Tag Archives: AutoCAD for Linux

The big Bricsys interview 10 – platforms

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This is one of a series of posts covering an extensive interview with Bricsys CEO Erik De Keyser and COO Mark Van Den Bergh.

In this post, R.K. McSwain asks about BricsCAD running on three different platforms. Erik explains why BricsCAD for Mac (and Linux) is so much more complete than AutoCAD for Mac, which has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.

R.K.: Do all three platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) contain the same functionality?

Erik: Yes. Sometimes it’s a bit hard with the Mac to bring it along but so far, so good. The only problem sometimes is in the APIs.

We are using wxWidgets and not the Microsoft classes. This gives us the ability, with the same source code more or less, to serve Mac, Linux and Windows. By far Windows is the most important one. By history, all the applications are on Windows, because AutoCAD was only Windows. What we have as APIs, and the most important ones are BRX and .NET. If you want to port an application to Mac, it means our API must support that as well. BRX is doing that for 90 to 95%; there are a couple of functions that only work on Windows. For most of the applications, they can port their application to Linux or the Mac without any problems.

Steve: And you support the Visual LISP COM functions as well, right?

Mark: Yes, we cover them and they are also available on Mac and Linux.

Steve: You have a solution there that Autodesk doesn’t, which gives us the strange situation that BricsCAD for Mac is more AutoCAD-compatible than AutoCAD for Mac.

R.K.: AutoCAD for Mac leaves a lot of holes.

Erik: That’s because they rewrote the whole interface for Cocoa, and we didn’t. We are using one code base. You can be more Catholic than the Pope, yeah? If you rewrite AutoCAD completely for the Mac, the result is many holes, no applications possible, it doesn’t help anybody. We’re better off being pragmatic and doing it the way we did it.

Still, we must say that applications availability for Mac and Linux is not much. That has to do with 95% of our sales being on Windows. We expect that might change for BIM, because more architects are Mac users, partly because the first version of ArchiCAD was on Mac, Vectorworks is, so it’s really an Architect’s machine. We expect that maybe for BIM, it might change and we might sell more versions on the Mac.

Steve: Autodesk doesn’t have a competitor there, does it?

Erik: No, absolutely not.

Mark: I should mention that all of our keys are cross-platform. So when you buy a key, you can run them all. So every time you on decide to run on Mac and later on you decide to switch it to Windows, we don’t have any problem. You can switch whenever you want, from one to the other, on to Linux if you want.

Erik: Again, choice. It’s up to the users.

This is the complete set of links to this interview series:

Executive summary of Deelip’s AutoCAD for Mac interview

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Deelip has just published an extensive interview with several Autodesk people about AutoCAD for the Mac. Deelip had a good set of questions and I suggest you read the whole thing, but if it’s all too tl;dr for you, then here is the lazy reader’s version of what Autodesk had to say:

  • The AutoCAD code was split up into 3 sections: the core CAD engine (platform-independent), the Windows-specific (MFC) parts and the Mac-specific (Cocoa) ones.
  • AutoCAD for Mac is incomplete. Choosing which features to leave out was done with the aid of CIP (oh, dear) and Beta feedback. (Hang on a minute, I thought CIP said most people were using the Ribbon…)
  • No comment on when or if AutoCAD for Mac functionality will catch up with its Windows counterpart.
  • No comment on the stability or performance of the Mac version.
  • Buying Visual Tau wasn’t a complete waste of money.
  • If Mac users want Windows-level functionality, they should use Bootcamp.
  • The Mac version is intended to expand the AutoCAD market to those Mac users who are frustrated by Bootcamp or who find it too hard.
  • Some mind-blowing spin was attempted in a valiant but vain attempt to explain away the Ribbon = productivity, Mac <> Ribbon marketing problem. You will really have to read it for yourself, as I can’t do it justice here. But “just because 2+2=4 doesn’t mean 4-2=2” will give you some idea of what to expect.
  • The Mac version is the same price as the Windows version, despite being incomplete, because Mac users won’t know or care about the missing stuff.
  • There are no plans for a Linux port, or any other platforms.
  • Autodesk will wait and see how AutoCAD for Mac does before porting any of the vertical products. (Very sensible).
  • Autodesk closed off the AutoCAD for Mac Beta program on announcement day because it wouldn’t have been able to cope with the mass of feedback from new users.
  • Autodesk will not allow dual use (Windows + Mac) licenses. If you want to have both products available to you, you will need to buy the software twice.
  • You can cross-grade AutoCAD from Windows to Mac for a nominal fee, or for nothing extra if you upgrade at the same time. (Although at 50% of the retail price of a whole new license, such an upgrade hardly represents a bargain).
  • Autodesk really doesn’t have any idea what is going to happen in the Mac CAD marketplace. (Refreshingly honest).
  • Little comment on why AutoCAD WS is called AutoCAD, other than iOs users not expecting their apps to do much anyway, plus it’s “part of the AutoCAD family.”
  • WS doesn’t stand for anything.

AutoCAD for Linux – another bad idea

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I often see calls for Autodesk to support AutoCAD on Linux. Just like AutoCAD for the Mac, while I can sympathise with the users of that OS, I think a native port of AutoCAD for Linux would be a bad idea. Again, I think it would be bad for everybody: Autodesk, AutoCAD for Windows users, and most of all, AutoCAD for Linux users.

Why? First of all, for most of the same reasons I gave for the Mac port. Autodesk hasn’t just failed in the past with AutoCAD for the Mac, it has failed with AutoCAD for Unix, too. I remember Autodesk being very enthusiastic about the Sparc port in particular (AIX, too). I know personally of customers who were caught up in that enthusiasm and invested heavily in a Unix environment, only to bitterly regret it a few years later when Autodesk abandoned them. Would this happen again? Probably.

Second, the numbers just don’t add up. Current PC OS market share is running something like this:

Windows 88%
Mac OS 10%
Linux 1%

While the Windows share is currently falling (thanks, Vista) and the others are steadily rising, there’s a long way to go before Linux has the numbers to make the investment worthwhile. In any case, it is likely that most Mac or Linux users of AutoCAD wouldn’t be new customers, simply existing users using a different OS. Not much of a cash cow, is it?

I dislike the Windows monopoly and support the open source movement, so I would love it if Autodesk could just snap its fingers and provide all its software on whatever platforms the users want. Mac? Sure. Linux? Great, why not? The reality is that it’s not that easy. It’s expensive to do and expensive to go on supporting in the long term. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t make commercial sense, and wishing it did will not make it so.