Though I use LayOut most of the day, and admittedly pretty much every day, today I opened SketchUp, used irregularly, but in this instance to work on updates to a building system (File > Factory > Site), a key part of this process is the generation of reports from DCs!
My anger! Just before Trimble launched their subscription model, I was marketed to, suggesting that version 2021 was the last opportunity to secure a freehold version of SketchUp Pro before I’d be subjected to an ongoing subscription! And today, upon attempting to generate a report, I was notified this function would cease operating at X date, while stating “as a security issue”! Surely security issues are the responsibility of Trimble (as is Windows) and can be delivered as a “patch” to those who had no knowledge upon purchase just two years ago. They should or must be made aware! I was certainly not made aware of any likely downgrade of my “freehold” license before purchase!
At present, given that SU / LO do exactly what I need and that I have limited use beyond that functionality, being notified that one of the functions I do require will soon be no longer available seriously gets my back up!
This has absolutely nothing to do with the dollar (at least in a rough sense, there is no added functionality causing reason to upgrade); this is about honouring what the marketing suggested: a freehold license, and I’d assume, a license without any “reduced” functionality at a later date!
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You won’t be able to access the 3D warehouse and extension warehouse from sketchup as well, basically all the functions that require internet connection will stop working, but it has been like this for a while, Trimble gives support just to the current version and the two previous, so when sketchup 2024 is released the las version with support for those features will be sketchup 2022.
You can still download models and extensions from the 3D warehouse and extension warehouse websites, for generating reports there’s no work around other than use an extension, depending on what kind of things you model, you could use OpenCutList for woodworking or Quantifier Pro for construction, I use that one and it’s very good, you can add all the attributes you would add creating a dynamic component and in my opinion it’s faster and easier to set up than a dynamic component.
OpenCutList is free, Quantifier pro isn’t free but it’s still a perpetual license and the price is really low compared to the benefits and time saving.
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Thanks mate, I do need to generate reports, as we gather all this data and populate a label that informs the factory of elements to be modified and it’s location on site! BTW I’ve looked at both your suggestions, both are great options, though neither suits our requirements!
Essentially, my gripe is around the falseness of advertising!
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I do understand Tremble’s business model, but if “last chance to buy a freehold version” is a marketing ploy at the time, I’d imagine it is right to stick with this claim! Again, this for me is not about price or costs, I will certainly subscribe, but only because I need to, it’s about staying true to your stated / sold product!
Although I have downloaded from the warehouse, I did just out of curiosity, and I seriously use near to no plugins. And BTW I do believe myself as a SU/LO power user (since V3 and beta tester for around 10 years) and I use both in a far different way to the 99.9 percentile (example LayOut work below).
I understand, we all should thank Adobe for starting this trend of subscription business model. On the license agreement it says: If you do not have an active support and maintenance subscription, some features of the Software may not be available (e.g., add location, mapping, Integrated Services, etc.). The support time is given to the current and two previous versions of the software, it has been this way for some years now, even before 2021. there are people using old versions like the 2015 or older, they dont need all the features of supported versions, I guess that when Trimble said that 2021 was going to be the last one sold also with perpetual license, was meant to those users with old versions that don’t want to be attached to a subscription license. Im not defending Trimble it’s just the way the world works now days, there are very few softwares that still offer permanent licenses and they all don’t give support to perpetual license holders.
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