Comment by malfist
1 day ago
One word of warning about onshape. If you're not paying their subscription prices (i.e. using the free personal license) the retain all rights to anything you make on their platform.
Me personally I don't care, I'm not making anything I'm going to sell, but you should be aware if you are
I don't think that's quite accurate. If you're using the free license, then everything you create is a public document. Allowing anyone in the world access to that document. Per the EULA[0]:
> 7.2.2 For any Public Document owned by a Free Plan User created on or after August 7, 2018, or any Public Document created prior to that date without a LICENSE tab, Customer grants a worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to any End User or third party accessing the Public Document to use the intellectual property contained in Customer’s Public Document without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Document, and to permit persons to whom the Document is made available to do the same.
[0]: https://www.onshape.com/en/legal/terms-of-use
Perhaps more importantly, the Free License doesn't allow for any commercial use. If you are designing something for commercial use, then you can, should, and are obligated to, upgrade to a paid license.
It's been good for making 3D printing doodads I need for around the house. Happy to let others use my 1-off flange shim thingy. But aside from that this is a very good warning to be aware of.
This is why I signed up for the pro trial (6 months is generous) to learn cad and draw up some internal use equipment design for my company. The terms of the pro trial make your designs read-only after the trial ends, but you retain ownership and rights and it doesn't go public unless you explicitly switch to a hobbyist license.
The sales rep called me and seemed miffed when I said we're not an engineering firm, and we do not need CAD for our line of business. Sorry buddy, but my use case is for a commercial purpose (not for sale but it is designed for and would be used by a business...) so I can't really sign up for the free hobbyist license that explicitly prohibits commercial use and fails to clarify exactly what that means.