"And the pdf program is from a company too. Think. It's from a company. It's not something you mine or something you grow and harvest. And the pdf guys probably lobbied for that legislation you're talking about and got the gov't to make legislation prohibiting the use of Autocad is what I'd guess, legislation that apparently favored pdf. Think."
The PDF format itself is an international standard and its copyright has been handed over to ISO some years ago. True, Adobe Acrobat Reader is now owned by Oracle, but the company doesn't hold the copyright over the PDF format.
On the other hand, it was not a company that lobbied for the use of the PDF format. The lobbyists were actually many different non-profit Architects' Associations who lobbied for the acceptance of PDF format.
Also, the legislation didn't prohibit AutoCAD. It only forbids City Halls to require a specific format and enforces acceptance of blueprints in PDF format, i.e., I could still submit supporting files in AutoCAD format if I want to.
Finally, ... a PC worth U$D 1,500? With that amount of money you can get an extremely powerful system in my country, able to run two instances of AutoCAD with no issues whatsoever. The key here is that it's a lot of money to spend on a computer here...