[safwan]

CAD software like AutoCad does not have any good Open Source alternative. As it is mostly used by Civil Engineers, I think when the Civil Engineers will motivated by the Open Source manifesto, they will approach making soemthing good alternative of CAD software!

[burfog]

CAD is far from just something for civil engineers.

It's used by mechanical engineers. It's what you use to design an engine. Good CAD software hooks up to the inventory system so that parts can be ordered automatically.

It's used by electrical engineers. Special CAD packages exist for integrated circuit design, magnetics, and antennas. For example a motor might contain coils of wire, permanent magnets, air, and various components through which magnetic field lines are directed. Eddy currents must be analysed.

It's used by chemical engineers. Pipes and tanks and pumps get laid out. Stuff like water hammer must be accounted for, except maybe the fluid is poisonous and explosive. Expansion joints for thermal stress and pressure changes might be important. Stress on welds must be calculated.

[gitgud]

The crazy part is how expensive CAD software is. AutoCAD can be thousands of dollars a year and was created [1] 37 years ago!

The age of the product would surely reveal the difficulty of creating a competing product...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoCAD