I don't think that most software engineers understand how they good they have it with access to open source software. The most apt comparison I can think of to EDA is a mathematical computing environment (MATLAB, Mathematica, Maple, etc.) but an order of magnitude more constrained.
Everything in EDA is licensed. Simulators, emulators, synthesis, IDEs, formal verification, coverage, waveform viewers, and most post-silicon tools. You work with Intel/ARM? Any tools they make are licensed, too. You can't make CI/CD pipelines when you only have 3 $1000 compiler licenses for your whole company. Your JetBrains suite that costs $300/year for dozens of IDEs? It's not uncommon for HDL IDE licenses to be >$1000 for a single user.
Contrast that to most traditional software development, where the cost is solely in how much compute you're using.
I know that open-source EDA doesn't necessarily mean FOSS EDA, but that "free" part really is what's needed here.
Everything in EDA is licensed. Simulators, emulators, synthesis, IDEs, formal verification, coverage, waveform viewers, and most post-silicon tools. You work with Intel/ARM? Any tools they make are licensed, too. You can't make CI/CD pipelines when you only have 3 $1000 compiler licenses for your whole company. Your JetBrains suite that costs $300/year for dozens of IDEs? It's not uncommon for HDL IDE licenses to be >$1000 for a single user.
Contrast that to most traditional software development, where the cost is solely in how much compute you're using.
I know that open-source EDA doesn't necessarily mean FOSS EDA, but that "free" part really is what's needed here.