Product EOL will also not cause any development brickwall.
Suppose your CAD company is bought by an invenstor that mismanage the company.
Your access to your own designs will be at the mercy of that management.
My software does everything I ask of it.
Your software does whatever your vendor sees fit.
My vendor says if I think of an idea for an improvement then he would
add it and send me a new copy free !
If they decide not to implement you'r stuck with that decision.
Market research for free to the company.
What broken files ?
My software has never had any broken files coz its not full of bugs !
Your discs, operating system, user handling, application bugs, any can
trigger a trashed file.
Infact in the rec.photo.digital I read a posting about a ms-xp user that
downloaded photos from an usb memory that got his files trashed. All pointing
to the driver. Despite being so standard these days.
Most software contains bugs, most are not disclosed. Just google on 'full
disclosure' to see the corporate management of bugs (deny deny).
Its all very commendable having open source but something done for
nothing is rarely as good as something bought.
There was a reason as to why free software was created in the first place.
Many reasons boils down to how the economy is organised. People without
proper technical knowhow takes decisions on technical details. Or are so
inconsiderate to the whole picture that it's a cause for failure by itself.
Haveing a monetary drive behind a project is only as good as the structure
organising it.
