Open Design initiatives: an evaluation of CAD Open Source Software

Abstract

Many of the developments started by social initiatives (bottom-up), others are induced by policies (top-down) or even by both (social and political). Open Design is mainly characterized as a movement generated by and for the community but could also be nourished by private/associative initiatives with the community support, and could be encourage by public entities that perceives Open Design as a flourish method for innovation and leading for a real democratization of the manufacturing. In this paper, three CAD software based on Open Design (rattleCAD, BRL CAD and FreeCAD) are evaluated, according to the number of downloads made in SourceFourge, in order to better understand the usage behavior of these CAD systems. The main findings suggest instability in the short range and stability in the medium and long range, indicating that the communities are active and providing attractive solutions.