Goodbye Free SOLIDWORKS

[Eric Page]

Wow. Yes, Cory's recent posts and all related replies have been disappeared.

[jridge16]

Why were those posts removed?

[rwanttaja]

Why were those posts removed?

Probably turned out that Cory’s report was wrong. The number of people who had already read it was probably pretty low.

Ron Wanttaja

[aftCG]

Well as Rkirk said in post #82, you can still get the student version for $100 and leave the EAA out of it. Given what I've read about the cloud based version I was happy to skip that 3D experience.

[Trell Hall]

If I have to learn new 3D software, because 3D Experience is not the same as Solidworks, I will jump over the Fusion 360 where it is FREE and I can program my CNC mill from Fusion 360. I don't even have to join a club or anything. Why would we pay for a different software than what was promised to us.
The Solidworks software was one of the reasons why my wife bought me 3 years of EAA.
I have been using Fusion 360 for about 2 months ( ever since I lost Solidworks) and have to say it is very easy to use.
Just my two cents which I am sure no one from the EAA cares.

[Hstaton]

Just went to the download page for the student edition, and it is $100 PER YEAR. Subscription again. Not gonna play. Freecad and/or Fusion360 free version for me.

[Drake Firebreed]

It's always been that way. I can't believe people are complaining about $100 edu SOLIDWORKS. You get a year of a $8,000 program for $100 that's a steal. Yea it sucks we lost full premium but edu edition is what I used for years back in college and it's still good enough for cad design. No simulation but Ansys and openfoam are options for that.

I pay for FreeCAD because I believe in it. Did you know each of the devs only make around $400 a month off of it? That's insane! If you really don't want to pay $100 for SOLIDWORKS and you use FreeCAD I hope you will atleast donate it to them. They could really use it.

[Jeffrey Meyer]

It's always been that way. I can't believe people are complaining about $100 edu SOLIDWORKS. You get a year of a $8,000 program for $100 that's a steal. Yea it sucks we lost full premium but edu edition is what I used for years back in college and it's still good enough for cad design. No simulation but Ansys and openfoam are options for that.

With all due respect Drake, you're comparing apples to watermelons - It's illegal to use your $100 edu SW for commercial product development, and when/if you want use your personal IP that you developed in edu SW you can't simply buy the $8000 edition and transfer the files, because they are watermarked as having been developed in edu SW.
And as far as Ansys is concerned, you can't compare Ansys to SW Simulation either - Ansys is in a different league, in both price and capability.

I pay for FreeCAD because I believe in it. Did you know each of the devs only make around $400 a month off of it? That's insane! If you really don't want to pay $100 for SOLIDWORKS and you use FreeCAD I hope you will atleast donate it to them. They could really use it.

Words of wisdom - FreeCAD is not as polished as SW and it takes some getting used to, but you can use it commercially, in which case I endorse your philosophy of supporting the developers.

[Meagan Magnin]

I just wanted to chime in and give an update to our members. My name is Meagan Magnin and I am the Membership Development Manager at EAA. The Solidworks benefit is one of the many benefits that I manage. I want to thank everyone for their feedback on the change to 3D Experience last August by Solidworks. We are listening, and we really do want to find a solution that will work for our members. I am in contact with Dassault and we are looking at options to improve the current benefit. I don’t have any announcements at this time, but we will be communicating any changes as soon as they happen. If you have a question or concern, feel free to email me at mmagnin@eaa.org. Again, thank you all for sticking in there with us while we navigate these changes.

[Eric Page]

Meagan, as the OP on this thread I'd like to thank you for joining the conversation, and for taking member concerns about this SOLIDWORKS debacle seriously. I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we're hopeful you can come up with something that's much closer to the access we enjoyed before these changes.

While I don't share the cut-throat attitude of the members who have declared their intent to leave EAA over the loss of desktop SOLIDWORKS, I think it's indicative of the level of frustration here. After hearing privately that EAA leadership didn't see the value in SOLIDWORKS and had dismissed a staffer who was providing members assistance with installing and using it, I'm heartened to see that someone at EAA HQ has been given responsibility for it.

Once again, thank you.