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Louis Rossmann: Autodesk turns lifetime licenses into subscriptions [video]
- NolF 3y agoFor Australians, if you are affected, this is the kind of issue that should be raised with ACCC at https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/contact-us/report-a-consumer-issue#form https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/contact-us/report-a-consume.... It falls under the Australian Consumer Protection under misleading or deceptive conduct.[0] A lifetime licence marketed as such cannot be withdrawn let alone with EULA/TOS presented after the purchase.[1] Probably could also get your money back from the retailer/autodesk too if you cannot use the software with your lifetime licence. [0] https://consumer.gov.au/sites/consumer/files/2016/05/0553FT_ACL-guides_UnfairPractices_web.pdf https://consumer.gov.au/sites/consumer/files/2016/05/0553FT_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_cases
- rahkiin 3y agoAre businesses able to claim under Consumer Protection in Australia? In the Netherlands a whole lot of consumer protections do not apply when buying as a company
- guidedlight 3y agoYes. Businesses are covered under Australia’s Consumer Protection if the value of the goods or services under consideration is less than A$100,000.
- NolF 3y agoSome of the protections do apply to business purchases such as section 18 of the ACL which relates to misleading and deceptive conduct and section 29 regarding false or misleading representations. Businesses, will, in some scenarios (they need to meet the definition of consumer under the Act) also have access to consumer guarantees found under s51-59 which provide some of the stronger remedy options including full refunds.
- mcpackieh 3y agoAre people/orgs who file such complaints legally protected from retaliation? For instance, might Autodesk respond by giving complainants a full refund and a lifetime ban from their products?
- NolF 3y agoIt would likely fall under "unconscionable conduct" which is illegal under the ACL. I would imagine it would difficult for them to prevent individual licences being sold through their retail/online mechanisms.. You would have more limited protections if >100,000 in licence fees, and they may or may not have an enterprise programs for those purchasing that many licences. But where they engage in retaliatory behaviour they could be sued and through discovery determine if they refused to engage with you or jack up the prices in retaliation for a lawful complaint. As you can imagine this would be expensive but... you would also likely be at a scale that could afford such litigation.
- wakeupcall 3y agoJust a reminder that Autodesk is the oracle/adobe of the CAD world, and this is just the way they always operated.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoI am surprised VMWare didn’t do the same thing tbh.
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoYet...
- TeMPOraL 3y ago2023 starts to look like the Year of Enshittification, so it may come sooner than expected.
- nirui 3y agoFun joke aside, I don't think that's really possible anymore since there are high quality opensource alternatives such as KVM (for server deployments) and Virtual Box (for end users). But in the CAD field, Autodesk is the clear winner here with no good alternatives, even you count in FreeCAD. It makes business sense for Autodesk to keep grabbing as much money as they could, so they can: 1) earn money, 2) add more features into their product to raise the bar higher. It's the same logic behind Adobe and maybe Microsoft, Apple, Google etc. The good news is, at least you don't have to pay for Autodesk 3ds Max now since Blender. Maybe it could be more productive if we convert our hatreds towards greedy commercial software into supports (donate etc) towards free and opensource alternatives (FreeCAD etc in this case). So maybe when next time someone wanted to say "fuck Autodesk", send $5 to FreeCAD instead (https://www.freecad.org/sponsor.php https://www.freecad.org/sponsor.php).
- ushakov 3y ago> Autodesk is the clear winner here with no good alternatives What about SolidWorks?
- xvilka 3y agoTime to invest the comparable amount of money in FOSS alternatives? FreeCAD, LibreCAD, BRL-CAD, and so on.
- jakeogh 3y agoI just did a project in build123d, imho its drastically better than drawing in a gui. https://github.com/gumyr/build123d https://github.com/gumyr/build123d
- j-bos 3y agoIt's a challenge. Look at Linux vs Windows. Modern distros are a drop in replacement for Windows, minus the user hostility, yet people continue with Windows because change is hard, not to mention matching everyone else. So, even if OSS CAD became a drop in replacement for Autodesk, there's gotta be something extra to truly bite at Autodesk.
- CodesInChaos 3y agoWhich distributions? I switched some of my machines due to the increasing user hostility in Windows, but found it a big pain in the ass, even as a developer. And that's not even considering how many programs/games will only work on Windows.
- j-bos 3y agoI've had an easy install and daily use with Mint.
- CodesInChaos 3y agoI've had plenty of problems with Mint on my work laptop. For example: * Regularly swapped itself into a screen freeze. Possibly because it defaulted the swap partition to 1 GB. * Default boot partition was too small, so it ran out of space for new kernels. I have to manually remove kernels because the auto-remove is too slow to stay below the limit. * Hibernate doesn't work out of the box. I managed to figure out that I have to install some other cryptically named package, otherwise `sudo pm-hibernate` fails without printing an error message. Then a distribution upgrade removed the required package from the repos. And that's just making the command line tool work, it doesn't add it to the power manager so it triggers automatically after an idle period or when closing the laptop lid. I encountered similar issues on my gaming desktop running mint (e.g. the nvidia driver wouldn't load for no discernible reason) and steam deck.
- willcipriano 3y agoI believe you can run a cracked version legally in the US provided it gives you the same functionality as what you had licensed, you aren't so much "circumventing a technological measure" but instead making it work correctly per the terms of your license.
- shizcakes 3y agoThis does not pass the sniff test. Can you cite a reputable source outlining supporting case law?
- LocalH 3y agoRegardless, if you have a legitimate license, and they pull this shit, you have the moral right to ensure that you can still use the license you hold. So, crack the shit out of it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dogma1138 3y agoMoral rights mean fuck all in court, especially if you don’t have the money to throw at lawyers. Also the DRM on all of these professional apps extends to the files they produce if you open a file in vector works autocad or any other professional software that was created or edited on an illicit copy a warning would pop up saying that the file was created on an illegal version and many of them wouldn’t allow you to edit the file further and for those which do saving the file again on a copy with a legitimate license does not get rid of the message that file is tainted for good. This pretty much prevents any real world use of illicit copies professionally.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoIsn’t circumventing/“cracking” DRM a crime in it’s own right in the US?
- 3y ago
- jmartin2683 3y agoFusion 360 was the greatest bait and switch I’ve seen in a long time. Went from free for personal use to $300/mo to make it useful at all… right after everyone built their library of parts on the free version
- plagiarist 3y agoSorry if I am missing something obvious, but the 10 editable files hasn't bothered me (very) much yet. Am I not using it as much? I'm I too inexperienced to notice other features that were previously there?
- mchannon 3y agoPerhaps the latter. Certain types of screw convolving are essential to a number of my parts. That feature is mostly now missing from the free version, though my existing files with it can change the parameters (though not add additional). The 10 editable thing is just weird. It’s like having n light switches in your house and only 10 can be on at any given time (mechanically interlocked), but in exchange you get free electricity. While that’s a worthwhile deal for most, it’s hard to see how that incentivizes anything. It’s just mildly annoying.
- plagiarist 3y agoIt does sound like I am not making advanced enough parts to encounter anything locked off. Thank you, I was curious. I don't know what the alternatives are, but that sort of behavior does factor in to considering a license for me. I agree on the 10 editable limit being idiotic as an incentive. They also have a quick button to flip it on and off in the sidebar. Like in your 10 switches example if you can activate any switch from anywhere in the house.
- mhb 3y agoI don't use it, but it looks like it is normally $545/year and currently (sale?) priced at $382/year. What is that missing from the useful $300/month version?
- kklisura 3y agoI reckon industry of cracked/hacked both software and hardware will bloom in future.
- zirgs 3y agoIt's not wise to use cracked software for business. Someone might talk, and your office could get raided by the cops. Yes - that happens in places like Eastern Europe too - some people that I know found this out the hard way.
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoWhere in Eastern Europe? Pretty sure in Romania police have better things to do than raid you for using pirated software at work.
- sircastor 3y agoThere is nowhere in the world that police don’t have better things to do than to raid a shop using pirated software.
- blincoln 3y agoThe more likely scenario, at least in the US, is that if your business is already using some legit licensed software from the same publisher, the publisher invokes a contractual right to audit licenses at your business. They find a bunch of unlicensed copies, and send you a huge bill. No police, just a civil matter, but potentially very expensive for the business. When I still did systems engineering work (2001-2011), I personally saw Microsoft conduct a license audit. No one in the organization was using pirated software, but we still got a big bill because the reseller we bought licenses from misrepresented what some of those licenses covered. In that case, MS was willing to chalk it up to an honest mistake as long as we uninstalled the software from the systems that the licenses didn't cover. I doubt they'd have been willing to do that if we'd been running actual cracked versions of their products.
- kitanata 3y agoJust a small reminder than Blender is so amazing now that AAA studios have started to use it.
- detritus 3y agoThat's great news for 3D modelling - less so for CAD which although there are plugins for blender to accomodate, is not Blender's forte.
- vsviridov 3y agoBlender is absolutely amazing, but for the sequencer I had to switch to Resolve because it's just too slow. 1.5 hour long video takes 12 hours to render in blender and about 40 minutes in resolve, with just a simple chroma key processing.
- theanonymousone 3y agoThis reminds me of a café in Lausanne that started operations by selling lifetime, three-coffees-per-month subscriptions, and then after a year or so "management changed" and they annulled all subscriptions:D
- Pet_Ant 3y agoI mean often “management changed” often means the company went out of business and someone bought it and is giving it a go themselves. This is a bit deceptive, but it’s really a new company often.
- galleywest200 3y agoStill frustrating from a consumer's point of view, especially if nothing changed (name, building, decorations , menu) apart from management.
- Pet_Ant 3y agoWould you rather token changes? “Formerly Bob’s Burgers”?
- KingOfCoders 3y agoHappened to me with ManyCam.
- Krisjohn 3y agoAnd me. Cyberlink YouCam and XSplit Vcam haven’t screwed me over yet.
- fnordfnordfnord 3y agoCan't wait to rid myself of Autodesk dependency.
- rurban 3y agoLibredwg needs help, in putting it in the GPL competitors
- 55555 3y agoWhat is the best (affordable!) CAD software for a hobbyist with no experience? I was recently looking into this and the leading software was like 6,000 USD a year per seat.
- notarget137 3y agoSolidworks is good but not affordable.
- mhb 3y agoOf note: they have made their user forum completely useless and it looks like they will soon adopt a cloud-based, subscription model about which their users are quite unhappy.
- digdugdirk 3y agoI honestly hope their cloud based push causes their downfall. It's different enough that I think it will open the door for millions of users to look around for other options for their CAD software. It's going to be a perfect opportunity for a cheaper (open source??) software to step in and eat their lunch.
- the__alchemist 3y agoPlease, no!
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoThey have a "maker license" that's less un-affordable (iirc about $100 or $150 a year?), and they provide access either for free or even more discounted than the maker license for students & the like. Though based on other comments it sounds like that may not be the case for long so ymmv
- pitzips 3y agoCheck out onshape.com, it's similar to fusion360 and is quite good for hobbyists. I use it for parts I need to 3D print.
- gymbeaux 3y agoI’ve always pirated AutoCAD and will continue to do so. I use it occasionally and just for hobby stuff, nothing commercial. So why would I pay out the ass for that? Same story with Photoshop. Ohhhh it might contain malware… I don’t really give a damn because to me it’s the only option, paying $10, $20, $50/month for software I hardly use but still kind of need is not an option. Run pirated software in a containerized/VM instance of Windows (or even macOS) and you’ll be alright.
- humanlion87 3y agoWhen you run the software in a VM of Windows, how do you provide access to the files that you want to edit? Do you have a shared volume between the host and the VM?
- gymbeaux 3y agoYes, I just share the ./Downloads folder usually, sometimes the whole home folder, but if malware is truly a concern it’s safest to share a dedicated “Windows VM” folder for just those files.
- blincoln 3y agoYou could also diff the binaries with the unmodified version. We did that at work once (on behalf of the publisher of the same software) and the cracked version was literally one byte different. Just to be sure, we also reverse-engineered that part of the code to see what the original vs. cracked logic did. No surprises, no malware, just skipping over the license check.
- vachina 3y agoI think it’s part of their plan to allow pirated versions of their software be distributed precisely because now you are semi proficient in the software, further solidifying their relevance.
- gymbeaux 3y agoI suppose so, but unlike Photoshop is there really a competitor/open source alternative?
- josephcsible 3y agoSee also when ManyCam <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35538192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35538192>, Filmora <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34199153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34199153> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34177057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34177057>, and mIRC <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660> all pulled the exact same scam.
- BestGuess 3y agoseems like if anything requires online verifying that just means "you don't own it" I guess. That sorta thing is makin life difficult
- JimtheCoder 3y agoI Love Autodesk! I'm on about year 7 of my supposedly 4 year Education License, so I get all of their product suite for free (or most of it...all the good stuff at least.) I'm over 15 years out of University, and I never took any course that required an Autodesk product while I was there.
- markx2 3y agoYet another information piece which just has to be on Youtube. Text. It should have been text.
- trogdor 3y agoYes. This feels like an ad for the YouTube channel.
- windex 3y agoSubscriptions are a scam. I am actively consolidating my payments and shifting to next best alternatives that give me one time pay options or open source and contributing there.
- nullcipher 3y agoI feel same about salaries. Paying monthly salary is a scam. Can I buy your time for life for a 1 time payment? But seriously, calling subscription a "scam" is very delusional. It seems like you have not released a product/saas. I support your effort in supporting and contributing to opensource though.
- sircastor 3y agoYou can buy my work for this month and pay me once. If you would like my newer, additional work, you’ll have to pay me again. Incidentally, because I’m nice I’ll let you keep the work I already did for you without charging you again for it. I think in this case it depends on perspective to describe whether or not something is a scam.
- immibis 3y agoThis is why you are not a billionaire. I say quid pro quo. Normal people can pay for your work - but billionaires have to buy repeating subscriptions.
- simoncion 3y agoI feel as you do, except about all durable goods. It's absurdly unfair that I get to buy a door, a handgun, wire shelving, plumbing fixtures, etc, etc, for a 1 time payment. It's wild to see all this churn in the markets as players bloom, ship product, and die within the year. It's so sad that they're evergreen (never before having released a product) and are leaving money on the table, dooming themselves to failure. When will they learn that recurring revenue is the only way they'll stay in business? I'd like _someone_ to stick around long enough to honor my three, five, and ten-year warranties!
- drumhead 3y agoIt behaviour like this which makes people think that the high seas isnt actually such an unreasonable option.
- immibis 3y ago[flagged]
- throwawaymaths 3y ago> Corporations are doing that to us, but way more subtly, but with no less of an impact in the long run Corporations generally don't send a missile into a pizza shop to kill two 15 year old twins, or send conscripts into battle and shoot at them if they retreat.
- maximus-decimus 3y agoHonestly, Nestle has done worse. Like promoting detrimental baby formula to women in poor countries leading to poisoning and malnutrition of infants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott I'm honestly convinced the only reason a lot of companies don't torpedo teenagers is because they can't.
- blibble 3y agoif the Dutch East India company had missiles it probably would have
- throwawaymaths 3y agoYes, and so does XE/PMC WAGNER. That's why I said "generally". If your example to claim corporations are evil is 400 years old from a mercantilist era, then... Ok, I guess?
- Toutouxc 3y agoNot that I disagree with you entirely, but please, Russia is killing and disfiguring men, women and children with rocket artillery, kidnapping kids, tearing families and human lives to pieces. The impact on Ukraine, now AND in the long run, is an will be enormous and absolutely incomparable to corporations screwing people up with subscriptions.
- immibis 3y agoCorporations are suddenly broke, so they are stealing money. If an individual did this they'd be locked up in jail. I say lock up the executives in jail.
- qwertyuiop_ 3y ago“You will own nothing and you will be happy” - WEF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...
- CrimsonCape 3y agoI wonder how many of you HN devs are involved in developing phone-home tech. I imagine Autodesk has all sorts of devious ways built in to their products to phone home and ensure active paid-for licenses.
- SomeCollegeBro 3y agoRaises hand To be fair, it's a lose-lose here. If we didn't implement strict and PITA-to-circumvent licensing, we would for sure have customers abusing it. As a small company, we cannot afford to patrol our customers constantly to make sure they are actually paying for software. We at least try our best to keep it out of their way. It's not my favorite thing to spend my dev time on, but I do understand it.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoRent-seeking enshitification. "FU poor customer, pay us thousands it will be permanent. (One month later.) FU poor customer today, now you must pay hundreds every month. It will be awesome!" EA and their Play and Play Pro subscription bullshit too.
- gravypod 3y agoIs there anything as easy to use as Fusion 360 which is possible to install and use totally offline? Something which you can own?
- trogdor 3y agoMaybe it’s just me, but I find that YouTube videos linked on HN significantly detract from my experience. Particularly when the video communicates something that can be easily and succinctly communicated in writing. In such cases, I feel that a linked YouTube video is promotional (of the YouTuber) rather than informative. And I say that as someone for whom YouTube pays the bills.
- faverin 3y agoEveryone in the industry hates Autodesk. They do nothing good except serve software everyone relies on and do it reasonably well. Licenses are very expensive but everyone pays because nothing else works as well. It's all a bit Windows. There was a letter written in https://aecmag.com/bim/letter-to-autodesk-aec-customers-demand-better-value/ https://aecmag.com/bim/letter-to-autodesk-aec-customers-dema... https://aecmag.com/bim/the-open-letter-two-years-on/ https://aecmag.com/bim/the-open-letter-two-years-on/ http://extranetevolution.com/2020/07/autodesk-criticism-extends/ http://extranetevolution.com/2020/07/autodesk-criticism-exte... They are loathsome people to work with who only care about licensing and then just abandon you to buggy tools. Still I look at the open source and other competitors and they win, at all things. I am hoping they are declared a monopolist by the EU but I think the Building Information Management software tide will drown them. It's complicated though. https://boikoartem.medium.com/lobbyist-wars-and-bim-development-all-parts-7225688f97a4 https://boikoartem.medium.com/lobbyist-wars-and-bim-developm...