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.

For non-SW engineers, like myself, software is a means, not an end, and FOSS or not FOSS is irrelevant.

To get a EDA tool to a useable condition, and debugged to the point where it is reliable enough to actually use, is just a ton of work. As someone who wants to design circuits, why should I do that work? How will it help me design more circuits? I understand why beginners and casual users don't like them because the EDA tools do have a huge learning curve, but once you're there, they are very productive.

For professional engineers the software license is not really a significant barrier. Compared to the cost of labor, materials and equipment it's basically a noop.

None of the points you make is universally true. FOSS means that there is less of a chance of the rug being pulled from under you in the form of subscription services nobody asked for. This has been a repeated annoyance with one certain company which did that recently for an ECAD tool and an MCAD tool. And, there are enough motivated people who do a ton of work to make FOSS software reliable enough. In fact, MCAD is an exception in that area. We have world class FOSS operating systems, 3D animations systems and development tools in an endless list. Even Blender, which was not very popular a decade ago, suddenly gained recognition. FOSS ECAD is on the way and it will happen some day for FOSS MCAD too. Finally the license cost. The cost of proprietary software - especially engineering and scientific software is exorbitant in countries with better purchase power parity. Much less would happen in those sectors in such places if it weren't for the large repository of FOSS software available to them.

> rug being pulled from under you in the form of subscription services nobody asked for

Businesses like subscription services. It's all about the cash flow.