Top all-time · #2973
Ondsel
Company blog · ondsel.com/blogdesignprogramming
Ondsel is the company blog at ondsel.com, writing about design and programming. Since 2023, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times, most often “We are shutting down Ondsel”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ondsel's blog as a source on FreeCAD development, including the default assembly workbench series, the topological naming fix, and essays on bounties and the company's business model.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Put your designs to work...
Most-linked posts?
- We are shutting down Ondsel5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2024-10-31
- Don't hold your breath for FreeCAD's topological naming fix4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-02-19
- Software bounties are a dumb idea2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-07-14
- Show HN: Ondsel ES – An open-source engineering suite2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-23
What Hacker News says?
I also like SolveSpace a lot. I use it to design small things all the time. Tiny single file program, very responsive interface. It's also pretty intuitive (if you're already familiar with CAD constraints and parametric modelling concepts). There was a burst of activity 2-3 years ago so I was hopeful we'd get filets and maybe better error messages but it hasn't happened yet. Ondsel is also increasingly good. They've…
Comment linking /blog/ondsel-es-2024-2/
on “CADmium: A local-first CAD program built for the browser”Submitted We are shutting down Ondsel as a story · 317 points
HN discussionNo, it's not, not really -- because the UX work going into Ondsel is going into mainstream FreeCAD (if it didn't originate there, and a lot of recent work did). I am sure Ondsel will vary somewhat in UX over time (because they will be somewhat ahead of what they upstream) and because a few things may be unavailable for open-source licensing. But most of what has changed in terms of UX is already in 0.22-dev. For exa…
Comment linking /handbook/About/about_ondsel/
on “CADmium: A local-first CAD program built for the browser”Submitted I evaluate Github profile to hire people as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThey didn't pick a winner. They (Ondsel and others) evaluated all the workbenches, chose the best ideas and built a new workbench around a new (well, new to C++) solver. There was an Ondsel blog post about this: https://ondsel.com/blog/default-assembly-workbench-7/
Comment linking /blog/default-assembly-workbench-7/
on “The first release candidate of FreeCAD 1.0 is out”Submitted We are shutting down Ondsel as a story · 7 points
HN discussionPart of the problem GIMP has is that they chase perfect ideas at the expense of good ones. Adobe don't. The Adobe codebase is cruft that has taken a similarly long time to shake out. Lightroom was seemingly built like a skunkworks project almost like a desktop webapp (scripting around a core renderer, SQLite, simpler mode-oriented GUI) to avoid the intransigence and friction of Photoshop's codebase. But this is what…
Comment linking /blog/freecad-topological-naming/
on “GIMP 2.99.18: The last development preview before 3.0”Submitted We are shutting down Ondsel as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThere is some good work going into FreeCAD right now. They're putting more structure into the project and working on some much needed fixes that will be big QOL improvements. A fix to the topological naming problem is due in the next release, for example. https://ondsel.com/blog/ondsel-365/
Comment linking /blog/ondsel-365/
on “Ask HN: Best open source and/or free EDA tooling”Submitted We are shutting down Ondsel as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSorry. this isn't correct at all. FreeCAD development is very active and it's getting better every day. I'm using the developer versions because, there are just so many improvements happening to UI and usability. Its development process has also improved a lot since a commercial entity (ondsel.com), run by an active FreeCAD developer. started helping. Just checkout the latest release notes for 0.21, 0.22 and 1.0 if…
Comment linking /blog/
on “Dune 3D 1.1.0 Released”Submitted We are shutting down Ondsel as a story · 4 points
HN discussionFreeCAD has improved immensely over the past 2-3 years in terms of stability and features. A decade ago it was not uncommon for me to experience crashes from it randomly losing its GLX context or the constraint solver segfaulting for some reason. Now it's rare for it to crash at all for me, though I still run into a lot of constraint solver errors that are a pain to deal with. However, despite the recent improvement…
Comment linking /blog/freecad-topological-naming/
on “Ask HN: How does modern FreeCAD compare with Solidworks?”Submitted Show HN: Ondsel ES – An open-source engineering suite as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> They don't have any screenshots on their site. The website is WIP. You can find screenshots and videos in the blog. https://ondsel.com/blog/assembly-wb-prerelease/ https://ondsel.com/blog/floating-input-widgets/ https://ondsel.com/blog/ondsel-made-constraining-sketches-fa...
Comment linking /blog/ondsel-made-constraining-sketches-faster-and-easier/
on “PartCAD the first package manager for CAD models”Submitted Simulating multi-body dynamics in zero gravity with Ondsel Solver as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf anyone is curious I started a discussion forum [1] with the goal of researching possible paths to good quality open source CAD, after an off-hand tweet of mine about open source CAD got significant traction on twitter. Based on what I know so far, it seems that FreeCAD might be finally getting the investment it needs to mature as a real option. There is an organization called Ondsel which is taking on a lot of UI…
Comment linking /download/
on “PartCAD the first package manager for CAD models”Submitted Software bounties are a dumb idea as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI think the governance of the freecad project has recently changed so I'm cautiously hopeful that it will finally start seeing some project management and UX love. https://lwn.net/Articles/924953/ https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-approach-to-software-develop...
Comment linking /blog/freecad-approach-to-software-development-needs-to-change
on “Effective June 7, 2026, Autodesk will no longer sell nor support EAGLE”Submitted Don't hold your breath for FreeCAD's topological naming fix as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://ondsel.com/blog/software-bounties-are-a-dumb-idea/ Conclusion: > Bounties are a lousy foundation for sustainable development of large projects like FreeCAD. They typically represent a gross underestimation of real work required to solve a problem, commonly miss a bigger picture, and encourage worst software development practices. Growing larger is fun but also really overwhelming. Most ambitious projects tha…
Comment linking /blog/software-bounties-are-a-dumb-idea/
on “Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding”Submitted Software bounties are a dumb idea as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTheir blog post about this subject is really good https://www.ondsel.com/blog/goodbye/ They chose maybe one of the toughest imaginable combinations for a business model. Viable open source businesses are hard (since you don’t own your ip in closed form, hard to explain to investors what the actual value is). 3D businesses are hard. So it’s hard x hard. Clearly their _tech_ worked. I guess there is a lesson here - be…
Comment linking /blog/goodbye/
on “Parametric CAD in Rust”Submitted Ondsel as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNext up is the assembly 3 workbench Part 4: https://ondsel.com/blog/default-assembly-workbench-4
Comment linking /blog/default-assembly-workbench-4
on “FreeCAD is looking into a default Assembly Workbench”Submitted FOSS projects like FreeCAD suffer without product owners as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPart 3: https://ondsel.com/blog/default-assembly-workbench-3
Comment linking /blog/default-assembly-workbench-3
on “FreeCAD is looking into a default Assembly Workbench”Submitted Autodesk continues to enshittify Fusion 360 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPart 2: https://ondsel.com/blog/default-assembly-workbench-1
Comment linking /blog/default-assembly-workbench-1
on “FreeCAD is looking into a default Assembly Workbench”Submitted FreeCAD needs a first-run wizard, but nobody knows what it should do as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
