developers.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 06:59:32 pm
content: QuoteDid you just join this thread 5 posts ago or something? My earlier post said:QuoteMaybe you can identify the tiny difference between that and what you're arguing about, but I can't. Perhaps you meant to argue the toss with someone else?

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2022, 11:53:22 am
content: Quote from: johnboxall on March 24, 2022, 12:32:21 amI sell software with my hardware systems and was gobsmacked at the number of people still using XP in 2022 !

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2022, 12:00:04 pm
content: Quote from: ve7xen on March 28, 2022, 05:59:39 pmWhile many are hostile towards Win 11 it has improved security a lot.A locked up pc being held to ransom is no joke.