[neutronicus]

I work for a competitor in this space, and we make a living off of poaching AutoDesk customers. We're owned by a pretty deep-pocketed holding company as well, so I don't think we're going to get bought.

IMO it's not just about "values of architects". They're a population that does cognitively demanding work (so polished UX is of fundamental importance) that tends to have more of a fine arts background than a software background (so right-to-modify does nothing for them).

FOSS is just ... a bad deal for them. They want someone they can call and yell at when they're on a deadline and the software isn't working, and they want tools that get out of their way.

[tomxor]

I get where you are coming from, but when I say FOSS i do not necessarily mean a "FOSS project"...

I can imagine when it's very niche with a small user base, you probably do need closed source + for profit company developing it with a high per-license fee to produce anything of useful quality. What I am suggesting is _both_. The FOSS part is purely licensing, as an insurance policy for the users, and to make acquisitions repugnant to the likes of Autodesk (since all that would achieve is funding the software that competes with theirs)... I know that is far from easy to achieve and there is no straight forward business model for that - like I said, i'm probably being too idealistic.

[edit]

I wonder if such a legal mechanism exists which automatically triggers FOSS licensing upon acquisition or bankruptcy (i.e what happened to blender, but as a requirement)... that would prevent takeovers that do not benefit users as a kind of legally binding promise while also sidestepping the issue of being profitable while developing niche FOSS software.

If legally feasible this is a nice promise any currently existing software company can add to their products without changing their business model.

In fact thinking about this, as someone who pretty much never buys software anymore, not because I am unwilling to spend money, but because the experience of having the rug pulled from under me too many times frankly makes closed source unpalatable to me - this would make buying (currently) non-free closed source software a lot more comfortable again.

It also feels like a good strategy to combat anti-competitive monopolies like autodesk from destroying choice in software.

[boudewijnrempt]

"I wonder if such a legal mechanism exists which automatically triggers FOSS licensing upon acquisition or bankruptcy"

The KDE-FreeQt foundation is such a mechanism: https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php

[nitrogen]

Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow

[dreamcompiler]

> I wonder if such a legal mechanism exists which automatically triggers FOSS licensing upon acquisition

I can't imagine a VC funding a company with a poison-pill clause like this. Such a clause would discourage acquisition, and don't most VCs (if not most founders) hope for acquisition as a very desirable exit strategy?