CAD/CAM price model

[MrRage]

If you could download for free a fully functional, professional CAD/CAM and only be obligated to pay for its use if it was used for commercial use, would you pay? With that being said, I don’t have a program to market but if I did design and develop one I’d like to know what are you guys willing to honor a system like this.

[HuFlungDung]

Call me a skeptic, but I would be really surprised if free software was worth loading on my computer.

Why would you want to bother making another cut-rate cadcam? Why go to the effort for free? If you have some good ideas to implement, make sure you shop around first, look at many other programs and see what the competition has already accomplished. What you think is wonderful may already be old hat.

But, if you do have some good ideas that are original, then I think you deserve to be paid. I like paying for good software, as a means of rewarding the guys who put the effort into making it.

You are not really doing anyone a favour by working for cheap, if cheap means you cannot do support or that you simply drop out of business.

[ynneb]

What is commercial use? A hobbiest who makes and sells some of his handy work, or a person who works full time in the field.

As a hobbiest, who occasionally sells my handywork, I would not be prepared to spend any more than 100-200 bucks on the product.

Just for your own interest.

If you look at programs like Mach 3, it sells for 150 bucks, has a great customer following / loyalty. I would be surprized if there were any on this forum who would bother to find a crack for it, or rip off the system. On the other hand you could charge heaps for your software and not have the same loyalty, and there would be greater incentive for it to be pirated.

I firmly believe it is better to sell more seats for less money, than less seats for more money. You will gain a greater user base of people who will swear by your product than those who swear at it. Many happy customers will in itself generate more referals for new customers. I cant count the number of users who I have suggested they use Mach 3.

[ynneb]

I like paying for good software, as a means of rewarding the guys who put the effort into making it.

Then you can pay for mine ?

Besides, on this forum there are mainly hobbiests. I dont know if you read many of the posts, but most people are desperately trying to source the cheapest components for their machines they can. I get a real sick feeling in my gut when you can build a real world, solid machine for less than a $1000 bucks and then have to fork out more than the machine cost for a 50 Cent CD containing some software.

Yeh yeh I know it takes time to write the software, but isnt it better to know you are providing a service to 1000 users at 100 dollars than 100 users at 1000 dollars?

You are not really doing anyone a favour by working for cheap, if cheap means you cannot do support or that you simply drop out of business

Tripe. Most that fail are the greedy ones who overcharge and do not back up thier software.

[HuFlungDung]

Let it all out, Benny. You'll feel better

[rustyolddo]

My wife works for a hardware/software company. Software is a high mark up product. It is also a support intensive product. It costs money to develop it but it costs even more to support it. So many variables involved, the hardware which it runs on, the skill level of the users, marketing of the product. As a buyer/user we don't see the tangable product, it's paper and a CD, it doesn't have mass so we can't say "this feels like a $1000" If everyone in the US needed the product, it would be cheaper. CAD/CAM has a limited market and it's competative.

I have no beef for any software company and what they ask for their product, I have alot of respect for the Mach and TurboCNC products. For the paultry sum they sell their product for and the time & effort they put into it to develop it and support it, it's clearly a labor of love, no business person could make a living at those prices. Like everything else, you get what you pay for. In the case of the latter, you get way more than you pay for.

As for me, I appreciate a shareware product. If I use it, and rely on it, I pay for it hobby or otherwise.

[miljnor]

If you see your little boy trying to do something by himself (lets say hammering a nail) don't you help him with a usefull suggestion? or maybe get your own hammer and nail something together to show hime the way?

Thats what shareware is all about! Someone who made something that might be usfull to others but dosent want to make it a career.

Haven't you ever met someone that was so good at doing/making something you wonder why they don't do it for a living? I have, and they usually say "the don't like it enough to do it full time" no matter how much they could make doing it. These are your shareware makers.

Thats just what I think. just rambling

Now opensources! thats a differnt can O worms!

[Geof]

I do not see why people seem to have a different view toward software than they do to tangible objects like hammers and other tools. If I develop and patent a very advanced hammer and while you are visiting my shop you pocket one and leave with it that is theft pure and simple and few people would disagree with this. It is also theft of my ideas, i.e. patent infringement, if you copy the design. If I develop some spiffy software, copyright it or patent it whichever is applicable and then you copy and use it without paying for a license that also is theft. Few people would argue that I should make and distribute advanced hammers for free but many people seem to think that software, no matter how long it took to develop and how much money was spent in the development it, should be distributed for free. The logic in this thinking evades me.

[DareBee]

I think the biggest difference is that it is very difficult to steal the hammer out of the store.
But almost any jackass can pirate (or borrow) software in the privacy of their own locked home with very little chance of getting caught.

Like I always tell my wife (somewhat paranoid city woman) "locks are only on the door to keep honest people honest; if someone wants to break in there is no stopping them"

[Death Adder]

Taking even a quick glance at the posts that I've posted on these forums one could easily see that I'm a big free software advocate. It's not that I don't want to pay for software... In fact, I've probably got more expensive CAD/CAM apps than most people on the forums (Rhino3D, SolidWorks, SurfCAM) But, I do like free software. And there is PLENTY on all of my machines. Free firewall, free anti-virus, free SSH client, etc.

Free CAD apps are hard to come by though. Most of them really suck. I would like to change that and am trying to organize an effort to create a group of open source CAD/CAM apps. Why would I do such a thing when I could potentially charge for it? 1. It's not my day job 2. It doesn't cut into my day job 3. I like doing it 4. It's the concept of share and share alike. If I make you free software maybe you'll make me free software too. This is how open source works. Open source works as long as some of the consumers of free software are also producers. Since I like using open source software so much I figure I owe it back to the open source community to return the favor by producing something.


I've mentioned this before... But the open source movement has a sort of dark side... That is, it's completely counter to the standard closed source software world and steps on closed source software's toes. This is because some people that would have bought XXXXXX's product will now download the open source program and not pay XXXXXX anything. This makes XXXXXX mad. Also, it's seemingly hard to make money on open source as you are giving it away. Still, as others have mentioned, support is the money pit anyways. Plenty of companies make money providing support for open source products.

Originally Posted by HuFlungDung Call me a skeptic, but I would be really surprised if free software was worth loading on my computer. Why would you want to bother making another cut-rate cadcam? Why go to the effort for free? If you have some good ideas to implement, make sure you shop around first, look at many other programs and see what the competition has already accomplished. What you think is wonderful may already be old hat. But, if you do have some good ideas that are original, then I think you deserve to be paid. I like paying for good software, as a means of rewarding the guys who put the effort into making it. You are not really doing anyone a favour by working for cheap, if cheap means you cannot do support or that you simply drop out of business.

[rustyolddo]

FWIW, there is a really good Free CAD program, it's by Emachineshop.com THere are tutorials, it's easy to use and you can export the file as a dxf. Frankly, if there was a really simple, emphasis on simple! CAD/CAM program for folks to get their feet wet, do a simple pocket & drilling, you'd probably have a following. In reality, learning G-code & hand coding isn't hard but I can see it being a bit overwhelming for the matchmatically challenged.

[Death Adder]

I checked it out. It's interesting software. I think they had a neat idea w/ making a program that allows you to model things you want them to make. Make a program available for free that has buttons to order stuff from them... Brilliant.

It's not quite as full featured as I would like but there is absolutely no arguing with free and it is a decent program. I'd also recommend it to people who'd like to get their feet wet.

Originally Posted by rustyolddo FWIW, there is a really good Free CAD program, it's by Emachineshop.com THere are tutorials, it's easy to use and you can export the file as a dxf. Frankly, if there was a really simple, emphasis on simple! CAD/CAM program for folks to get their feet wet, do a simple pocket & drilling, you'd probably have a following. In reality, learning G-code & hand coding isn't hard but I can see it being a bit overwhelming for the matchmatically challenged.