"first class open source kernel"
Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel.
3D kernel is not the "moat".
You can cross that with money.
You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing.
The more interesting question is: Ok hotshot, you have a 3D kernel, 10M of investor money (or equivalent resources).
What's your next move? What industry are you going to conquer? What are the problems you are going to solve better than the current tools do?
What's the value you provide to the users except price?
What are you going to do better than the incumbent softwares in relevant specific design industries?
Which industry is your go-to-market?
Etc etc.
The programmer's view is "I will build a CAD". The industrial user on the other hand does _NOT_ want a "general CAD software".
They want a tool with a specific, trainable workflow for their specific industrial use case.
So "if you build it and they will come" will require speaking to a specific engineering/designer audience.
You can of course build a generic tool (it's all watertight manifolds in the end) but the success in the market depends on the usual story about market forces. What's your go to market/beached. Does it enable you to move to other markets?
And the answer usually is - NO. You need to build the market share in _each_ domain separately.
Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel.
3D kernel is not the "moat".
You can cross that with money.
You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing.
The more interesting question is: Ok hotshot, you have a 3D kernel, 10M of investor money (or equivalent resources).
What's your next move? What industry are you going to conquer? What are the problems you are going to solve better than the current tools do?
What's the value you provide to the users except price?
What are you going to do better than the incumbent softwares in relevant specific design industries?
Which industry is your go-to-market?
Etc etc.
The programmer's view is "I will build a CAD". The industrial user on the other hand does _NOT_ want a "general CAD software".
They want a tool with a specific, trainable workflow for their specific industrial use case.
So "if you build it and they will come" will require speaking to a specific engineering/designer audience.
You can of course build a generic tool (it's all watertight manifolds in the end) but the success in the market depends on the usual story about market forces. What's your go to market/beached. Does it enable you to move to other markets? And the answer usually is - NO. You need to build the market share in _each_ domain separately.