GNU LibreDWG is a
software library programmed in
C to manage
DWG computer files, native
proprietary format
A proprietary file format is a file format of a company, organization, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular encoding-scheme, designed by the company or organization to be secret, such that the decodi ...
of
computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
software
AutoCAD. It aims to be a
free software replacement for the
OpenDWG libraries. The project is managed by the
Free Software Foundation (FSF).
Motivation
The
proprietary format DWG is currently the most used file format in
CAD, becoming a
de facto standard, without other alternative extended, forcing many users to use this software in a dominant position on the part of the owner company
Autodesk.
There did exist the
OpenDWG library (later named "Teigha"), to access and manipulate data stored in DWG format, which is developed by
reverse engineering
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
by an association of manufacturers of CAD software with the intention of supporting their products. As OpenDWG's license does not allow the usage in
free software projects, the FSF created a free alternative to OpenDWG.
History
GNU LibreDWG is based on the LibDWG library, originally written by Rodrigo Rodrigues da Silva and Felipe Correa da Silva Sanches and licensed as GPLv2 around 2005.
In July 2010 the FSF noted the creation of an alternative to the
OpenDWG library as one of 13 "high priority projects".
GPLv3 controversies
In 2009 a
license update of LibDWG/LibreDWG to the
version 3 of the GNU GPL, made it impossible for the free software projects
LibreCAD and
FreeCAD to use LibreDWG legally.
Many projects voiced their unhappiness about the GPLv3 license selection for LibreDWG, such as
FreeCAD,
LibreCAD,
Assimp
Open Asset Import Library (Assimp) is a cross-platform 3D model import library which aims to provide a common application programming interface (API) for different 3D asset file formats. Written in C++, it offers interfaces for both C and C++. ...
, and
Blender.
Some suggested the selection of a license with a broader
license compatibility, for instance the
MIT,
BSD, or
LGPL
The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...
2.1.
A request went to the
FSF to
relicense GNU LibreDWG as GPLv2, which was rejected in 2012.
Refork
The project was stalled for a few years starting in 2011; this stall occurred for various reasons, including lack of volunteers, licensing issues and programmer motivation. In September 2013, the original project on which LibreDWG is based, LibDWG, announced that it was reactivating,
re-forking its code from LibreDWG. A GPLv2 licensed alternative is the libdxfrw project, which can read simple DWGs.
The LibreDWG project has resumed active development, including the addition of more recent .dwg and .dxf formats with version 0.5 in June of 2018. The most recent release as of November 2020, version 0.11.1 includes read support for all DWG formats r13+, write support for r2000 DWG and read/write support for all r13+ DXF versions.
References
External links
* {{Official website
Project wiki
Computer file formats
Computer-aided design