Please, Autodesk, don't limit the personal licenses!!

[ellie.def]

It seems that Autodesk is wanting to severely limit the featureset of the personal license of Fusion360.

First of all, Why? Just Why would you do that, Autodesk, one of the biggest reasons Fusion was so popular is because it offered professional level performance and tools (without being too pro either) at a very limited cost, or even free, to anyone that needed it.

Second, while the edu and personal licenses do not allow for commercial use, the companies that use it commercially will have the startup version, and will pay for it, but there are so many reasons people use the personal license non-commercially, with fabrication tools being so accessible to everybody, especially personal users, it's only logical to use fusion on a cnc router at home, or for 3D printing at home, without ever selling anything.

FYI: I have an edu license, so I'm not affected by that change, but for the people that are, it's just unfair.

The personal license is already limited compared to the other licenses, so please, Autodesk, please don't be stupid and leave it as is. If anything, you should even allow collaboration with personal licenses, and if there has to be a price to pay, it should me extremely minimal, like 5 bucks a month, with the full startup price enabling commercial use.

If I only get replies from the autodesk team it's not gonna be a very productive post, so feel free to participate and help the personal license keep its functionalities.

[ltomuta]

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@ellie.def wrote:

It seems that Autodesk is wanting to severely limit the featureset of the personal license of Fusion360.

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Are you basing this assumption on something? Link?

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@ellie.def wrote:

Second, while the edu and personal licenses do not allow for commercial use

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Limited commercial use is allowed for personal licenses.

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@ellie.def wrote:

The personal license is already limited compared to the other licenses,

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The only real limitation for the personal license is the "collaborative" aspect. Which is quite OK since it is ... well, personal. 🙂

[TheCADWhisperer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOiuTu14tI

[ellie.def]

That's for the new featureset.

For the commercial use, okay, it can be used commercially, but in a limited manner, so either allow it or don't, but not partially, that doesn't make sense IMO.

[ellie.def]

Yes, that's very nice to see, but we have to spread the news over multiple platforms so we can be seen, that's why I'm posting here. Having this linked in here is perfect.

[DarrenP]

more info here: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/changes-to-fusion-360-for-personal-use/

[ellie.def]

Yeah, the excuse they're using "we want to make our offer less confusing" isn't really that great, we can clearly see that they severely limit the cloud features, whether it's storage or computing (for renders and simulations), which limits the running costs of these accounts, and to be honest, if they'd really wanted to make it clearer, they should just have made a comparative chart for all the licenses, just like any other CAD program vendor (I think they do actually have a chart, but it's pretty well hidden somewhere on the website). One of those charts makes it so much clearer! If they want to distinguish the different licenses, just take out commercial use on the personal license, but some stuff really is useful for enthusiasts, like simulation and specific file format exports.

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@ellie.def wrote:

...some stuff really is useful for enthusiasts, like simulation and specific file format exports.

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Q. Who should pay for the development?

[ellie.def]

Isn't most of it already developed? Sure, they're always fixing a few bugs, but it's pretty optimized by now. And apart from specific things like generative design, which you already have to pay for, it shouldn't be a problem to keep it the same as before, ie: free. If it worked up to now, it should be able to keep working that way.

[Anonymous]

The loss of STEP and DXF export is pretty catastrophic for me, that removes the ability to link Fusion to the rest of my toolchain for operations with my Epilog laser through Corel Draw.  My primary use is to build assemblies using cut flat parts, then export the DXF from a sketch to Corel, and use that to make the cuts with the laser.  Without that functionality, Fusion becomes effectively useless to me aside from making pretty pictures. 

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...pretty catastrophic for me...

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Catastrophic? I’m truly sorry that you cannot afford a primary tool in your design process.

[dajoiner1985]

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@ellie.def wrote:

It seems that Autodesk is wanting to severely limit the featureset of the personal license of Fusion360.

First of all, Why? Just Why would you do that, Autodesk, one of the biggest reasons Fusion was so popular is because it offered professional level performance and tools (without being too pro either) at a very limited cost, or even free, to anyone that needed it.

Second, while the edu and personal licenses do not allow for commercial use, the companies that use it commercially will have the startup version, and will pay for it, but there are so many reasons people use the personal license non-commercially, with fabrication tools being so accessible to everybody, especially personal users, it's only logical to use fusion on a cnc router at home, or for 3D printing at home, without ever selling anything.

FYI: I have an edu license, so I'm not affected by that change, but for the people that are, it's just unfair.

The personal license is already limited compared to the other licenses, so please, Autodesk, please don't be stupid and leave it as is. If anything, you should even allow collaboration with personal licenses, and if there has to be a price to pay, it should me extremely minimal, like 5 bucks a month, with the full startup price enabling commercial use.

If I only get replies from the autodesk team it's not gonna be a very productive post, so feel free to participate and help the personal license keep its functionalities.

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I'm just a hobbyist.  I design things for around the house use, I make no profit off of anything I design although I guess an argument could be made that the money I save by 3D printing something is the same as profiting but I also pay with my time.

"Limited to 10 active and editable Fusion 360 documents"

Does this mean 10 open files at once or does it mean I can only have a total of 10 files saved at any time?  If it is only 10 saved files, that is severely limiting for no reason other than to save cloud storage space at which point we should be able to use our own storage space.

.Step file extension is going to be a real pain as well for what appears to be an arbitrary reason.  

I understand this is a business and support isn't feasible unless they profit but it is very disappointing to hear the changes coming.

[Anonymous]

I'm a dude in my shop building stuff for myself, man.  I don't make money from this, this isn't a business expense or something I can defray into costs to my customers.  This basically means that I have to pay $300 a year just to keep my current toolchain, or find something else. 

[ellie.def]

Exactly, DXF export is so useful, whether you use it for laser cutting, sheet metal, or even just transferring sketches from one file to another, it'd be stupid to take that feature from so many users.

[TheCADWhisperer]

I thought I heard that dxf export of sketches - no change?

[Anonymous]

I just had it clarified, we can still export DXFs from sketches, just not full drawings any more.  So at least it'll still work for plasma cutting, laser, waterjet, etc!

[ellie.def]

Well, if your primary tool was free, and you learned to use it and your workflow relies on it, it's annoying to see it taken from you. As other people said, as hobbyists it really isn't worth it to pay 400 bucks a year when we had the same thing for free before.

[Anonymous]

Loss of step export, and file storage limitations, with no local storage options is going to end up driving me away from Fusion. This just doesn't work. I understand that Autodesk has to get paid for the work they do, but seriously, this is going to kill the maker/community user base.

[ellie.def]

ok, that's good at least, it still very limiting, but it can allow a workaround

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@ellie.def wrote:

Well, if your primary tool was free, ...

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It was never, ever free.

Someone else might have been paying the bills, but it was never free.

Q. Who should pay for the development?