On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 4:01 PM Les Newell <les.new...@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
> I've always avoided integrating SheetCam with CAD. The reason for this
> is that half my customers are producing accurate mechanical parts and
> the other half are producing complex artistic work. No CAD package out
> there works well for both mechanical design and artistic work. In the
> open source world FreeCad or LibreCad are good for mechanical work but
> Inkscape is much better for artistic work.
>
> I need to have a chat with some of my bigger OEMs. Maybe we can come up
> with some agreement where they sponsor someone to maintain the project.
> It would work out considerably cheaper for them than buying SheetCam
> licenses.
This sounds like the situation faced by KiCad, which is a free
software GPL-licensed EDA suite ("CAD/CAM" for electronic circuit
boards). Incidentally it is also written in C++ with wxWidgets.
It shares some common themes to the situation you describe. Rather
than machinists who want to cut parts, it is used by electronics
engineers who want to design circuits.
Several years ago, they formed a commercial entity that provides paid
customer support and serves as the fiscal sponsor of the project. This
entity has been raising funds from the paid work as well as
(non-charitable) donations from interested users, and uses it to pay
for full-time developers, yet KiCad is and continues to be free
software, GPL-licensed.
If you do chat with OEMs for whom fiscal sponsorship could be cheaper
than software licenses, perhaps they'd be open to forming some entity
like that.
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