Altium Designer Pricing

"Joerg" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:bq5t2bF6d57U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing
>> it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which
>> then works with or without internet connection
>>
>
> Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet 
> connection?

As I recall, that type of license is not node locked.

For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people 
use it at all.  Even ameteurs because there's a free version.  They whine 
all day!  Let alone actually doing any real work in it.  Almost as bad as 
gEDA!

No one should have to put up with that.  As soon as I have enough, 
investment shall we say, I'll buy an Altium license in a heartbeat.

'Long as we're talking about EDA, don't do PADS.  I tried it once.  It's 
priced fully double what Altium is, and isn't worth half the price.  I'd 
use something cheap like Multisim before using that, or anything else 
Mentor Graphics.

Tim

-- 
Seven Transistor Labs
Electrical Engineering Consultation
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com 

Tim Williams wrote:
> "Joerg" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
> news:bq5t2bF6d57U1@mid.individual.net...
>>> Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing
>>> it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which
>>> then works with or without internet connection
>>>
>> Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet 
>> connection?
> 
> As I recall, that type of license is not node locked.
> 
> For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people 
> use it at all.  Even ameteurs because there's a free version.  They whine 
> all day!  Let alone actually doing any real work in it.  Almost as bad as 
> gEDA!
> 

Well, I am using Eagle since 10 years and it works nicely for me. The
only real gripe I have about it is the lack of a hierarchy but it seems
they (finally!) woke up now.

And yeah, I do real work on it. Like a hotrod RF thingamagic right now.
Lots of unorthodox switchers, too. To my surprise several of my newer
clients are also using Eagle which, of course, makes cooperation really
easy.

A couple of years ago I compared and test-drove numerous CAD packages.
None of them made me as happy as I was with old Orcad-SDT. So I stuck
with Eagle. Once they introduce a hierarchy that might as well be for
life because changing CAD librarier is a major pain.


> No one should have to put up with that.  As soon as I have enough, 
> investment shall we say, I'll buy an Altium license in a heartbeat.
> 
> 'Long as we're talking about EDA, don't do PADS.  I tried it once.  It's 
> priced fully double what Altium is, and isn't worth half the price.  I'd 
> use something cheap like Multisim before using that, or anything else 
> Mentor Graphics.
> 

My layouter uses PADS since forever and so does John Larkin's company,
and many clients of mine. They are all quite happy with it.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Am 03.04.2014 16:41, schrieb Joerg:
> Chris Jones wrote:

>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>
>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>> whilst I was working with it.
>
>
> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
> software for me.

Serious BS.

My Altium Designer runs happily in a XP virtual machine under Linux Mint 
16 and VMware, together with Modelsim, Xilinx, the DG8SAQ VNWA,
Sigasi, what else. The Internet connection of the virtual machine
is usually switched off, only Xilinx wants to call home for every
error message.

I can easily move the VM from my workstation to the laptop and even
_running_ simulations can continue there. At the moment I'm in a
hotel room in Munich and could do productive work, if it wasn't for
s.e.d :-)

Altium said they would not support me running it on a virtual machine
(had some performance problems with design files on network-connected
partitions) but me running it on a VM was OK. I asked b4 I bought it. 
Methinks they put a lot of trust on me, I could abuse it easily.

C.J. probably has no license of his own but lends it from his
client over the internet from case to case.

regards, Gerhard

Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com
"Joerg" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:bq693hF8trvU1@mid.individual.net...
> A couple of years ago I compared and test-drove numerous CAD packages.
> None of them made me as happy as I was with old Orcad-SDT. So I stuck
> with Eagle. Once they introduce a hierarchy that might as well be for
> life because changing CAD librarier is a major pain.

That being one of the major complaints, libraries.  Creating symbols and 
footprints is a snap in Altium.  For a simple part, a few minutes, and 
that includes simple 3D data (even better, if you have a STEP model of the 
thing).  Or if you're lazy, you can even use the IPC compliant footprint 
generator (and pretty it up by hand, or use it as-is).

Tim

-- 
Seven Transistor Labs
Electrical Engineering Consultation
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com 

On 04/04/2014 02:53, Tim Williams wrote:
> "Joerg" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:bq5a91F26ruU2@mid.individual.net...
>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>>
>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about
>>> Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.
>>
>>
>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
>> software for me.
>
> If you have the license file, you can download the Altium License Server
> so that your computer literally phones home to itself to check that the
> license is there.
>
> There are also check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
> day or a few, or whatever.
>
> Tim
>

There was some incompatibility between one of their licence server 
things and Windows 7 iirc, and I had stopped using XP by then.

Yes I eventually got it sorted out, but it seemed very rude of Altium to 
put me through that (using up several hours of otherwise billable time), 
when I know that some people use the pirated DVD and experience none of 
that crap. If I were Altium then I would always want people who pay for 
my product to get a better service than those who use it illegally.

Chris

On 04/04/2014 10:30, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
> Am 03.04.2014 16:41, schrieb Joerg:
>> Chris Jones wrote:
>
>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>>
>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.
>>
>>
>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
>> software for me.
>
> Serious BS.
>
> My Altium Designer runs happily in a XP virtual machine under Linux Mint
> 16 and VMware, together with Modelsim, Xilinx, the DG8SAQ VNWA,
> Sigasi, what else. The Internet connection of the virtual machine
> is usually switched off, only Xilinx wants to call home for every
> error message.
>
> I can easily move the VM from my workstation to the laptop and even
> _running_ simulations can continue there. At the moment I'm in a
> hotel room in Munich and could do productive work, if it wasn't for
> s.e.d :-)
>
> Altium said they would not support me running it on a virtual machine
> (had some performance problems with design files on network-connected
> partitions) but me running it on a VM was OK. I asked b4 I bought it.
> Methinks they put a lot of trust on me, I could abuse it easily.
>
> C.J. probably has no license of his own but lends it from his
> client over the internet from case to case.

Yes, initially I did this, so the client could also run Altium. Now it 
is setup so I can run it without internet, but it wasted several hours 
of my time that a pirate user of Altium (or any user of open source 
tools) would not have had to waste.

Chris

"Chris Jones" <lugnut808@spam.yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:533e17a9$0$16068$862e30e2@ngroups.net...
> There was some incompatibility between one of their licence server 
> things and Windows 7 iirc, and I had stopped using XP by then.

I've used both on Win7 without much trouble.  Does seem to be written for 
XP; the only 'gotcha' I found was, a fresh install of Win7 has desktop 
scale set to 125%, which is simply ignored by the layouts of many 
un-resizable dialogs, making buttons and such inaccessible.

> Yes I eventually got it sorted out, but it seemed very rude of Altium to 
> put me through that (using up several hours of otherwise billable time), 
> when I know that some people use the pirated DVD and experience none of 
> that crap. If I were Altium then I would always want people who pay for 
> my product to get a better service than those who use it illegally.

Free software may yet rule the day, but it has a long way to go.  Vote 
Piraten Partei?  :^)

Tim

-- 
Seven Transistor Labs
Electrical Engineering Consultation
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com 

On Thursday, April 3, 2014 10:02:15 PM UTC+2, Joerg wrote:
> frederikhultmann@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday, April 3, 2014 8:08:34 PM UTC+2, Joerg wrote:
> 
> >> Joe Chisolm wrote:
> 
> >> 
> 
> >>> On Thu, 03 Apr 2014 08:59:53 -0700, Joerg wrote:
> 
> >>>> Tim Williams wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Joerg" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
> 
> >>>>> news:bq5a91F26ruU2@mid.individual.net...
> 
> >>>>>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know
> 
> >>>>>>> the exact number. It was in the range that others have
> 
> >>>>>>> suggested. I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a
> 
> >>>>>>> lot of things about Kicad. The first thing was all of the
> 
> >>>>>>> licence server shit that I had to go through just to use
> 
> >>>>>>> Altium, then it would nag me literally about every 20
> 
> >>>>>>> seconds before locking me out if my internet connection
> 
> >>>>>>> went down whilst I was working with it.
> 
> >>>>>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly
> 
> >>>>>> blacklist a software for me.
> 
> >>>>> If you have the license file, you can download the Altium
> 
> >>>>> License Server so that your computer literally phones home to
> 
> >>>>> itself to check that the license is there. There are also
> 
> >>>>> check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
> 
> >>>>> day or a few, or whatever.
> 
> >>>> Personally I don't trust this kind of complicated stuff. I've
> 
> >>>> had cases where clients wanted me to (legally) use one of their
> 
> >>>> licenses and it didn't work across an ocean or whatever. Then
> 
> >>>> the support staff came in, lots of time was wasted and they
> 
> >>>> could not fix it. No thanks. I like the Cadsoft concept where
> 
> >>>> they ... simply trust their customers. Once in a while there
> 
> >>>> will be a bad apple and they have to block that license as
> 
> >>>> rogue but that only affects work created with pirated software.
> 
> >>>> 
> 
> >>> Altium has a couple of different models.  The floating license is
> 
> >>> the one where you need the net connection.  Floating is nice if
> 
> >>> you can over subscribe your folks usage.  The other nice thing is
> 
> >>> I dont have to setup a license server of any kind.  I can work
> 
> >>> anywhere as long as I have a net connection.
> 
> >> 
> 
> >> 
> 
> >> That won't work at all for me. Even here in the office the Internet
> 
> >> goes
> 
> >> 
> 
> >> down at times. I can't afford being dead in the water with my work
> 
> >> 
> 
> >> during those times.
> 
> >> 
> 
> > 
> 
> > Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing
> 
> > it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which
> 
> > then works with or without internet connection
> 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet connection?
> 

I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the internet connection, not much data is transferred)

Cheers

Klaus

On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 00:08:59 -0700 (PDT), Klaus Kragelund
<klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the internet connection, not much data is transferred)
>
>Cheers
>
>Klaus

I can't imagine doing much schematic or PCB design without an Internet
connection. Usually with a LOT Of windows open. 

The license checkout feature is quite decent. It's only a hassle when
someone in a group forgets to return it, but the **$R#$s will do that
with physical tools too. 

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 00:08:59 -0700 (PDT), Klaus Kragelund 
> <klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have
>> the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the
>> internet connection, not much data is transferred)
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Klaus
> 
> I can't imagine doing much schematic or PCB design without an
> Internet connection. Usually with a LOT Of windows open.
> 

I've done a serious pulse receiver design for an ultrasound system on
the train from Cologne to Ulm. No Internet. By the time the train rolled
into Ulm Main Station a large chunk of it was completed.

In my case >50% of designs usually consist of SPICE simulations and
there Internet access rarely matters. For example, you can use a
somewhat similar RF transistor and then download the real model when you
have Internet connection again. But not being able to draw a schematic
would drive me up the wall because this is often done in parallel, in
another window.


> The license checkout feature is quite decent. It's only a hassle when
>  someone in a group forgets to return it, but the **$R#$s will do
> that with physical tools too.
> 

Does it work across borders? Or even oceans?

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/