WinQCad vs. EagleCAD

I use Eagle and I am quite happy with it except for one major shortcoming explained below. A client uses WinQCad and their engineer is happy as well.

Eagle has IMHO one major flaw: No hierarchy structure is available for schematics. That makes designs with more than just a few pages almost unmanageable for anyone but the original designer. Even the original designer might get lost in such a flat sheet structure when re-visiting the schematic a few years down the road.

OrCad does offer hierarchy and, AFAIK, so does WinQCad. If Cadsoft doesn't fix this soon I'll probably switch away from them.

There is no product called EagleCAD. The product called Cadsoft EAGLE is infected with DRM. If you give it the opportunity, it will lock you out of your work product.

If some of the participants worked with cracked copies. Otherwise it does not.

Total bull ! Spoken like a plagiarist.

Bar>Total bull !

Your statement shows you to be a fool of few words and of fewer actual ideas. I suggest a reading comprehension course.

Markus described the whole sad tale. Though he was a paid-up user, Cadsoft treated him like something to be scraped off their shoe.

I suggest you learn what a word means before you use it.

Quote "... just because I once copied a voltage regulator (I think it was) out of a design which aparently was made by some third party with a cracked version."

A few sentences later, quote "This evil schema part creaped into quite some of my designs with which the only option I have now is to recapture their schemas from scratch!"

My impression is that he's more of a commercial user, corroborated by the fact that he uses a licensed version like I do. This begs the question where this "innocent piece of design" came from. Copied off the web is something I don't believe he could have done. That would raise some flags WRT to copyrights. One cannot simply copy a chunk out of someone else's schematic and use it, unless it's hobby maybe. I never do that because that would be breaking the law. So I really don't believe he did that either, he comes across as an honest guy.

If he got it from someone for money then the seller broke the law. In that case it's similar to receiving a fake $50 bill. The bank or sheriff will confiscate that bill and you do not get compensated for your loss.

In contrast to just about any other CAD company I know Cadsoft trusts their users. You are given a license code and they trust that you won't leak that to others. So no dongles, MAC-locks and other such nonsense. On top of that they allow you to spool another copy onto your laptop for road use, at least that's what my license says. I find that a very fair policy. I challenge you to name any competitor that's this generous.

That's nice as far as it goes--right up to the DRM. Cadsoft's style of distrust simply takes another form. It's still distrust. Their treatment of Markus speaks volumes.

As I said in the part you snipped he has used clandestinely generated work. Probably a perfectly honest mistake but IMHO Cadsoft cannot be blamed for that.

The very same thing would happen if you unknowingly bought a used car where some hacker had tampered with the ECU. When the smog check guys find out they will take away your rights to drive that car.

True hackers know how to switch back to "factory" settings during inspection ;-)

It's particularly easy to pass smog tests now that the bureaucrats simply plug into an ECU port... dummies ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Yeah, but the not so honest guys make an engine "run good", take your check, high-tail it and then the NOX is way over the limit or something. Which you won't find out until a year later when smog is due, and then the guy is long gone.

Out here they still hang a probe into the tail pipe.

Arizona only does that with really old stuff, like carbureted w/o ECU, and heavy trucks. ...Jim Thompson

So how do they think they can avoid fraud? Or to say it more bluntly, were they even thinking?

Joerg, You fret too much about the wrong things. Move to AZ or NV and enjoy the good life, while you have a chance. ...Jim Thompson

Try to sell a house here :-)

So far life is good out here. If they impose the net receipts tax it'll be less good. Then again, that will cause hefty layoffs and more work for outsiders like me.

Well, *you* use library parts generated by others. What I see is you looking down your nose at those who do likewise.

Markus was a paid-up customer of Cadsoft. It would have been trivial for them to get him out of his bind. As always, it's the LEGIT users who get screwed by DRM. That Cadsoft doesn't recognize this about DRM makes them yet another for the DO NOT PURCHASE list.

Screwing your customers is a STUPID business model. I don't know what the solution to piracy is but I do know that DRM AIN'T IT.

He didn't go to the smog check guys. He went to the factory guys WHO HE HAD PAID. NO ONE TOLD HIM ABOUT THIS SHIT AHEAD OF TIME.

If **the Ford factory guys** came >True hackers know how to switch back to "factory" settings

Exactly. DRM doesn't affect *real* pirates. Only LEGIT customers get screwed by DRM. Clueless companies don't deserve to have any more customers and only clueless companies use this stupid fad in their products. Frankly, dongles are more honest.

Nope. I don't. As I understood it he used part of a schematic on several of his designs, not just a library part.

Huh?

Yep, they probably could have been a bit more cordial in this case. OTOH if word gets around suddenly dozens of others want the same service and that's where it becomes dicey.

Everybody has his own list. I would instantly upgrade to Eagle V5 if they hadn't screwed up the hierarchy again. Because other than for the lack of a hierachy it's perfect.

Well, while we are at it, what do you propose then?

How come I knew of this before I bought Eagle? For some reason the same must be true for most others. Else there'd be lots of flak about it on the rather busy Eagle newsgroups, and there isn't.

Well, do not accept or copy schematic sections from unknown sources and you'll be just fine. In the same way that I assume you do not simply click "download" on any sort of program from the web that you find interesting.

I will never buy a product with a dongle, and many others won't either. Never have.

The car, or the driver?

Depending on your driving style to the place possibly both. Sometimes the driver doesn't pass and then gets a ride in the sheriff's car.

If this is true, then Cadsoft should be avoided. A piece of software should not throw away or cripple files under any circumstance. If it does, it is useless. Period.