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Issue #438 : : July 5, 2005 |
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C o n t e n t s Norway Demands Open Formats Trying to Understand Open Standards From Welfare to
CAD Under the Radar and other
regular columns. |
Write the Editor. Donate to upFront.eZine with Paypal. Access nearly-daily CAD commentary at our blog: WorldCAD Access.
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It sounded like a prank. The government of Norway last week announced a timetable for phasing out proprietary software -- both in file formats and application software. The philosophy behind the announcement is that the data and software used by the government belongs to the people of Norway, not to the software vendors. The timetable is short:
The wording indicates only that only plans be in place; are there additional deadlines for implementation? (The contrarian in me wonders why software is being picked on. Will all other products and services purchased by government also be open?) While open source software and formats are readily available for popular software, such as operating systems, email, databases, and word processing, CAD is very different. I asked several CAD vendors how they would respond to the Norwegian demand. UGS -- "Open formats we already have. PLM XML is a completely published format (and has been for several years) and is completely representative of our internal data model. We have no open source plans." Adobe -- "Standards organizations, such as ISO, have created open industry standards based on PDF for specific markets. I know you've heard us discuss PDF/E (for engineering), which is still in process, but both PDF/X (for exchange of pre-press content) and PDF/A (for archiving) are already ratified by ISO." Autodesk is working on a response. Bentley Systems, CoCreate, Dassault, Intergraph, Graphisoft, and Nemetschek did not respond. You can read a summary of the Norwegian dictate at www.andwest.com/blojsom/blog/tatle/agenda/2005/06/27 Trying to Understand Open Source Guest Editorial by Cristiano Sacchi I am trying to understand the open-source movement. I could write a book about all the things that I do not understand about it. It is very fascinating, but there are so many pieces of the puzzle that I cannot put together in a way that makes sense to me. 'Open data' is what I am advocating for the CAD world; open source code may or may not be a plus, but I do not see it as a necessary step. In my opinion, not every single data format needs to be open. What really needs to be open are the data formats used for communication. And this is something that the government of Norway means when they say that "Proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government." Communication can be along two dimensions -- space and time:
Without file compatibility between sender and recipient, communication breaks down. Open file formats make it easier to operate compatible software at both ends of the communication line. This is not a new idea, but it seems that very few people in CAD understand it. Most who do, however, try their very best to prevent it from happening.
Open Grows the Market In all cases I am aware of, when file formats have been open and widely available, most if not all the parties involved gained from it. Or at the very least they did not lose. Would the digital camera industry be what it is today without JPEG or an equivalent? I believe the answer is no. Look at Adobe Acrobat. The PDF format was been made public a few years ago, and Adobe is far from losing its leadership in the business. While a few companies offer alternatives to Acrobat and vertical PDF solutions, Adobe did not lose anything from opening the format, and probably gained from the availability of more PDF solutions. Let's turn to CAD. For every practical purpose, the CATIA V4 file format has been fully figured out by reverse engineering companies, resulting in very reliable translators and widely available import/export libraries. Did this hurt Dassault? Not that I know. So, why are they so bent on making file translation difficult? My opinion is that the CAD industry is enveloped into itself. All the players see the CAD market as a zero-sum game. They do all they can to protect their turf, while at the same time trying to take away customers from others -- as when PTC encrypted their file format, but then licensed the OpenDWG library to read Autodesk files. The CAD market could be a growth industry if all players stopped the replacement-sales game, and started to look at how to expand the market. Closed file formats are one element that makes the market expansion difficult, as does visualization, data management, communication, and who knows what else to make the CAD world better.
The High Ranking CAD User I do not think the end is in sight. No one in the CAD business will have the foresight and the strength to make this happen. In my opinion only the end users, and specially the large ones, have the means and the need to force the CAD companies hand to change their way. But that is not very likely to happen either. The CAD managers of the large customers, who could do something, are, for the most part, in the back pocket of the big CAD companies. Many of these CAD managers are high ranking members of user communities -- with even a comparatively higher ranking in the user community than in their own company. Why shake things up? People like titles, respect, and the associated perks. Going after the CAD company that rewards you spoils the fun. Large CAD companies know this and play it very well to their advantage. The status quo has a reason to exist, and is a point of equilibrium in the system. It is not an optimal point of equilibrium, but the energy necessary to move it to a higher level is not available within the system. Too bad. - - - (Dr. Cristiano Sacchi is CEO of the Novedge online CAD store.) From Welfare to CAD During my time in CAD, I've met many interesting people. The most unique is Jacques (not his real name). I heard him tell his life story at a men's retreat some three years ago. Frequently beat up by his father, he became an alcoholic, then a heroin addict, and now at age 39, is struggling to get out of the h*llhole of his own making. Couple of months back, he came up to me after church. He had remembered I wrote CAD books. He was taking an AutoCAD course, and did I have any books about AutoCAD? His eyes darted around. I said, "Sure, give me a call," and gave him my phone number. I didn't hear from him. - - - Two weeks ago, the Q&A repeated itself. He needed help in writing menus, scripts, and AutoLISP routines. So far, he'd gotten Bs in all his AutoCAD classes, but he wasn't sure he could pass Thursday's test on customization. This time he did call me, and I gave him spare copies of some of my books, along with a 30-minute primer on the obscure syntax found in menu macros. Friday he called to say he'd passed, getting another B. But he was having a rough time, could we meet? At the Beans&Leaves coffee house, he tells me that going on the methadone program was a big mistake. It's just as addictive as heroin, he tells me, "Except it's the doctor who makes all the money, instead of the dealer." He's sweating, his pupils are fixed in size, and he constantly opens another soft candy. "I crave sugar," he explains. His doctor has given him medication against the pain. He had decided to go cold turkey, but after a relapse last night, he needed accountability; could I be his sponsor? "Good timing," I reply. Days earlier, I had finished updating four AutoCAD 2006 books, and now I had time. So now we meet nearly every day. Usually I pay for lunch. Sometimes he calls 4-5 times a day. Some days, he feels good; other days are "the worst yet." His biggest problem: sleep depravation. Saturday evening he invited me to his AA meeting. The room in the church basement is packed. "My name is ... and I am a recovering alcoholic-addict." - - - Jacques is very smart. When he's feeling up to it, we talk history, philosophy, politics -- and design. As he describes his ideas for architectural design, his face lights up. "A master bedroom should not be four walls with a walk-in closet. It should have curves, be sensuous. That is it's function," he exclaims in his heavy French accent. "A sensuous bedroom would keep more marriages together!" He's smart, yet this: "How come I was so dumb to get into dope?" he wonders. Then he half-apologizes: "My best designs I did in school when I was stoned." Yesterday he was in my backyard, sketching designs to deal with the visual problem I had created by adding a set of stairs up the slope. "I want to put in a series of curved plateaus here and here--." "Terraces, you mean terraces," I correct him. "Yah, yah." He's excited. Thinking about design keeps his mind from the evil in his life.
A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: - - - Dassault Systèmes and IBM name their new PLM [product lifecycle management] solution "Generative Mechanical Design." It cuts design time by up to 50% and manufacturing and assembly time by up to 60%. www.3ds.com and www.ibm.com IronCAD ships Inovate V8 (US$1,295), its low-cost 3D design collaboration software. Download the 30-day trial version from www.ironcad.com DRCAUTO Software releases SuperTools (US$150) with more than 50 new commands for AutoCAD LT 2006. Try it for 30 days from https://estore.drcauto.com/supertoolstryout.htm LineType Software releases LineScale v1.60 for taking measurements in Adobe Acrobat Reader v5-v7 files, including point snapping, user-definable scales, unit conversions, and distance and area measurement. www.linetype.com Softcover adds thresholding to Scan2CAD v7.3, which dynamically separates foreground drawing detail from colored, tinted, and dirty backgrounds. Download the demo from www.softcover.com - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
And these news items were posted during the last week at the Gizmos Grabowski weblog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/>
People/Companies on the Move Raindrop Geomagic names Andrew Stein as vp of marketing, product and business development. Mr Stein comes from Leica Geosystems, and was 16 years with Autodesk. The Metrology Division of Leica Geosystems hires Rina Molari-Korgel as metrology specialist and technical key account representative. Ms. Molari-Korgel was formerly metrology specialist with Lockheed Martin. Ashlar-Vellum adds Christopher Griffin as vp of software development.
Letters to the Editor Re: Delcam's Marketing Goes Aggressive "Delcam's PS-Exchange service is different to most Web-based systems: all the data translation occurs on the user's desktop, with no CAD data uploaded to or downloaded from Delcam. This also means that there is no data processing on the server. The only thing that occurs on Delcam's servers is the credit card payment for the translation. (The server issues the remote user a voucher to allow the translated file to be saved.) "As we won't be asking for payments on July 7th, the process
is further streamlined with only a very small code files set back
and forth. As a result there is minimal chance of the servers becoming
overloaded."
"I believe you have exaggerated Delcam's claim to be able to outsell PTC. The claim refers only to CIMdata's review of CAM sales, not a comparison of total sales. This is why the numbers appear small, as CAM is a much smaller business than the total CAD/CAM or PLM market. (The figures do include services and consulting related to CAM, but not CAD or PLM revenues.) "I would guess we already outsell PTC in CAM software since I believe the company still has significant services and consultancy contracts from when it acquired ComputerVision. I also believe the claim is quite realistic since CAM is an area where we are growing, while PTC has seen declines in both its overall revenues and its market share as it has focussed more of its development and sales of PLM software. "While I accept your point about past performance not being a guide to future growth, our recent acquisition of FeatureCAM developer EGS means that it will not be too difficult for our sales to see significant growth this year. "On a more positive note, I am pleased to see Delcam's marketing
referred to as aggressive. We usually accused by our American
resellers of being too reserved and British with our marketing!" - - - Re: Encryption of Data Files "The DWG format is NOT encrypted. Encryption is a technical term that can mean different things in different contexts. Typically, however, encryption refers to technological measures that are applied for the purpose of keeping information secret. Autodesk has not employed such measures in developing DWG. "Certain techniques are used inside DWG to help locate key information. This is done to aid in the recovery of data from damaged or corrupted DWG files. These algorithms have been misinterpreted as encryption, but have nothing to do with encrypting the file. They are placed there solely for purposes of data recovery. "AutoCAD does include a feature that allows customers to
encrypt DWG files with a password. This feature is off by default,
and customers can use the feature as needed to password-protect
their DWG data. This is not any different from password protecting
any other type of file, and is deployable solely at the customer
s discretion."
"My belief is that end users should stop buying CAD systems if the vendor does not publish the file format publicly. Users should own the data they produce; this is not too much to ask to vendors. And if some significant users start asking for it, CAD companies will eventually give up their current approach to data formats. "I do perfectly understand what CAD companies are trying
to achieve when they make it very hard to read their formats. What
I still do not understand is why users complain about it, but do
not do what they can to change the situation. Users are those that
pay for software and they have tremendous leverage -- if they just
used it." The editor replies: "I suspect many CAD users just don't care, just like I don't care if the file format of my email software is proprietary." Mr Sacchi responds: "I completely agree that small and mid sized companies do not care or do not care enough. As often in these cases, they find a way to deal with the problem that they can live with, and then worry about more pressing issues. "What surprises me is actually the large and very large companies. Data longevity is one of their top concerns. A CAD manager told me that his aircraft manufacturing company was having problems reading old Unigraphics data with the most recent version of Unigraphics. Since an airplane can easily remain operational for half a century, data longevity is a crucial issue. "It is from them that I expect a proactive stance when it comes to opening up data formats. If a format is published and recovering the old data becomes a critical issue, you can always find somebody that can write the software to do it -- that is, when you actually own your data. "Maybe Evan Yares should start a 'don't buy CAD if it is not open' campaign and see if he can get traction." - - - Re: MicroStation on the Mac "Although Intergraph had exclusive sales of MicroStation
at that time, Bentley Systems ported MicroStation to the Mac." - - - Re: Reducing the Paper Trail "In my boat-related work I see now that more builders are ordering precut frames, bulkheads, and even skin panels -- and not the full size templates plotted on Mylar that was so common 10 years ago. "When the main dimensioned parts are all precut, the need
for paper drawings are more for illustration and assembly instructions.
So A3 is now the standard format, while it was A0 a few years ago."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Growing Numbers Question Media's Fairness" "Poll: Most Americans Back Media"
Notable Quotable "So long as they're lifting profits and stock prices, we're
willing to overlook that [bosses] can also be callous, conning,
manipulative, deceitful, verbally and psychologically abusive, remorseless,
exploitative, self-delusional, irresponsible, and megalomaniacal."
Copyright 2005 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.00.
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