Mr. Malinowski has it right. Do the word "hostage" mean anything to ya? When any company effectively corners the market, they need not be overly concerned about the sensitivity among users to draconian policies surrounding licensing. No one is left standing to effectively challenge them. I think I recall that engineers were the first to adopt AutoCad, and most archies followed suit to be able to communicate data from the same platform. Who could have forcast the absolute dependency we now have on CAD, and that most of the profession has on one producer, despite the fact that there are better programs out there that were a bit late to the tit. I think the idea that the profession might work together to produce its own software is a great one. Good luck with it. I think the AIA may have, as so many institutions do, begun to live for itself more than its professional members.
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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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