Draftsight Free for New SW Licenses?

[mattpeneguy]

Who is making these terrible decisions?:

It's like they are stabbing their existing customers in the eye with every decision they make...

[zwei]

What the hell?

It was free previously
Then they ended the so call free offer
Now it is free with SOLIDWORKS?


What's next? SOLIDWORKS is free with 3DExperience?

[Jonathan Leeper]

Hey Matt, where did you see this?

[FMAAID]

They keep on deleting my posts in the swamp. I wonder if it is a glitch or I am being censored, neither would surprise me.

I use dxf's everyday and this is just more salt on the wound.

[Ben]

like a couple months ago i had to edit a few dxf and i went to open draftsight which had been previously free and i had to buy it. so stupid.

[mattpeneguy]

Hey Matt, where did you see this?

They emailed it to both my work and personal addresses.

What's ironic is that they yanked the licenses away thinking that people would buy it and for the most part people must not be because now they're giving it away, again...Really rude way of handling it though, IMO...

[DennisD]

Perhaps this guy also works at DSS. . .

[Jonathan Leeper]

...Really rude way of handling it though, IMO...

Agreed. We were on the verge of switching to Draftsight when they pulled that stunt. Glad we kept up our AutoCad seats.

[mattpeneguy]

If we switch to SE or IV one of the biggest considerations will be how Siemens and Autodesk treats their existing customers at this point...

[Eddy Alleman]

Agreed. We were on the verge of switching to Draftsight when they pulled that stunt. Glad we kept up our AutoCad seats.

A client of mine also sticked to their autocad seat, but one day they had to reinstall windows10.
They had to reregister their license and Autodesk support tells them they don't support registering oldversions/perpetual anymore (before the time you had to pay per month/year)
So it could be a good idea to make a recovery drive of your system...

[MJuric]

Who is making these terrible decisions?:

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It's like they are stabbing their existing customers in the eye with every decision they make...

completely off topic but what template are you using for this forum. I see your snips you're posting and I like that format, color etc better than the one I'm using.

[mattpeneguy]

completely off topic but what template are you using for this forum. I see your snips you're posting and I like that format, color etc better than the one I'm using.

I'm using Breeze in Dark Mode.
Here's where you can change it to Dark Mode:

[bnemec]

If we switch to SE or IV one of the biggest considerations will be how Siemens and Autodesk treats their existing customers at this point...

I had not heard from Siemens, except for when they tried to sell us TeamCenter, until we informed them we were not renewing subscription a couple years ago. I met several nice people from the Eastern US Siemens office right quick after that. The VAR scrambled to fix things but it was too late, of course they wanted a meeting which we obliged, they thought they were going to win back the business we considered it a courtesy interview. They claimed they were not given a fair shot at solving the clearly outlined issues. I think what they meant was they were not given a fair shot at solving the issues after we informed them we were no longer buying their product. They had plenty of opportunities before that. Both our SE VAR and Siemens didn’t think we were serious for several weeks; so it seems like the only way to get traction is with threats. I guess it’s the art of negotiation, I don’t really play that game, I say what I mean and mean what I say.

I get the feeling that in general the only way for an existing subscription paying customer to get attention from any of these Software companies is to inform them you’ll not be renewing your licenses. You don’t have to mean it just threaten it, I’d be ready to back it up though. The whole thing is driven by greed, I mean money; money comes from new sales, new sales only come from marketing (or so the marketing people say and since they are the most skilled at convincing others they win) so marketing drives the bus, not tech support, not development planning.
You will not get changes or hot fixes without the person that cuts the POs for maintenance to start saying things like “…if this is not resolved in the given amount of time we will need to look into other solutions.” It’s amazing how fast things can turn around once those stake holders get involved. That whole thing really grates me though as I follow the lesson of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Edit: GTAC is awesome, I must make sure to mention that any time I am critical of Solid Edge or Siemens. Long Live GTAC!

[SPerman]

I get the feeling that in general the only way for an existing subscription paying customer to get attention from any of these Software companies is to inform them you’ll not be renewing your licenses.

Many of us have done that with Solidworks. You see how much they care.

[IndianaDave]

Well this is infuriating...
After so many customers scrambled trying to find other options and weigh them compared to paying for Draftsight.
What I'd really like is better editing abilities for DWG and DXF files inside of Solidworks.
We can open them, and do some work on them, and use familiar Solidworks commands.
Then we don't even need a second program.

I use Draftsight so seldom, that it's like I'm handicapped whenever I do have to.

[FMAAID]

(edit*, better video)

The little kid =SW users

Jerk Ice cream man =SW