GNU LibreDWG is a

software library In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and sub ...

programmed in C to manage DWG

computer file A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and trans ...

s, 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 decod ...

of computer-aided design software

AutoCAD AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...

. It aims to be a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

replacement for the

OpenDWG Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Autodes ...

libraries. The project is managed by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("s ...

(FSF).

Motivation

The proprietary format DWG is currently the most used file format in

CAD 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 ...

, becoming a

de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally "in fact"), here meaning "in practice but ...

, without other alternative extended, forcing many users to use this software in a dominant position on the part of the owner company

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

. There did exist the

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

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

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 LibreCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) application for 2D design. It is free and open-source, and available for Linux, macOS, and Windows operating systems. Most of the interface and handle concepts are analogous to AutoCAD, making it easier ...

and

FreeCAD FreeCAD is a general-purpose parametric 3D computer-aided design (CAD) modeler and a building information modeling (BIM) software application with finite element method (FEM) support. It is intended for mechanical engineering product design b ...

to use LibreDWG legally. Many projects voiced their unhappiness about the GPLv3 license selection for LibreDWG, such as

, Assimp, and

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...

. Some suggested the selection of a license with a broader

license compatibility License compatibility is a legal framework that allows for pieces of software with different software licenses to be distributed together. The need for such a framework arises because the different licenses can contain contradictory requirement ...

, for instance the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Be ...

, or LGPL 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