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<<< Thanks for your reply Prof.Langdon. I have been in touch with a ArchiCad rep in Fav Francisco Question: She says she has a student version For 75.00 the completee system is 3500.00....how does that make any sense she says it full program but won't run in the full version and isn't as perfect as full but can do commercial work for 'hire' with it...this does not make sense to me and also AllPlan which is 4900.00 and has a 'full working' version for 250.00 I just don't understand this...I am a student with a private Institute and can have my instructor buy these or me thru him, but what good are they if I can use them commercially to start working with other designers for experience..please input and advise me on this question...I appreciate your valuable time....signed ..'confused' in Oregon >thanks, Steve >>>
Prof Langdon Responds :
Companies do have a quandry with respect to students.
They do not actually have to give ANY discount, and, indeed many CADD companies don't, however they realize that students may be future buyers and potentially could be advocates into new offices.
If they do give a discount they must protect themselves somehow, because there are indeed sleaseball people out there earning 50,000 to 150,000 per year with (and because of) their software who will pride themselves at not paying for it and going around the system by snagging a discounted student version. The european software developers in particular are sensitive to this issue, first because their USA software is already discounted to 20% of the european cost (yes, all CADD software is $9,000 to $25,000 without the computer in europe) so they are already worried we will buy it at a cheapo $5000 here and ship it off to our german cousins, and, second, because they view all the USA as a country of pirates and opportunists. Having lived here in the US myself most of my life I don't entirely disagree with their last comment - however I have found that architects in general are a lot more honest than the average person.
So. How to protect themselves. There have been numerous schemes devised, beyond just the usual fine-print admonitions and legal agreements that the software will indeed be used only by full-time registered students of design solely for educational purposes and blah de blah. Most of the schemes involve some sort of innoculous virus or limited functionality. Thus they have used worms, time bombs, trojan hourses, ID stamps, and a variety of other tricks to limit the software to prevent worldwide proliferation. They do this also to special versions that universities run - called "Educational Versions". The reason why there is always a critical difference (though they mention it only subtilely) is to prevent what happened at the University of North Carolina some 10 years ago ... (several thousand students were caught all having copies of Lotus123 with the same serial number (the universities) and they found the university liable ... the schools is STILL paying lotus every year for the settlement).
In a similar case, Autodesk has a whole division whose sole purpose is to track down offices using AutoCAD illegally. It is actually easy work, they simply read Architectural Record, etc. and when some featured firm braggs that they have, say, 53 AutoCAD stations, they just punch up the firm name on their system (and frequently find that, yes, the firm does own 5 copies). They then send a invoice demand for the extra $235,000 - which the firms ALWAYS pay (even if it forces them out of business) because the alternative is the true legal penalty which is $200,000 per instance of infraction (which in the above example would be $ 9,400,000). In a lot of cases it is even easier, as former employees usually just phone in the information anonimosly. The division prides themselves on getting at least 2 or 3 of the bigger 20 design offices a month they bust into the architectural or AIA press. The real shame, though is not economic, it is, because of the new Ethics Rules of 1985, those architects would then lose their AIA membership and, in many cases, their licence to practice architecture, forever.
So, anyway, you asked, HOW they can sell the student software at such discounts. This differs with each company.
Autodesk - hardware key, special files
The educational AutoCAD package, is about $250 and includes AutoCAD 12, 3D Studio, and several other packages, all protected by a hardware key, that must be attached to the printer port of the one machine running AutoCAD. They also have upgrades to the student version of AutoCAD 13 or 14, which are as much as $1000 more. The files you produce will print "student version" on any plots, unless they are printed on a university version of AutoCAD (i.e. they expect students to plot out primarily at their university, where they would never notice this protection.)
Graphisoft - hardware key with timer, special files
The student version of ArchiCAD is officially called a $75 six month SUBSCRIPTION. (i.e. it uses a timebomb which disables the software after 6 months - a special hardware key does this.) This is an improvement over the old (last year) student version (which was $450) which used a special file format totally incompatible with the professional version (and which printed student work student work all over anything printed).
DataCAD, Arris, IntelliCAD, ArchiTECH.PC, AllPlan - hardware key, files with embedded code numbers
The student version of DataCAD, for $135 uses a hardware key just like the professional version. The files are the same as the professional version. Only special educational dealers will sell it, and they require a photocopy of the students full time ID. All the serial numbers are recorded, so that they could easily prosecute anyone whose drawings ended up being used commercially. Arris, IntelliCAD, and ArchiTECH.PC all use similar, hardware key protected schemes.
Freely downloadable from web site :
DataCAD eval. version, ArchT, LightScape, etc. - time bombs with trojan horse worms
A number of programs you can get free on the Web or on CD, will run fully functional for some specific time.
30 days for DataCAD, 5 days for ArchT, 8 days for LightScape. After which the software is permanently disabled, where even total reinstall will not gain you "another 30 days" or whatever. i.e. a trojan horse is placed somewhere on that system's hard drive to let the software know it has already run.
Really Really Free CADD
Currently a few programs are available with fully functional CADD completely and legally for free, and they are usually downloadable just from their Web sites. The companies doing this are usually trying just to gain attention in the market, and hope that people will upgrade to their higher end programs (which they do sell) and have more functions. My advice to everyone is to download any or all of these immediatly, since policy can change faster than you can blink. The main problem with downloading them is size - at 5 to 20 meg in size it could take several hours on a conventional modem - go to a university where it just takes seconds and put it on a zip cartridge.
DaveCAD - shareware 2D only
TurboCAD - light version free 2D only
SoftCAD 3D - free (helps to promote their ArchiTECH.PC software) 3D only
DesignWorkShop Light - light version free 3D only
Intergraph Imagineer LT - part of Windows98 SDK 2D only