6 ms·

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith

I'd rather see firms chuck some money to perhaps Blender or something to get a viable alternative developed than send angry letters to the featureless monolith that is Autodesk. They're the market leader. They don't care. They already have firms by the metaphorical balls with astronomical licensing fees and know people will pay because they set the standards across many industries. In architecture, anyway, the problem seems to be that generally BIM programs just suck. Nobody I know likes Revit, although they admit it's powerful, and a lot of firms think Archicad isn't industry ready. I've used Archicad myself, at least, and it's very painful. The workflow flows poorly, and there's not much consideration for what people are going to be doing a lot of, so you're constantly wrestling with it to get the function you want. It's got a lot of good and interesting ideas in it, but sadly they're just hampered by feeling bolted on and not well integrated.

DonHopkins 4y ago
Firms like NVidia, AMD, Facebook, Amazon, Unity, Epic Mega Grants, Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, and Apple chucking money at Blender is a hell of a lot better for users and society and education and industry than the featureless monolith that is Autodesk chucking plaster at Ton Roosendaal. ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk >... of public interest, we have to act in that sense. I can't simply say, "Oh, I'm going to support Autodesk from now on". And then, you can't. You can bring me to court and I will most certainly lose this. Plus, what people don't know maybe, but the Blender code is not owned by the Blender Foundation. [CRASH RUMBLE THUD] What??! That was Autodesk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg >"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal interview. Interview with Ton Roosendaal, the man behind the open source 3D software Blender! 46:52: [Q: What do you think of Autodesk?] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg&t=46m53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg&t=46m53s >A: They're my best friends! Yah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! >[...52:46] Nobody reads those licenses. Nobody. [And this one is quite bad, isn't it?] It's horrible. [Yeah.] They can visit you at home if you use Autodesk, and check your computer, what's on it. [That's a good quote.] >Some people ask me, hey Ton, if I use Blender, the art I make, is that my property, can I do whatever I like with it? Of course! That's open, the Free Software Foundation philosophy, right? We are making free software. Do whatever you do with the content. >Autodesk, on the other hand, they also have their educational versions. In the license it says that everything you make with educational software is NOT your property. You can NOT do whatever you like with it. It is RESTRICTED. You can only do a little bit with it, you can not do other things with it. So basically Autodesk controls the content for that. [Ooooh...] >Especially for commercial use, or use inside of companies, or if you want to sell something. You can only use it to learn the software, but not to do anything with the content. >And they complain about Blender having an evil license. But I've got -- everybody... [Wait, who says that?] Aaaah, like I've got that kind of emails. It's got less, but even today, a business meeting with a studio, and they say, "Yeah, yeah, we are thinking about Blender, but the license, you know?" and then "If we start using Blender, then we might get sued, or a patent problem. And is the content ours? If we use Blender, is it really ours? Because we get free software? Because the content is then yours." >I said "NO!!!". [Ha ha ha ha!] I do hear rumors that Autodesk is spreading that story. [What??!] Yeah! [Ooooh!] Autodesk tells people... [That's conspiracy talk!] ...they go to companies and say "Ah, don't use Blender, but you see now, Open Source, the content you make has to be open too, so you have to share it, or everything." They spread those rumors. [Gasp!] So shame on you, Autodesk. [Ha ha ha ha ha! Allegedly. Or not even allegedly. Rumored.] I heard. But I heard it from people who heard it from Autodesk. [Ok!] So, show me [?] and in between, right, and it's with an [?] as a witness, right? It's like, you could tell me, and then it's too hard to believe you, right? [Yes, yes.] >Especially studios in Europe, and also Australia, and Indonesia. They get visitors from Autodesk. And if they say, "Ah, we are using Blender", then ESPECIALLY they get visitors from Autodesk. "Knock knock. Hey, I am your Autodesk sales representative. I see you're using Blender. I have something much better. Let's talk. Maybe we can give you nice discounts, or things to make sure you are kicking Blender out." >[Woah, this sounds very...] This really happens. [Really?] Yeah! [It sounds very nineteen-eighty...] It's normal business. Why's that nasty? They made money with it. It's what they have to do. I don't make money with it, so I don't care. If they want to use Maya, then they should use Maya [Yeah.] right? >[So you believe the product should speak for itself, right? Like if it's better, you use the better one.] Yeah, everybody should decide that for themselves. https://www.blenderbasecamp.com/where-does-blender-get-all-their-money-from/ https://www.blenderbasecamp.com/where-does-blender-get-all-t... >Where Does Blender Get All Their Money From? >Which Companies Are Sponsors Of The Blender Foundation? >Why Do Some Of These Companies Invest In Blender? >What Are The Different Tier Systems That Blender Uses For Donations? >What Are The Different Ways In Which I Can Donate To Blender? >Can Anyone Donate To The Blender Foundation To Support The Software?
Rackedup 4y ago
Blender is really nice but it isn't super easy to always get non-destructive/permanent modifications (but there might always be a way).
- superchroma 4y ago
  They're starting to lean into it now. Add-ons like HardOps have shown it's definitely possible, and I think there's a lot of interest in that space so they can rope in the parametric modelling guys.
  - daniel_reetz 4y ago
    A parametric sketch add-on (CAD Sketcher) is being developed. It won't replace Fusion or anything (and it's not intended to) but it convinced me to relearn polygon modeling after being away for 15 years.
  - Rackedup 4y ago
    That's great
civeng 4y ago
Try Vectorworks. They had BIM years before Revit was a twinkle in AutoCAD's eye. Perhaps they fell behind for a few years but now but now more than viable and so much more stable code.
- Intermernet 4y ago
  Vectorworks is still in the thousands. It would be nice if some of the people willing to pay that cost decided to support the BIM developments in Blender instead. Blender have recently shown that they can adapt and change faster than any of their commercial competitors in the 3D modelling space. I'm pretty sure they can leap-frog Autodesk and Vectorworks in a couple of years if they had the funding.
- dkarl 4y ago
  When was the quality turning point for Vectorworks? My wife uses it and still experiences regular crashes, though to be fair she avoids upgrading because she doesn't want to learn a new set of bugs to work around.
  - civeng 4y ago
    About 4 years ago we started noticing it really started improving. What version is she on?
riedel 4y ago
Supporting FreeCAD [1] would be IMHO the way to go as they already provide both interfaces to BIM [2] and Blender [3]. Would be great if there were more architects or structural engineering companies that invest in open source. Maybe then universities would follow instead on building on education licenses that after graduation become very expensive. [1] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Donate https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Donate [2] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/BIM_Workbench https://wiki.freecadweb.org/BIM_Workbench [3] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Tutorial_Render_with_Blender https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Tutorial_Render_with_Blender
- superchroma 4y ago
  Yeah, definitely. Blender is a shining example of what's possible, and people are starting to take notice, particularly in the cinema space.
  - wnkrshm 4y ago
    I wonder whether that has its downsides though - with Google, Apple etc. being involved in development I wonder whether that hollows out the core of participating developers and functionally makes the project dependent on paid employees.
    - therouwboat 4y ago
      I dont think its downside that devs get paid, thats how it should be and I think Ton is handling blender foundation very well.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      Blender has been dependent on paid employees for quite a while. Not 100% but the majority of the grunt work (stuff that isn’t all that much fun) is through devs funded by the Blender Institute/Foundation.
    - ramblerman 4y ago
      Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? My vision is completely the opposite, the more money we pump into open source the better. We have to get out of this idea that open source is only good (and pure) when it's some dev slaving away after hours.
doublesocket 4y ago
FWIW I've enjoyed using Rhino with VisualARQ for architectural work.
- thenthenthen 4y ago
  Funny, I almost never see Rhino mentioned in these discussions. Yeah its 999$ but comes with Grasshopper, crazy insane parametric node based drawing (and simulation, batch exporting, and python support). Plus, it’s not Autodesk (yet) which I stopped using since I tried Fusion 360; After using it once (auto run after install) I could not find the binary next time. Apparently it installed itself in non standard directories on mac (outside spotlights scope), ouch. Not sure if thats still the case, but this malpractice not only put me off, I literally could not run it again besides reinstalling hahha
  - washadjeffmad 4y ago
    Rhino also has really affordable lifetime licenses. It makes it an easy decision to buy bulk for a org and dole out as needed.
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
> a lot of firms think Archicad isn't industry ready It's similar in many other industries. Take InDesign, the current market leader in DTP. Say you are working on a book that has multiple indexes: index of places, index of people and so on. Well InDesign doesn't support that! This is not some fancy feature - you will find multiple indexes in many non-trivial books. But for some reason the most popular and supposedly advanced DTP solution on the planet doesn't support that and people need to use workarounds.
- auggierose 4y ago
  It's because once a company is a market leader, it isn't anymore about "What feature is useful", but about "What will increase our revenue by x%?". Will adding a multiple index feature add anything to revenue? I doubt it.
  - Intermernet 4y ago
    Yep, Quark Express was the king of DTP until they suddenly weren't. It doesn't take long for the landscape to change.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    It's more about PMs thinking "Which feature will make it look like I'm doing something useful?" Photoshop has been quietly getting worse for years now. Certain annoyances haven't been touched for decades, but new features - like the one that forces you to save a copy for certain formats even when you don't want to - are so unwelcome and pointless they've have to add a switch in the preferences which allows you to turn them off. When a product matures and has monopoly lock-in it's essentially frozen. The core workflow will stop improving and updates will usually add unwelcome friction-inducing cruft around the edges.
- FuriouslyAdrift 4y ago
  InDesign is for layout, it's not for books. FrameMaker is for books.https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html
- 4y ago
adammarples 4y ago
Tried codebook?
Aeolun 4y ago
For those others that wonder and want to save a Google query: BIM = Building Information Management
stefantalpalaru 4y ago
aothms 4y ago
There's a Blender addon under development for BIM called https://blenderbim.org/ https://blenderbim.org/ they're looking for funding Blender's user interface is fully scriptable in Python, which means you can really adapt to your personal workflows or that of the company BlenderBIM accomplished a lot in about a year, but I guess we're all aware of what kind of monumental undertaking this is. (I work on a related library)
Intermernet 4y ago
Autodesk have jumped the shark with their recent cloud pricing options. New users will be priced out of the software, and will use anything else other than the Autodesk family of products. This may take a generation, but Autodesk have made a conscious decision to be less and less relevant over the next decade or so. Adobe are on the same path, but not quite so aggressively. They may still see the writing on the wall and back out before they become history.
- semi-extrinsic 4y ago
  Yeah, I don't understand how these firms (especially Adobe) are so completely oblivious to what actually made them successful. One of the main reasons Photoshop and Illustrator became widely used, is that every eleven-year-old with an interest in design or photo editing would torrent these products and learn the workflows inside out. Autodesk seems to have somewhat figured this out, with Fusion360 having a free hobbyist license for instance.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    The subscription model for Adobe actually makes photoshop more affordable for students than before, though. (Even if they pay more in the end)
    - dghlsakjg 4y ago
      1. Students didn’t upgrade every version. So the cost was amortized over many years. 2. The above point is moot because I, and every student I knew, used a school copy on a lab computer or… obtained a copy without paying
      - rjh29 4y ago
        Photoshop CS6 is $700 ($1000 Extended), subscription is $10/month including Lightroom. So you'd need a lot of 'amortization' to make the standalone version a better choice. I think your second point is moot personally, forcing students to break the law to obtain Photoshop is not a solution. I don't like subscriptions personally, but most people do not care and it has definitely made Photoshop more affordable for the average person. This is reflected in Adobe' stock price.
devwastaken 4y ago
You can't, Autodesk owns the software patents and massive amounts of IP. You impliment their features, you're sued to non existence. Remove software patents, we will have competition again.
- Jenk 4y ago
  Remove software patents and we'll have megacorps absorbing smaller businesses for free through theft of IP instead of acquisitions, and all the antitrust protection (as limited as it may be) instantly evaporates.
  - marssaxman 4y ago
    It is copyright law, not patent law, which prevents the scenario you describe. Patents are useless to small businesses unless you are in the business of patent-trolling. Try to sue a big corporation and they will just countersue.
  - luciusdomitius 4y ago
    It is extremely naive to think that ServiceNow would be able to steal a feature from e.g. the PM part of GitLab. The reason why their products are even more obnoxious than paper bureaucracy is definitely not that noone ever told them what they are doing wrong. Same applies for MSFT, Oracle and as of recently Google and Facebook too.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

DonHopkins 4y ago

Firms like NVidia, AMD, Facebook, Amazon, Unity, Epic Mega Grants, Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, and Apple chucking money at Blender is a hell of a lot better for users and society and education and industry than the featureless monolith that is Autodesk chucking plaster at Ton Roosendaal. ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk >... of public interest, we have to act in that sense. I can't simply say, "Oh, I'm going to support Autodesk from now on". And then, you can't. You can bring me to court and I will most certainly lose this. Plus, what people don't know maybe, but the Blender code is not owned by the Blender Foundation. [CRASH RUMBLE THUD] What??! That was Autodesk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg >"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal interview. Interview with Ton Roosendaal, the man behind the open source 3D software Blender! 46:52: [Q: What do you think of Autodesk?] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg&t=46m53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg&t=46m53s >A: They're my best friends! Yah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! >[...52:46] Nobody reads those licenses. Nobody. [And this one is quite bad, isn't it?] It's horrible. [Yeah.] They can visit you at home if you use Autodesk, and check your computer, what's on it. [That's a good quote.] >Some people ask me, hey Ton, if I use Blender, the art I make, is that my property, can I do whatever I like with it? Of course! That's open, the Free Software Foundation philosophy, right? We are making free software. Do whatever you do with the content. >Autodesk, on the other hand, they also have their educational versions. In the license it says that everything you make with educational software is NOT your property. You can NOT do whatever you like with it. It is RESTRICTED. You can only do a little bit with it, you can not do other things with it. So basically Autodesk controls the content for that. [Ooooh...] >Especially for commercial use, or use inside of companies, or if you want to sell something. You can only use it to learn the software, but not to do anything with the content. >And they complain about Blender having an evil license. But I've got -- everybody... [Wait, who says that?] Aaaah, like I've got that kind of emails. It's got less, but even today, a business meeting with a studio, and they say, "Yeah, yeah, we are thinking about Blender, but the license, you know?" and then "If we start using Blender, then we might get sued, or a patent problem. And is the content ours? If we use Blender, is it really ours? Because we get free software? Because the content is then yours." >I said "NO!!!". [Ha ha ha ha!] I do hear rumors that Autodesk is spreading that story. [What??!] Yeah! [Ooooh!] Autodesk tells people... [That's conspiracy talk!] ...they go to companies and say "Ah, don't use Blender, but you see now, Open Source, the content you make has to be open too, so you have to share it, or everything." They spread those rumors. [Gasp!] So shame on you, Autodesk. [Ha ha ha ha ha! Allegedly. Or not even allegedly. Rumored.] I heard. But I heard it from people who heard it from Autodesk. [Ok!] So, show me [?] and in between, right, and it's with an [?] as a witness, right? It's like, you could tell me, and then it's too hard to believe you, right? [Yes, yes.] >Especially studios in Europe, and also Australia, and Indonesia. They get visitors from Autodesk. And if they say, "Ah, we are using Blender", then ESPECIALLY they get visitors from Autodesk. "Knock knock. Hey, I am your Autodesk sales representative. I see you're using Blender. I have something much better. Let's talk. Maybe we can give you nice discounts, or things to make sure you are kicking Blender out." >[Woah, this sounds very...] This really happens. [Really?] Yeah! [It sounds very nineteen-eighty...] It's normal business. Why's that nasty? They made money with it. It's what they have to do. I don't make money with it, so I don't care. If they want to use Maya, then they should use Maya [Yeah.] right? >[So you believe the product should speak for itself, right? Like if it's better, you use the better one.] Yeah, everybody should decide that for themselves. https://www.blenderbasecamp.com/where-does-blender-get-all-their-money-from/ https://www.blenderbasecamp.com/where-does-blender-get-all-t... >Where Does Blender Get All Their Money From? >Which Companies Are Sponsors Of The Blender Foundation? >Why Do Some Of These Companies Invest In Blender? >What Are The Different Tier Systems That Blender Uses For Donations? >What Are The Different Ways In Which I Can Donate To Blender? >Can Anyone Donate To The Blender Foundation To Support The Software?

Rackedup 4y ago

Blender is really nice but it isn't super easy to always get non-destructive/permanent modifications (but there might always be a way).

superchroma 4y ago
They're starting to lean into it now. Add-ons like HardOps have shown it's definitely possible, and I think there's a lot of interest in that space so they can rope in the parametric modelling guys.
- daniel_reetz 4y ago
  A parametric sketch add-on (CAD Sketcher) is being developed. It won't replace Fusion or anything (and it's not intended to) but it convinced me to relearn polygon modeling after being away for 15 years.
- Rackedup 4y ago
  That's great

civeng 4y ago

Try Vectorworks. They had BIM years before Revit was a twinkle in AutoCAD's eye. Perhaps they fell behind for a few years but now but now more than viable and so much more stable code.

Intermernet 4y ago
Vectorworks is still in the thousands. It would be nice if some of the people willing to pay that cost decided to support the BIM developments in Blender instead. Blender have recently shown that they can adapt and change faster than any of their commercial competitors in the 3D modelling space. I'm pretty sure they can leap-frog Autodesk and Vectorworks in a couple of years if they had the funding.
dkarl 4y ago
When was the quality turning point for Vectorworks? My wife uses it and still experiences regular crashes, though to be fair she avoids upgrading because she doesn't want to learn a new set of bugs to work around.
- civeng 4y ago
  About 4 years ago we started noticing it really started improving. What version is she on?

riedel 4y ago

Supporting FreeCAD [1] would be IMHO the way to go as they already provide both interfaces to BIM [2] and Blender [3]. Would be great if there were more architects or structural engineering companies that invest in open source. Maybe then universities would follow instead on building on education licenses that after graduation become very expensive. [1] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Donate https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Donate [2] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/BIM_Workbench https://wiki.freecadweb.org/BIM_Workbench [3] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Tutorial_Render_with_Blender https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Tutorial_Render_with_Blender

superchroma 4y ago
Yeah, definitely. Blender is a shining example of what's possible, and people are starting to take notice, particularly in the cinema space.
- wnkrshm 4y ago
  I wonder whether that has its downsides though - with Google, Apple etc. being involved in development I wonder whether that hollows out the core of participating developers and functionally makes the project dependent on paid employees.
  - therouwboat 4y ago
    I dont think its downside that devs get paid, thats how it should be and I think Ton is handling blender foundation very well.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    Blender has been dependent on paid employees for quite a while. Not 100% but the majority of the grunt work (stuff that isn’t all that much fun) is through devs funded by the Blender Institute/Foundation.
  - ramblerman 4y ago
    Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? My vision is completely the opposite, the more money we pump into open source the better. We have to get out of this idea that open source is only good (and pure) when it's some dev slaving away after hours.

doublesocket 4y ago

FWIW I've enjoyed using Rhino with VisualARQ for architectural work.

thenthenthen 4y ago
Funny, I almost never see Rhino mentioned in these discussions. Yeah its 999$ but comes with Grasshopper, crazy insane parametric node based drawing (and simulation, batch exporting, and python support). Plus, it’s not Autodesk (yet) which I stopped using since I tried Fusion 360; After using it once (auto run after install) I could not find the binary next time. Apparently it installed itself in non standard directories on mac (outside spotlights scope), ouch. Not sure if thats still the case, but this malpractice not only put me off, I literally could not run it again besides reinstalling hahha
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  Rhino also has really affordable lifetime licenses. It makes it an easy decision to buy bulk for a org and dole out as needed.

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago

> a lot of firms think Archicad isn't industry ready It's similar in many other industries. Take InDesign, the current market leader in DTP. Say you are working on a book that has multiple indexes: index of places, index of people and so on. Well InDesign doesn't support that! This is not some fancy feature - you will find multiple indexes in many non-trivial books. But for some reason the most popular and supposedly advanced DTP solution on the planet doesn't support that and people need to use workarounds.

auggierose 4y ago
It's because once a company is a market leader, it isn't anymore about "What feature is useful", but about "What will increase our revenue by x%?". Will adding a multiple index feature add anything to revenue? I doubt it.
- Intermernet 4y ago
  Yep, Quark Express was the king of DTP until they suddenly weren't. It doesn't take long for the landscape to change.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  It's more about PMs thinking "Which feature will make it look like I'm doing something useful?" Photoshop has been quietly getting worse for years now. Certain annoyances haven't been touched for decades, but new features - like the one that forces you to save a copy for certain formats even when you don't want to - are so unwelcome and pointless they've have to add a switch in the preferences which allows you to turn them off. When a product matures and has monopoly lock-in it's essentially frozen. The core workflow will stop improving and updates will usually add unwelcome friction-inducing cruft around the edges.
FuriouslyAdrift 4y ago
InDesign is for layout, it's not for books. FrameMaker is for books.https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html
4y ago

adammarples 4y ago

Tried codebook?

Aeolun 4y ago

For those others that wonder and want to save a Google query: BIM = Building Information Management

stefantalpalaru 4y ago

aothms 4y ago

There's a Blender addon under development for BIM called https://blenderbim.org/ https://blenderbim.org/ they're looking for funding Blender's user interface is fully scriptable in Python, which means you can really adapt to your personal workflows or that of the company BlenderBIM accomplished a lot in about a year, but I guess we're all aware of what kind of monumental undertaking this is. (I work on a related library)

Intermernet 4y ago

Autodesk have jumped the shark with their recent cloud pricing options. New users will be priced out of the software, and will use anything else other than the Autodesk family of products. This may take a generation, but Autodesk have made a conscious decision to be less and less relevant over the next decade or so. Adobe are on the same path, but not quite so aggressively. They may still see the writing on the wall and back out before they become history.

semi-extrinsic 4y ago
Yeah, I don't understand how these firms (especially Adobe) are so completely oblivious to what actually made them successful. One of the main reasons Photoshop and Illustrator became widely used, is that every eleven-year-old with an interest in design or photo editing would torrent these products and learn the workflows inside out. Autodesk seems to have somewhat figured this out, with Fusion360 having a free hobbyist license for instance.
- rjh29 4y ago
  The subscription model for Adobe actually makes photoshop more affordable for students than before, though. (Even if they pay more in the end)
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    1. Students didn’t upgrade every version. So the cost was amortized over many years. 2. The above point is moot because I, and every student I knew, used a school copy on a lab computer or… obtained a copy without paying
    - rjh29 4y ago
      Photoshop CS6 is $700 ($1000 Extended), subscription is $10/month including Lightroom. So you'd need a lot of 'amortization' to make the standalone version a better choice. I think your second point is moot personally, forcing students to break the law to obtain Photoshop is not a solution. I don't like subscriptions personally, but most people do not care and it has definitely made Photoshop more affordable for the average person. This is reflected in Adobe' stock price.

devwastaken 4y ago

You can't, Autodesk owns the software patents and massive amounts of IP. You impliment their features, you're sued to non existence. Remove software patents, we will have competition again.

Jenk 4y ago
Remove software patents and we'll have megacorps absorbing smaller businesses for free through theft of IP instead of acquisitions, and all the antitrust protection (as limited as it may be) instantly evaporates.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  It is copyright law, not patent law, which prevents the scenario you describe. Patents are useless to small businesses unless you are in the business of patent-trolling. Try to sue a big corporation and they will just countersue.
- luciusdomitius 4y ago
  It is extremely naive to think that ServiceNow would be able to steal a feature from e.g. the PM part of GitLab. The reason why their products are even more obnoxious than paper bureaucracy is definitely not that noone ever told them what they are doing wrong. Same applies for MSFT, Oracle and as of recently Google and Facebook too.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]