> I wonder if big aerospace and defense companies like Boeing, and automakers, and heavy industry, and so on, might decide it's in their interests to collective

> I wonder if big aerospace and defense companies like Boeing, and automakers, and heavy industry, and so on, might decide it's in their interests to collectively buy and open-source an existing commercial CAD package rather than risk being held hostage to the vendors that gatekeep their engineering. I doubt it. The vendor/client relationship is a lot more collaborative and symbiotic than most people would think. I'm not sure about Boeing specifically, but I do know that their competitors work very closely with their CAD vendors. Part of the contracted agreement is to have a software team on the vendor side work with the engineering team on the design side to produce essentially a custom fork of the software. On one hand, yeah, the CAD vendor could play hardball and hold a client hostage. But on the other hand, there are only so many Boeings out there. So if you push them away, that revenue will be hard to replace. Most likely situation is the one that's played out a few times before: acquire your vendor.