I just downloaded XtrkCAD, but I’m Hesitating on installing it. I can understand why Atlas RightTrack is free, because it sells Atlas track. Why is XtrkCAD free and What do they get out of this? Nothing is really free. I downloaded a free calendar once, only to find out it was spyware. Another time I tried out a trial Registry Cleaner that infected my computer with a real bad malware that I could NOT get rid of except by removing my hard drive. Needless to say, I’m afraid to down load anything that’s ‘free’.
There is actually an entire movement that software should be free. Wikipedia does a good job describing the situation: Free software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Outside that are many variants. For instance Linux is available for free, or you can buy it to get service and support. My own company does software development, we ask companies to pay for the features they want, and when done the software is made available for all to use for free. There are many motivations as to why people make free software. Some are idealistic people who are trying to change the world, some companies like mine subscribe to alternative business models. Some use it as a "try before you buy". Some still use a "shareware" style model, where the free software has fewer features than the pay, so try before you buy. Some of the best software out there is free software. The web browser Firefox is free, as is Linux. JMRI in the railroad world is free. Most groups accept donations, or have some sort of way for you to provide some compensation if you really like it. It is unfortunate your only experience with "free" software has been malware. I am confident XTrkCad is not one of those programs though, use it with confidence.
Plenty of folks here will vouch that it's safe to download XtrkCad. Think of XtrkCad as part of the hobby. It's been developed by programmers who are interested in model railroading. The various folks who have developed XtrkCad, by working together, get a better, more complete layout design program than if they each had to work alone. I believe the original developer of XtrkCad decided not to pursue turning it into a commercial product, and instead allowed it to become open source for the benefit of other modelers. Can't be certain I'm remembering correctly, though.
I just did a search on XtrkCAD and there are a lot of people using it. Ok. I’m going to do it. I’m going to install it.
Yes that is correct. There is a group of volunteer developers working on the open source version. Cheers David
I used XtrkCAD to plan my layout. Its a very good piece of software to use and imo superior to the Atlas track planner.
While XtrkCAD is quite good, I had the similar first step of 'hmm, what have they done here' Since I work for one of the leading open-source companies in the world, I already knew what open-source meant, but I still had to wonder 'what is this thing actually going to do when it installs on my machine?' Not saying any of you should do this by any means, but with the beauty of open source I can actually download the entire source code of this project, and look at it. I didn't do this, becuase its kinda huge, however the point is still there. I also want to plead that anybody noticing anything not quite right with the software, go to the developers page and submit a bug report, if you cant find the right thing to click on, just go to 'contact' and they will help route it. If you have a feature, or idea you'd like to see incorporated, submit that too! This will put you in direct touch with the people actually writing the software, and you can actually make a difference. If you've got any additional questions about open source, how it works, or any other information, please feel free to post it onto train board into the appropriate forum and i'll be happy to take a peek with the other guys :-D If you're wondering what other titles are open source that you may have heard of, well, firefox, thunderbird, and i'm not entirely sure what type of server its actually on, I know that the language, php, that its written in is nice and open, too. -Rob (the wearer of a Red Hat... so to speak...)
This is partially correct. Xtrkcad started life as a commercial product. It was available commercially for at least 10 years, first on Linux and later on Windows. In 2005, the original developer, Sillub Technology, decided to give the product away. When this happened, they released a key to unlock the downloadable version on their website and the source code. This source code was adopted by the open source XtrkCad project, which is the group currently supporting the software. As an open source project, the product is maintained and supported by volunteer programmers, just like any other open source product (others you might be familiar with: Linux,JMRI,GIMP). Paul
I’ve only been playing around with it for a few days on Vista and I haven’t had any problems. I still have a lot to learn, but so far I’m impressed. I have used the Atlas RTS for about 3 or 4 years with XP and I felt I was pretty advanced, but I still had a lot of problems of things freezing up. There are things I like about both programs, but XtrkCAD really looks promising. :tb-biggrin:
I'd be interested in hearing more of your experience as you continue to check it out on Vista. I'm no Bill Gates with the computer but would like to give this software a try.
I use it on Vista and have not had any problems (that I can remember) with it freezing or quitting. It behaves as it's supposed to.
I have no formal affiliation with the project, though I do compile the program from source, and I am on the developers mailing list. I've been using the program for at least 10 years. I spend most of my free software development time working on JMRI, so that doesn't leave much time to work on other free software projects. Paul
XtrakCad is free ( as in free beer and in free speech ) because altruistic programmers is not an endangered specie. Right now I'm running the Linux ( Ubuntu distribution ) free operating system, replying to that post with the Mozilla Firefox free web browser. Installing XtrakCad on the Ubuntu distro was just 1 mouse click away. Jacques
How did you install it with just one mouse click? I am on 8.04 and I can't install it with just one simple mouse click Cheers Adam
Adam, use the Synaptic package manager. 1) System->Administration->Synaptic Package manager First , be sure to have restricted and multiverse repositories enabled with Settings->repositories You might have to click on the "reload" icon after that. 2) click on the "Search" icon and enter xtrkcad 3) select xtrkcad and click "Apply" OK I'm a liar, it's not 1 mouseclick away, it's 2 mouseclicks away. I have Ubuntu 8.04 too. I don't want to hijack the thread. If you have any problem, please send me a private e-mail. Jacques
I tried downloading xtc402.exe with firefox... (Im using microsoft xp) It downloads the file but when I go to install it says that there is an error opening the file. What should I be doing differently to make it work?? Thanx
