We are shutting down Ondsel

Sometimes I envy that although I am not a SWE. I work in a field that is so close with the open source and tech scene that we don't have to rely on commercial products like some other fields. It is hard to compete or gain enough interest in some fields of engineering to any open or free solutions.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that non-SW engineers frequently turn their noses up at open-source solutions, and really the entire concept of open-source software, and seem to prefer proprietary solutions, the more expensive the better. I've seen this in the software world too, with embedded systems engineers, though Linux, gcc, etc. has made huge inroads here, though it took decades, and mainly came from the Linux adherents pushing downwards into the embedded space from the desktop space, not from any interest by the existing engineers in the embedded space.

Just look, for instance, at FPGAs: almost all the tooling is proprietary, very expensive, and very buggy too. Or look at PCB design: Altium seems to be the standard here still, despite Kicad having made huge advances and by most accounts being as good or even better. It took decades (Kicad started in 1992) for the FOSS alternatives here to really catch on much, and only really because PCBs became cheap enough for hobbyists to design and construct their own (mainly because of Chinese PCB companies), and because CERN contributed some resources.

I'm not sure what the deal is with engineers hating collaboratively-developed and freely-available software, but it's a real thing in my experience. It's like someone told them that FOSS is "socialism" and they just reflexively dismiss or hate it.

I don't think it's simply "engineers hate open source". Most of the open source tools in the embedded space are just a bit crap. The reality is that good software needs many thousands of hours of development time. The embedded space is actually pretty small in development budget terms - so fewer engineers who might devote time - and also there's less overlap in skillset - electronic design engineers rarely have the software skills required to develop EDA software.

Most of the incredibly well used robust open source packages are sponsored by large tech companies. The embedded space just hasn't had that kind of sponsorship.

> electronic design engineers rarely have the software skills required to develop EDA software.

You could say that about many other fields too, but then why do we have great tools like Blender, Krita, Audacity, etc.? Artists and musicians have great software skills, but electronics engineers don't? There's always been a huge overlap between EE and CS degrees, with "computer engineering" degrees coming about as a merger of the two fields decades ago, so I find this statement hard to believe.

Just a guess, but it could be because the size of EE employers is bimodal. Either you're working for a startup that can't afford to sponsor open source development and would not benefit in time for it to change the chance of success, or you're working for a huge company, big enough to negotiate discounts from the vendors.