Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

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vocx
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by vocx »

vanuan wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:37 pm ...And with a gap of one year, it is more often than not, that backporting is impossible or requires more work than the original fix.
I agree. Once a release is made, we can provide bugfixes for about 6 months to address errors discovered soon after the release, but I don't think we can maintain more than that.
...What's the current process of "stabilization"? And why it can't be done on a regular basis?
The biggest problem is manpower! We don't have enough people willing to spend countless unpaid hours going into the details, establishing processes, and accountability. Some very dedicated users spend countless hours helping new users in the forum, but when it comes to software development and organizational matters, nobody really has a complete plan. What you see is what you get. There is no process; it somehow works, even if it's disorganized.

What we basically need is an organizational leader who can do this full time (probably a paid position of $50 thousand per year).
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triplus
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by triplus »

Zolko wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:12 pm Ah, from your little finger
I likely wouldn't involve fingers, to not get the wrong idea, basically an educated guess. This is a common sense approach in real life, no special reason it wouldn't work here to.

@All

As for the rest, to be honest it reads more like a brainstorming. Nothing wrong with that, but we need to be realistic on the time frames. At minimum somebody would need to dedicate around 3 to 5 years of effort, to start getting some results, for each idea listed. Feel free to do it, but lets focus on doing a 1.0 first. Starting with the next development cycle. We have done the ground work, have invested the time needed in discussing and understanding, in the past couple of years, have reached the general agreement, that will have to do. Doing 1.0 doesn't in any way prevent you to achieve the listed ideas in the future. And lets face it, arguments from opposition are weak, more of a list of personal expectations, often ideas, not all that related to doing 1.0 in the first place. Sometimes disagreement just for the sake of disagreement, usual stuff. In some general sense of things.

With all due respect to other people, i personally feel this should be covered, unless other key people start saying NO, my sincere expectation is for next development cycle to be 1.0 oriented.

@vocx

I doubt it would be much different, in this regard, if somebody would be paid 50.000 a year, for being involved in FreeCAD project. Such person would still need to do the ground work and reach consensus. Your ideas about leadership. In corporate environments such leadership style is usually connected to crisis management. AFAIK FreeCAD ATM is not in crisis. In addition trying to apply such style directly, to a FOSS project, there for sure are differences involved and the same can likely be said for the outcome.

P.S. I don't have plans to discuss this further, that has already been done extensively in the past. Best to wait for the outcome, it's not that far away anyway. And to be honest, in August i am much more focused on some mountain trailing and going to the sea. Would advise others the same.

Stay safe!
chrisb
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by chrisb »

It sounds as if things were utterly wrong, but in fact they aren't at all. The desire to create new processes and have people controlling them doesn't in fact do anything to bring FreeCAD forward.
What's wrong with the current situation? We have development releases that are of extremely high quality. We can with best conscious recommend the development releases. I see that things could gradually improve but I don't see what really would become much better than that without investing much manpower, which could be invested much better in other areas.
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vocx
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by vocx »

triplus wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:04 am ...And lets face it, arguments from opposition are weak, more of a list of personal expectations, often ideas, not all that related to doing 1.0 in the first place.
...
Again, triplus, this is only your opinion. Really, that is all there is to it. You talk in these absolute terms as if you had already planed everything beforehand, when you clearly haven't. Stop with that attitude. If only a single member of the community opposes your views, you need to consider that, not dismiss it as "we already decided". No. You decided for yourself, not for everybody.
I doubt it would be much different, in this regard, if somebody would be paid 50.000 a year, for being involved in FreeCAD project. Such person would still need to do the ground work and reach consensus. ... AFAIK FreeCAD ATM is not in crisis.
Nobody said FreeCAD is in crisis, but to deny that the project has grown immensely is ridiculous. This isn't the same program it was 10 years ago when Normand could read and reply to every single post in the forum. It's jut not that; what we need is more organization and clear objectives, not your "we already discussed and agreed on that in the past (the three of us who were back then)".
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vocx
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by vocx »

chrisb wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 12:08 pm ...I see that things could gradually improve but I don't see what really would become much better than that without investing much manpower, which could be invested much better in other areas.
I think you are mistaken. If you have organization and deadlines, you get things done; if you don't, things linger. In your everyday jobs you have organization, why should FreeCAD be different? If you have a proper structure you have a higher chance of having smooth sailing. I never said that FreeCAD is in crisis, but I dislike this attitude by triplus that "things are just fine the way they are", without looking at the enormous rate of development in the last couple of years.
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vanuan
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by vanuan »

mumbricht
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Re: Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

Post by mumbricht »

Hi all,

I'm a startup CEO and we need parametric CAD for our part and assembly design. I'm also a Linux/FOSS fanatic, and would really like to be able to do our CAD in Linux, but unfortunately FreeCAD is the only option and not entirely to the level we need it. The interface is too clunky and I believe there are a few particular functions that aren't present yet (compound curvature fillets for wing fairings). Full disclosure, my CAD skills are pretty rudimentary so I'm repeating what my team is telling me.

In the short term, I've decided to switch our client workstations to Windows, while keeping a Linux server for our compute node. In the future though, I'd really like to be able to go back to Linux for our full engineering stack.

For that to happen, I think FreeCAD is our best bet, but it needs to reach a point where it compares favorably to SolidEdge/SolidWorks. FreeCAD is an impressive product for a volunteer effort, but I think that reaching an enterprise-level software needs full-time effort. I think if a couple of companies like mine donated their CAD budgets to the FreeCAD team, that could become a reality. But to be honest, I don't know how many engineering man-hours there are between where FreeCAD is right now and where it needs to be, and therefore no idea how much it would cost. As per the wiki, the FreeCAD team isn't incorporated either, which makes it tricky to donate/invest.

Does anyone have an estimate for how much effort is required to reach that level?

Mod Edit: Discussion for this post should continue in https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=49449
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