FreeCAD 1.0 Release Candidate Is Here — Over 20 Years After the Project's First Release

The FreeCAD computer aided design project has reached a major milestone: the availability of the first release candidate (RC) for FreeCAD 1.0, with only seven blockers to go.

"So far, we’ve enjoyed the contributions of users who are happy to be living on the edge with our weekly builds and reporting whatever bugs they run into. That really helped us make the proverbial edge less edgy," explains FreeCAD's Aleksandr Prokudin of the project's release candidate availability. "The intention behind making release candidates is to give them into the hands of a different demographic — users who usually stay away from unstable software yet are happy enough to try very nearly complete software and report issues they come across."

First released in 2022 by developers Jürgen Riegel, Werner Mayer, and Yorik van Havr, FreeCAD is designed to offer an open-source alternative to proprietary computer aided design tools. Early versions of the software were functional, though basic — but in the years since it has become one of the most popular CAD packages for both hobbyists and professionals.

While it may seem strange to still be on a nought-point-something release after over two decades, it's only now that the software is being considered feature-complete — though that doesn't mean development will stop or even slow, with more features planned for future releases. As a release candidate, however, there are still bugs: "We are currently down to just 7 release blockers," Prokudin says, "but we expect that the release candidates will bump that number up a tad, and that’s a good thing. While we desperately want 1.0 out, delivering a really stable release is a big deal for us."

The release candidate is available to download for a range of platforms in a GitHub repository; the project source code is available in a separate repository, under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 2.