> big companies like Ford / Boeing / Mitsubishi ought to pool together into some kind of consortium and buy out Dassault to open-source the code. It would proba

> big companies like Ford / Boeing / Mitsubishi ought to pool together into some kind of consortium and buy out Dassault to open-source the code. It would probably pay back multiple times over Even though I think SolidWorks is actually worth paying for, your idea seems compelling if you consider how poorly SolidWorks deals with integration, automation, platforms, etc. OTOH it’s probably just a hive of Windows spaghetti, so maybe it can’t really be fixed. Another thing: there is a lot of purchased IP embedded in SolidWorks, so chasing down IP grants might undermine the prospect of an open source product.