Business – Page 4 – Outside The Box

AutoCAD for Mac

There have been rumblings and rumors for a while now about a native Mac OS X port of AutoCAD. The ObjectARX 2011 SDK header files contain clear evidence of a native Mac port in the works. The evidence comes in the form of code comments and changes made to the files so that they work with the GCC compiler and the Mac OS X libraries.

For example, acedads.h conditionally declares a global function to return the main window handle as follows:

#if defined(_WINDEF_) || defined(_ADESK_MAC_)
/* AutoCAD graphics window handle */
HWND adsw_acadMainWnd();
#ifndef adsw_hwndAcad
#define adsw_hwndAcad adsw_acadMainWnd()
#endif

And in acedinpt.h there’s a telling comment:

#ifndef _ADESK_MAC_
#ifndef ACAD_PORT
#ifdef ACAD_API
#define ACAD_PORT _declspec(dllexport)
#else
#define ACAD_PORT
#endif
#endif
#else
// On OS X, we will export all symbols by default and will use GCC
// attributes to exclude symbols we don’t want to export.
// In this case, we do want to export the AcEdInputPoint symbol
#define ACAD_PORT
#endif // _ADESK_MAC_

It’s clear from the type, quantity, and quality of changes that Autodesk has successfully built at least a limited AutoCAD executable for OS X (both 32 and 64 bit). It’s also clear that the Mac build still has limitations, and some of these limitations might require significant changes (i.e. changes of the sort that would break binary compatibility for ObjectARX applications), therefore one could reasonably conclude that no full-blown Mac port is imminent.

Follow Me

Thanks to Google’s decision to eliminate FTP publishing as of May 1, I’ve moved my blog to WordPress. I’ve tried to make the transition as seamless as possible by ensuring that the permalink URL for every post remains unchanged. Unfortunately the RSS feed reader URL has changed, so make sure you visit the blog home page and update your feed URL (this will be the last post at the old URL):
http://otb.manusoft.com
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RIP Alan Kalameja

I saw in the March 8 edition of the TenLinks Daily newsletter that Alan Kalameja passed away at age 55. Condolences to his family. Alan hired me to write test questions for an AutoCAD certification exam in the early ’90s (I don’t recall which version, but probably either R12 or R13). That was one of my first real contracting jobs. Although it wasn’t very glamorous, it made me feel important, and undoubtedly helped focus my fledgling consulting business on AutoCAD. Thanks, Alan, for giving me that opportunity.

Evil Banks

A lot of you are probably having to cut back on your expenses to make ends meet in this economic downturn. I’ve drastically reduced my discretionary spending, postponed the purchase of new office equipment, and investigated less expensive alternatives to a lot of my monthly expense items. I’ve also been streamlining and reorganizing my finances, which inevitably involves a lot of contact with banks.

Kean Walmsley’s post about his recent bank customer service issue motivated me to post about one of my recent bank experiences.

First of all, I’m here to tell you that banks do make mistakes. I’m sure that the vast majority of the time when your check book doesn’t balance, it was you that made a mistake, and not the bank. But if you are cursed like I am, then banks delight in creating phantom overdrafts and charging you exorbitant overdraft fees, then, when confronted with their error, apologizing and refunding the fees (after the damage is done and all those bounced checks have caused you to incur returned check charges from your creditors). That has happened twice to me in the past two months, with two different banks and two completely unrelated accounts.

In both cases, the bank eventually fixed the error, but I’m still out the returned check charges and whatever damage that has done to my credit rating.

One of the “returned” payments was a credit card payment. Of course, I did not get notified about this until the day after the payment due date, so it was too late to fix the problem in time to prevent another exorbitant late fee from being charged by the credit card bank.

Obviously the returned check triggered some alarms at the credit card bank, because I started receiving phone calls begging me to make a payment immediately. Irritated, I decided to make the credit card bank wait until the next due date before making the replacement payment. I figured my late fee bought me that extra time, so I might as well use it. My patience paid off: after a few futile attempts at collecting their late payment, the bank offered to refund the late fee if I made an immediate payment. That’s what I’m talking about!

What’s New in the AutoCAD 2010 EULA

Everyone else is discussing all the cool new features in AutoCAD 2010, so I decided to have a look at what’s new in the EULA (End User License Agreement). I compared the AutoCAD 2010 EULA for US/Canada to the AutoCAD 2009 EULA. I won’t divulge the process I used to automate the comparison, because the odds are pretty good that I violated the EULA somewhere along the way, and I want plausible deniability.

The first change I noticed is that the AutoCAD 2010 EULA contains more shouting. The 2009 EULA started out in a fairly mellow mixed case with a few shouts thrown in for effect, but the 2010 EULA dispenses with the lower case and launches right into a multi-paragraph avalanche of screaming block letters. Apparently nobody was listening, so they turned up the volume.

Substantively, there are a number of very interesting changes. The following was added to the preamble:

SOFTWARE OBTAINED FROM THIRD PARTIES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED OR ALLOWED BY AUTODESK, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, TO SUPPLY SOFTWARE IS LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN MADE AVAILABLE IN VIOLATION OF AUTODESK’S RIGHTS. IN SUCH AN EVENT, AUTODESK IS NOT OBLIGATED TO ISSUE AN ACTIVATION CODE OR OTHERWISE PERMIT YOU TO INSTALL OR USE THE SOFTWARE.

Next time you’re eyeing that used copy of AutoCAD 2010 on eBay, be warned that Autodesk is not obligated to permit you to install or use the software. They don’t come right out and say that they won’t allow it, so maybe they won’t mind — but then what’s the point of including this clause? Tim Vernor won’t be very happy about this change.

Moving along, I see that they added a definition for “Uninstall”, defining it as “to destroy or remove”. The definition of “User Documentation” was very slightly changed from “…after You acquire or Install the Software…” to “…when or after You acquire or Install the Software…”. Incidentally, did you know that Autodesk considers an AutoCAD reseller’s invoice to be “user documentation”?

Rounding out changes in definitions is a change in the definition of “You”. Yes, Autodesk has redefined “You” whether “you” like it or not.

I could go on and on about small wording changes, and while it would be interesting to contemplate why each change was made (and how many scheming lawyers it took to do it), we’d risk missing the forest for the trees.

Section 2.1, “License Grant”, contains ominous new language. The following has been added:

You may Access the application programming interfaces that may be included with or in the Software or otherwise available from Autodesk for use with the Software (“API’s”) to develop programs, modules, components or functionality that (i) are compatible with and are used and/or interfaced with the Software and (ii) contribute significant value-added functionality or enhancements to the Software (“API Modules”) provided You may Install and Access such API Modules solely on Computers where a licensed copy of the Software is also installed and further provided such Installation and Access is solely in connection with Your Installation and Access of the Software and solely for Your internal business needs. You may not redistribute all or any portion of an API Module.

Read that again. That’s right, you may not write any “programs, modules, components, or functionality” unless they “contribute significant value-added functionality or enhancements” to AutoCAD. Furthermore, if you do manage to write a program that adds significant functionality, you may not redistribute all or any part of it. What are those guys smoking out there in California?

Finally at the end of section 2.1, they changed “No license is granted under the terms of this Agreement if You did not lawfully acquire the Software” to “No license is granted under the terms of this Agreement if You did not lawfully acquire the Software from Autodesk or from a third party who has been permitted or authorized by Autodesk either directly or indirectly to supply the Software”. Take that Tim Vernor!

In another nod to the Vernor case, section 2.3, “Upgrades”, adds a new requirement to “destroy all Autodesk Materials relating to the Previous Version or, upon request by Autodesk, return all such Autodesk Materials relating to the Previous Version to Autodesk or the company from which they were acquired”. This is important language that could persuade a court to view an AutoCAD purchase as a license instead of a sale, thereby giving Autodesk the power to control the secondary market.

Interestingly, section 2.4, “Crossgrades”, requires that the previous software be uninstalled within 60 days, but has no requirement that it be destroyed. However, new language in section 2.7, “Termination”, which requires the software to be destroyed “upon termination of the license grant or this Agreement”, apparently covers both cases.

A funny change in section 3.2.3, “Transfers”, appears to close a loophole. The AutoCAD 2009 EULA disallowed transfers to “any other person”; the AutoCAD 2010 EULA disallows transfers to “any other person or legal entity”. Considering a license transfer? Make sure it’s to an illegal entity!

Section 4, “ALL RIGHTS RESERVED”, was rewritten. The rewrite introduced a grammatical error (“and You have not other rights”), but otherwise I don’t see that much changed. It still ends with the now familiar directive that “The Software and User Documentation are licensed, not sold.”

Finally, the infamous “audit clause” has been revised. Not the way you may have hoped, I’m sad to report. Luckily the change was a minor one that doesn’t make the clause any more overbearing than it already was.

Isn’t change wonderful?