Blog Nauseam: Cloud Terms and Conditions
I really dislike continuing this discussion, but it kind of supersedes everything else. “CAD” development has been short circuited and hijacked by cloud development that doesn’t offer any real benefits. Especially when it seems so clear to most of us that we won’t use it. Yet, it’s the direction that Bernard Charles has vowed to take, and seems to be robbing most of us of other development that we would much prefer to see.
Anyway. It turns out that with all the cloud stuff Autodesk is also up to, AutoCAD users are also concerned about the same things SolidWorks users are concerned about. Steve Johnson over at Blog Nauseam has a way with pointing out the ridiculous that I rather admire. His latest post is on the Terms of Service he had to agree to to be able to use the Autodesk cloud stuff. Head over to Blog Nauseam to read his translation from legalese into stuff we can all understand.
Even if every other argument CAD users are making against the cloud were 100% wrong, the terms of service of using the Autodesk cloud would be enough to prevent any engineering manager with a brain from using it for production data. I mean, it’s a no brainer to not use it. They won’t take responsibility for your data, and they can use it in any way they see fit.
Well that was before Autodesk announced they were moving to the cloud.
Thin end of the wedge? Probably their users will be fed BS until they are trapped.
Perhaps DS are ashamed of the cloud? Perhaps the palatial new building has gold toilet roll holders?
Or perhaps like Japan its radioactive everywhere and they just don’t want to admit it.
Not a good look though if you can’t talk about your own venture.
What ever the reason you get the impression it must be a really bad deal for customers they don’t want to share before time.
I am not sure why you would want to kill off your prospects by default like this.
Very incompetant management of the whole thing if you ask me.
The silence speaks loudly about how they actually regard their customers today.
This is certainly not the company that was founded and that is a shame.
A year and a half ago, Autodesk employees were sounding like they made sense talking about the cloud. Why can’t SolidWorks say anything meaningful?
http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/2011/11/04/autodesk-cloud-interview-may-2010-part-1/
Here is another reason the public cloud must fail for product data:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/03/us-calls-out-china-and-russia-for-cyber-espionage-costing-billions/
The Chinese and Russians are stealing US corporate trade secrets. This is not stupid paranoia. It is happening.
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/rg.png[/img]
My concern is my customer’s concern.
A significant portion of my work is in the defense industry. I can assure you that regardless of the security proclamations of DS or any other cloud proponent, the military will not want their stuff on the cloud, even if it’s not classified. This one market influence may be enough to dictate the direction of the cloud for proprietary data.
http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/2011/10/22/is-a-cad-in-the-cloud-takeover-inevitable/
Blog Nauseam is running a poll asking if a Cloud takeover in the CAD industry is inevitable.
>we will just be dragged along for the ride.
Exactly. Why is this decision in the vendors domain exclusively? Why is this a must have, an inevitability? Why is there no case for the user to examine, no facts, no detail? By what right do vendors inflict massive and seemingly unnecessary change that has few real benefits for customers but potentially fat rewards for them?
When ever I hear someone telling me I must have something it reminds me of Margaret Thatcher’s condescending assertions. We must. We must. Are we really so dumb the we can be bamboozled and conned like this? Turn your brain off and sign up to CAD feudalism. The cloud will ‘trickle down’…
Should this be allowed to happen unchallenged?
Who consulted you when ‘globalism’ and ‘level playing fields’ was enacted as the answer to assisting humanity to prosperity.
Didnt you immediately suspect that the inequalities of nations would lead to adandonment to the lowest denominator? Isn’t slash and burn industry the result? Moving on from one cheap wage opportunity to the next while leaving a trail of ruin behind. As long as we look at the immediate bottom line we are being successful. There are no consequences to us personally because we are on the ladder and we can those not to see beyond our horizon.
To my mind there are really big issues to decide in these times. They involve the role of industry/automation in serving humanity – we have this ability to make things but who is to benefit and how, what standard of living is desireable and sustainable. Are we to be civilised or is it the survival of the fittest and those who can get in first?
In some ways this is another brink question in the vein of what to do with the bomb now that we have it. Are we protected if can have mutually assured destruction. Is it a viable use of money and time or should we try harder to get along. Every now and again humanity finds itself in a harmful eddy that really shouldn’t ought to happen not because we are that stupid but we are flawed and weak and self interested.
Really there is no reason why the European and American empire should go on perpetually. If we look at history civilisations have come and gone. There is no reason why Africans should starve or Indians pick over mountains of trash to eke out a living and not Americans is there? Perhaps we should start doing things that benefit everyone and not just the few or those alive today.
What choice do we have? You tell me…
@Bob Warfield
Bob, do you and CNCCookbook store your intellectual property (source code and all other software files) solely on another company’s servers? I wonder if Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, DS Solidworks, or {enter another large tech company name here} store all of their intellectual property on another company’s servers?
As Bob hasn’t bothered to respond to my challenge on my own blog to back up one of his first statements, I can only assume he was just trolling. Given some of his other comments here, I’d call it trolling for business. I’m not sure how successful a tactic that is likely to prove, though.
Gentlemen – Very interesting points. I feel that until the utmost confidence is bestowed upon CAD Users, Engineering Managers and Corporations in general – that the “Cloud” is safe and secure (and it won’t be) – we can expect a lot of “kick back”. That being said – If AutoDedsk, Dassault, PTC, Siemens, Bentley and all of the CAD companies buy into it – well – we will just be dragged along for the ride. What choice will we have. I have sold software for nearly 20 years and this is the biggest change that has come on the horizon in that time period – second to none. If they pull it off – kudos to them – if they don’t – well – there may be heads roll at the executive level. Intellictual propery is not something to be taken lightly and as we have seen – a good hacker can compromise anything.
PLM is useless without geometry creation. The representation of a model with complex geometry is 1200X smaller than a Solidworks file. Why do we need an inscrutable database to obscure the Solidworks file bloat?
This thread is beginning to suck. It is clear that many of the posters do not actually do geometery creation.
@Derek Bishop
I believe the reason that Dassault is pursuing the cloud with their V6 applications is due to necessity. They are going a new direction with the kernel. Parts and assemblies are no longer files, they are items in a database and Enovia is a requirement. This is where the cloud comes in. If you are unable to set up an enterprise PLM system at your company for a $1,000,000 plus, then you will need to use a cloud hosted version to allow you to use a V6 based app. I’ve heard romurs about some Catia customers being pissed because they are being told you have to use Enovia with Catia. The sad truth is, once your into a PLM system, your CAD system now becomes an appendage and does not dictate what you use…
@Bruce Buck
Yeah, I agree about the global design organization bit. I think I’ve mentioned that here before. The problem I see with that is that most SW customers are not part of global design organizations. Plus, PDM + VPN, even with its faults, I think completely covers the same ground, and gives you more control.
@Don
So it takes paper thousands of years to go through your 4 stages and computers only 50? Even though “cloud” completely resembles mainframe implementations of 40 years ago? The romans made water and sewer widely available a long time ago. Maybe there’s more to the analysis than just what you’re saying.
I’m with you Bruce, I feel the same way. The problem here is exactly as it is defined in the EULA. I don’t see an incorporated business agreeing to a EULA that is phrased like this. Get ready to see insurance companies start stepping into the cloud business and watch the cost of the cloud go through the roof.
@Bruce Buck
Much of what you say Bruce has substance and you actually hit on a key point and a key difference.
You got your money back because why…..? partly because banks are a part of a “regulated” business with defined/understood responsibities. Software companies are neither regulated nor responsible – as defined by their “cloud EULA”.
Yes, there are benefits to be found in the “cloud” (for some) but the regulation and responsibity for losses incured needs to be sorted contractually before “cloud” vendor management can be trusted with another companies IP.
Well that’s fallacious and brazen nonsense. A cloud service being as ubiquitous and natural as running water indeed. Good try. Where I live we repulsed corporates trying to seize private ownership of public utilities like water, roads and power back in the mid 80’s. We heard all the ploys. We know how the game works.
Really I am beginning to resent the covert corporate propaganda campaign landing here. Instead of squatting in Matts blog DS can pay for their own advertising space if they feel their business plans are threatened or misunderstood.
We must be dangerous here cos we get Matthew West – just doing his job, VARS just wanting to be users, hackers, completely impartial cloud vendors, anon DS employees, and now roped-in operatives all sticking their nose in here to suffocate or control free thought and speech. This is the Orwellian nightmare. They should all p**s off IMHO.
Its not gaining any traction with thinking users, in fact its just annoying for its obstinance and arrogance. Both unfortunate traits of DS management. If DS have a legitimate case for the cloud how about they front up their user base with some real factual information about what SWv6 is and how the cloud service will work and benefit users. Lets see a cost breakdown, some actual terms and conditions. Lets hear about how security will be guaranteed. Otherwise it looks like an attempt to redirect peoples attention away from the banditry going down or justify their grandiose delusions for getting the worlds population to spend their lives tethered to the DS company store. Which most likely it is.
I’m almost of afraid to comment, as I can understand most people’s sentiment on the issue, but is there not ANYONE out there whose actually worked for a medium to large company, with a team of anywhere from 3 to 30 engineers, in multiple locations nationally or worldwide, who does not see the extreme benefit and help CAD on the cloud would be in administering and managing those teams and systems? Seriously? Think of how many issues, delays, and problems have all been the result of variances and incompatibilities of computer hardware, os settings, network hardware, network settings, peripheral hardware, drivers, SW settings, corrupt files, the list goes on. As far as security, by all means devise whatever system you need to keep the actual drawing, assembly, and part files stored locally/within company servers, but as far as launching, using, and administering the actual SW app via the cloud, by all means, SIGN ME UP!!! I completely understand that actually being able to do this, without performance issues, is simply not here today, but at the very least we can be trying to figure out what it would take to get there.
As far as security and data loss, the examples of identity theft and bank accounts are great, and in fact I’ve had to deal with those issues myself (fraudulent CC charges and ATM withdrawels), but the reality is this: did it suck that it happened? Yes. Was it a huge pain in the butt and hassle to deal with? Yes. But at the end of the day, I got my money back. Now if I had been carrying that amount of cash with me, and was robbed at gunpoint and had it stolen, what are the chances of me actually being able to get my money back? Just sayin’.
@Bob Warfield
Thought this was rather interesting and definitely on topic…
FOUR STAGES OF TECHNOLOGY
“Mass technologies usually evolve in four basic stages. This can be seen in the evolution of paper, running water, electricity, and computers. In stage I, the products of technology are so precious that they are closely guarded. Paper, when it was invented in the form of papyrus by the ancient Egyptians and then by the Chinese thousands of years ago, was so precious that one papyrus scroll was closely guarded by scores of priests. This humble technology helped to set into motion ancient civilization.
Paper entered stage II around 1450, when Gutenberg invented printing from movable type. This made possible the “personal book,” so that one person could possess one book containing the knowledge of hundreds of scrolls. Before Gutenberg, there were only 30,000 books in all Europe. By 1500, there were 9 million books, stirring up intense intellectual ferment and stimulating the Renaissance. But around 1930, paper hit stage III, when the cost fell to a penny a sheet. This made possible the personal library, where one person could possess hundreds of books. Paper became an ordinary commodity, sold by the ton. Paper is everywhere and nowhere, invisible and ubiquitous. Now we are in stage IV, where paper is a fashion statement. We decorate our world with paper of all colors, shapes,and sizes. The largest source of urban waste is paper. So paper evolved from being a closely guarded commodity to being waste.
The same applies to running water. In ancient times, in stage I, water was so precious that a single well had to be shared by an entire village. This lasted for thousands of years, until the early 1900s, when personal plumbing was gradually introduced and we entered stage II. After World War II, running water entered stage III and became cheap and available to an expanding middle class. Today, running water is in stage IV, a fashion statement, appearing in numerous shapes, sizes, and applications. We decorate our world with water, in the form of fountains and displays.
Electricity also went through the same stages. With the pioneering work of Thomas Edison and others, in stage I a factory shared a single lightbulb and electric motor. After World War I, we entered stage II with the personal lightbulb and personal motor. Today, electricity has disappeared; it is everywhere and nowhere. Even the word “electricity” has pretty much disappeared from the English language. At Christmas, we use hundreds of blinking lights to decorate our homes. We assume that electricity is hidden in the walls, ubiquitous. Electricity is a fashion statement, lighting up Broadway and decorating our world.
In stage IV, both electricity and running water have become utilities. They are so cheap, and we consume so much of them, that we meter the amount of electricity and water that runs into our home. The computer follows the same pattern. Companies that understood this thrived and prospered. Companies that didn’t were driven almost to bankruptcy. IBM dominated stage I with the mainframe computer in the 1950s. One mainframe computer was so precious that it was shared by 100 scientists and engineers. However, the management of IBM failed to appreciate Moore’s law, so they almost went bankrupt when we entered stage II in the 1980s, with the coming of the personal computer.
But even personal computer manufacturers got complacent. They envisioned a world with stand-alone computers on every desk. They were caught off guard with the coming of stage III, Internet-linked computers by which one person could interact with millions of computers. Today, the only place you can find a stand-alone computer is in a museum. So the future of the computer is to eventually enter stage IV, where it disappears and gets resurrected as a fashion statement. We will decorate our world with computers. The very word computer will gradually disappear from the English language. In the future, the largest component of urban waste will not be paper but chips. The future of the computer is to disappear and become a utility, sold like electricity and water. Computer chips will gradually disappear as computation is done “in the clouds.” So the evolution of computers is not a mystery; it is following the well-worn path of its predecessors, like electricity, paper, and running water.”
Quote ““CAD” development has been short circuited and hijacked by cloud development that doesn’t offer any real benefits. End Quote Pretty much sums it.
Whose money is being used to fund the development of cloud based software? If user subscription fees are being used then I for one strongly object. I want my money being used to fix bugs that prevent me from using the software in the way it is intended rather than using silly workarounds and on new engineering developments that make the software more powerful, efficient and cost effective for me – not SolidWorks.
I have said a considerable amount about the ground you guys are now covering and un-covering. So for the moment I will sit and watch what is said, with two exceptions.
The first being I have taken on/challenged Autodesk and their licencing (and some other vendors also). The result is, I now use Autodesk products with their complete understanding I accept absolutely none or the Terms and Conditions. How I have done can be found in www/miletter.blogspot.com.
The other point – Bob Warfield. Countering contractual arguments about the cloud with argument about it usefulness is pointless and completely misses the important role contracts play in business – you of all people should understand the difference. I would suggest you spend a little time thinking about the importance of the EULA. Without doing that none of your arguments will have any validity.
@Steve Johnson
Ah, spelling, schmelling. Somehow I got it right in the body of the post but wrong in the title. Thanks for the correction.
@Bob Warfield
Bob, on my own blog I have responded to the copy of your comment that you pasted onto there. I won’t be contributing further to the discussion here and will leave you to have your own fun with the “locals”.
Matt, I appreciate the mention, but it’s “blog nauseam” with only one U. 🙂
Can’t wait for when we are all on the cloud and Solidworks has its first Blackberry moment. We’ll get to twirl our thumbs while SW unscrambles the big database in the sky.
The only real cloud app I use is Smugmug (they use Amazon servers) to host pictures. I don’t make money off my photography so it only a mild aggravation when Smugmug off the grid or in read-only-mode. The forums do fill up with pros complaining about losing sales because they can’t upload the latest little league pictures.
https://smugmug-status.appspot.com/services/entire-site
Welcome, Phaedrus. It looks like we have a wolf in Bob’s clothing, which is certainly permissible, but wise to notice.
Well, now that we know “what is good” we can dispense, worry-free, with freedom. After all, what use is freedom when we can know such things and apply them equally to all, eh?
So a cloud for everyone, and never mind the protests. We’ve got men of straw, and they’re quite flammable.
@Bob Warfield
RE: “You guys are kidding yourselves if you think your own IT is more secure than the Cloud.”
My reply: “You guys are kidding yourselves if you think The Cloud is more secure than your own IT.”
“Amazon, for example, is in use by all sorts of branches of government, it’s credit card provider compliant, it’s HIPAA compliant for healthcare, yada, yada.”- Bob Warfield.
I used my brand new credit card three years ago once. My first purchase was online – Planetdomain (so I could start my own website). The second was a couple of books from Amazon. Fast forward a few months. 10pm at night. A woman rings from my bank asks various security questions, I confirm, then she asks am I in Malaysia buying plane tickets. No. Ok – Card cancelled, new one in mail, wait about a week. Now I knew that said card had been used twice and one part had ‘security issues’. As you can expect – trying to get an answer out of Amazon was impossible. Planetdomain were more than happy to help. And when I put it to them that their credit card security may have been responsible, I was given a very confident assurance that the systems they had in place were ‘impenetrable’ and was due to the fact that they sold ‘computer security’ as one of the key selling points of their business model. Amazon – their business was about selling books. I had still lingering doubts until I indeed had a security problem. One well beyond my abilities to even begin to tackle (they were quite good when I look back – I did get No.1-10 in Google for my top keywords) and I had to turn to them for support. They were so good that I was shocked when they told me who and how was deleting one of my images from my site. Then when I had seen what they were up against and how they were very much on top of their game.
To sum it up – I 100% believe that my credit card leaked out of Amazon’s website.
> It is also inevitable that everything is going to the Cloud.
I was giving you a fair hearing until I read that. Reminds me of other absurd statements made here by someone with a blind and vested interest in advocating cloud use.
I guess you have been sent here by DS to turn the crowd as well, work on a pocket of resistance.
At least you stopped short of telling us the cloud is compulsory or that resistance is futile.
If we send you back in a box at least they know what to stick on the headstone-
‘Here lays Bob, who famously had the job, of putting tabs on the bottom of Excel.
He could have lived longer, and the program been stronger, had he spent his time improving undo’.
You know many people were convinced Hitler was the best thing to happen to Germany.
Other folks were convinced there were spaceships waiting near Venus to rapture them out of here and took the poison.
There was no doubt in peoples minds that what they were told was right and the way of the future….
Its time for a reality check.
There is no need for CAD in the cloud.
Say no to corporate fascism.
@ Mr. Warfield,
could you please thump your chest a little louder, I didn’t quite hear it the first time, my head must have been in a “Cloud”…
Sorry, but I think enough information, personal or otherwise is already being hacked way too much on the web, so why would you want to add more… No cloud for me thanks…
The bandwidth required for a “secure” online purchase is just about zero. Not much data: SKU, quantity, vendor, name, address, telephone, credit card numbers. And the submission takes a while. It is just barely bidirectional.
The possible benefits are hypothetical and weak. The problems will be extensive. CAD on the cloud will suck.
@Bob Warfield
No one here is railing against storing your pirated music and movies in the cloud. Who cares. No one is railing against blogs being on the cloud.
“It’s pretty much the standard among security professionals that you should put on the cloud only what you would be willing to give away. – CNN Money Blog “ http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/22/technology/dropbox_passwords/index.htm
You don’t have to look far to see another story about the non-existence of cloud security, or the complete surrender of control over software you pay for.
Who gets to decide and who has to live with the consequences? Doesn’t sound like a free society to me. This will be decided by customers in the end. And it’s going to take a lot longer to get full blown CAD to the cloud than the blind optimists are thinking.
The arguments are in the last couple years of blog posts and comments, I’m not going to rehash them for you here. You’re mischaracterizing the argument against. This blog has spelled out many advantages of the cloud. Read some, won’t you?
@matt
Matt, you wrote an article about a license agreement. I’ve pointed out and you’ve agreed the license agreements for non-Cloud are no better. Excellent progress.
Now let’s move to the Cloud itself. What exactly is it you’re arguing about with respect to the Cloud? That a copy of your data is on the Cloud and you don’t like that? So does that make it terrible if someone uses say, Mozy, which has nothing to do with CAD to take a backup onto the Cloud? If so, why?
Everyone wants to argue, “My clients won’t let me take data to the Cloud.” Okay. You need a solution that doesn’t require taking the data to the Cloud until your clients are ready. But what about clients that do allow it? Do you seriously think nobody will with DS pushing into the Cloud? How long until you start getting clients who are the ones requiring you to be in the Cloud because it simplifies the management of PLM data?
Amazon, for example, is in use by all sorts of branches of government, it’s credit card provider compliant, it’s HIPAA compliant for healthcare, yada, yada. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think your own IT is more secure than the Cloud. For many if not most businesses, and particularly for small businesses, the Cloud vendors can afford to do things you can’t even begin to do in terms of securing the data simply because they can amortize the cost for that over a lot more customers and because they know if something happens to even one of their customers that will be well publicized and their businesses will suffer for it.
Banks are way better protected than most CAD consumers and they are decidedly not in the Cloud but we heard constantly about identity theft, banks losing data, getting hacked, and all the rest.
Now you can keep railing about it and see where it gets you, or you can figure out how to take advantage of it, because the Cloud isn’t just coming, it’s here today.
BTW, you can argue about how I make my living, but you can also see I was a Cloud advocate before CNCCookbook even existed. Go ahead, search the Internet a little further (even though it is a big part of the Cloud). I’ve also been at the technology business a long long time creating products for businesses large and small and I know how this stuff works:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobwarfield
I invented the tabs you see at the bottom of Excel, to name just one example people will be familiar with.
It is entirely possible to benefit from the Cloud. It is also inevitable that everything is going to the Cloud. You’re already there or we couldn’t have this discussion, we’re just arguing about degree. It already has way too much momentum and too many advantages.
You can stay the Luddites (curious position for technologists to take and to argue in the Cloud), or you can become thought leaders and tell DS how to do it right. Because you haven’t yet thought of a way for CAD to benefit from the Cloud doesn’t mean there is no advantage. Open your mind and give it some thought. You might be surprised.
Or as I wise man said, “You don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you just might get what you need.”
Cheers,
BW
Cloud will not work for me when I work in remote places aboard my boat. The internet has not reached my desert island. Satphone is barely useful for text email at 4800 baud and $1.19 per minute.
Cloud will not work for me at the office. I do not need crash inducing upgrades served remotely. I do not need my data corrupted or held hostage. I do not get high bandwidth in this small town.
The cloud sucks!!!
@Bob Warfield
Bob,
You’re right, every software EULA is ridiculous to the point of being undefendable. But the difference is that with the current SW software, you do in fact have some control. If things get effed up, it’s your own fault. With the cloud, you throw that responsibility into the ether, in more than one sense of the word.
And just so we’re 100% clear about this, I’ve said that most of the supporters of cloud have something to sell (and most of the rest are anonymous), and that seems to be the case with you. You are selling cloud software. From your site:
This is the Internet Age. We’ll take advantage of it every way we can.
Our software is online and connected by design. It upgrades itself when new features are available so you always have the latest and greatest.
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCAbout.htm
So I’m not sure your argument is going to hold a great amount of influence. There’s a good bit of difference between CAD data and CAM data, and your site does at least try to be customer friendly. Still, I don’t believe it strengthens the case for CAD in the cloud. Telling me I can’t stop it is the wrong tactic. In addition to casting DS in the glow of a power hungry despot, it just will make people on the other side of the issue dig their heels in.
I’ve been a SolidWorks Design & PDM consultant for 12 years, with over 40 clients. My clients will never agree to post their CAD files on “The Cloud” (where The Cloud is the default repository and a software company controls access to them). I’ve talked to most of them about this and this is what I’m reporting.
Cheers,
Devon Sowell
hmm,.. makes one think.. that, we will all need to clearly state in our contracts a data/share disclaimer? “(client) will be responsible for all data shared or transferred over the cloud.”
Once this gets down to the legal agreements, the high-risk nature of having sensitive data on the cloud, data stored/streamed to/from third-party vendors, and the weak nature of this chain in general, you see exactly how much faith a company can have that they’ll really be able to secure everything. None. Zero. They’re not willing to risk anything in standing behind any claims of security or fidelity.
It’s a bit like looking through some of the Boomer-oriented magazines that advertise drugs whose side-effects could include death (if you read the three or four pages of fine print that follow each drug ad, anyway). What an incentive to jump aboard with the newest in medical marvels. (Of course, it may kill you…)
If they really believed in the security/quality of this cloud thing, I’d expect ads and disclaimers a lot more like the LifeLock guys have regarding identity theft. But then again, perhaps their terms of service agreement is just as ridiculous.
Gosh I love a good lynching, witch hunt, or just garden variety hysteria. It makes for such entertaining reading.
By all means, head over and read Blog Nauseum’s oh-so-clever-and-snarky post. Shortly thereafter, go read Solidworks end user license agreement:
http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/2011/10/14/cloud-concerns-terms-and-conditions/
Since you’re profoundly convinced no engineering manager with a brain would agree to Autodesk’s terms for the reasons Blog Nauseum points out, maybe you can explain how an an engineering manager with brains could then turn right around and agree to Solidworks EULA. Go ahead and ask yourself seriously what the license agreement you already agreed to offers that is so much better than Autodesks. I can’t see anything myself.
Obviously we either have a shortage of brains or a surplus of hysteria, because everything Blog Nauseum is worried about in one could be attributed to the other.
Both, BTW, are typical of ALL software license agreements. Lawyers are attempting to shed responsibility for everything while still taking your money. If a piece of software doesn’t work as you expect it to, if it explodes and injures the user, if Evil Space Aliens or the CIA become involved, it’s your problem. That’s true whether the software is in the Cloud, on the Ground, or exists only in your imagination.
Now here’s a tip:
Rather than waste so much energy trying to stop Dassault from going Cloud (never gonna happen), invest the same energy in telling them how to do it “right”. Figure out how the Cloud can offer value to customers. You might actually convince them to consider those things.
If you’re totally and completely convinced there is no possibility the Cloud can ever offer any value, congratulations. You have all the answers. You are very fortunate. Rock on.
Cheers,
BW