Autodesk: How to lose loyal EAGLE customers

A few days ago, Autodesk has announecd that the popular EAGLE electronics design automation (EDA) software is moving to a subscription based model.

When previously you paid once for a license and could use that version/license as long as you wanted, there now is a monthly subscription fee. Once you stop paying, you loose the right to use the software. Welcome to the brave new world.

I have remotely observed this subscription model as a general trend in the proprietary software universe. So far it hasn't affected me at all, as the only two proprietary applications I use on a regular basis during the last decade are IDA and EAGLE.

I already have ethical issues with using non-free software, but those two cases have been the exceptions, in order to get to the productivity required by the job. While I can somehow convince my consciousness in those two cases that it's OK - using software under a subscription model is completely out of the question, period. Not only would I end up paying for the rest of my professional career in order to be able to open and maintain old design files, but I would also have to accept software that "calls home" and has "remote kill" features. This is clearly not something I would ever want to use on any of my computers. Also, I don't want software to be associated with any account, and it's not the bloody business of the software maker to know when and where I use my software.

For me - and I hope for many, many other EAGLE users - this move is utterly unacceptable and certainly marks the end of any business between the EAGLE makers and myself and/or my companies. I will happily use my current "old-style" EAGLE 7.x licenses for the near future, and theS see what kind of improvements I would need to contribute to KiCAD or other FOSS EDA software in order to eventually migrate to those.

As expected, this doesn't only upset me, but many other customers, some of whom have been loyal to using EAGLE for many years if not decades, back to the DOS version. This is reflected by some media reports (like this one at hackaday or user posts at element14.com or eaglecentral.ca who are similarly critical of this move.

Rest in Peace, EAGLE. I hope Autodesk gets what they deserve: A new influx of migrations away from EAGLE into the direction of Open Source EDA software like KiCAD.

In fact, the more I think about it, I'm actually very much inclined to work on good FOSS migration tools / converters - not only for my own use, but to help more people move away from EAGLE. It's not that I don't have enough projects at my hand already, but at least I'm motivated to do something about this betrayal by Autodesk. Let's see what (if any) will come out of this.

So let's see it that way: What Autodesk is doing is raising the level off pain of using EAGLE so high that more people will use and contribute FOSS EDA software. And that is actually a good thing!