Not all are academic exercises and hobbyist projects still under construction. Here's examples of some up-to-date, professionally programmed ones:
VariCAD -- 3D/2D CAD system for mechanical engineering (last updated 22 March 2010).
QCAD -- 2D AutoCAD-like systems (last updated April 2010).
MEDUSA4 -- 2D/3D design for mechanical, plant, construction and automotive (last updated recently).
CYCAS -- design and visualization for architectural design (updated 20 Jan 2010).
BRL-CAD -- solid modeler and ray tracing (updated 5 May 2010).
At one time, companies like Autodesk and Bentley Systems boasted of having their CAD software running on multiple operating systems, including Unix. But in the mid-1990s, they found it was more profitable to concentrate programming on a single OS. PTC discontinued support for Linux with Pro/E Wildfire 4 just three years ago.
The recent explosion of computing device type caught CAD vendors off-guard, a collection of vendors used to thinking of their software needing big-iron hardware, impressed that CAD can run on a notebook computer.
Some, like Bricsys and Graebert, saw this coming three years ago, and began the hard work of rewriting their code to become OS-independent. Both aim to release versions for Linux and Macintosh this year.
As of today, you can download a beta of Bricscad for Linux from here (after registration).
One question RE: QCad. Where did you see that it was updated in April 2010? I just looked at RibbonSoft's website, and the downloads section still shows v2.2.2 dating from Sept. 2008 if I remember correctly.
[You could be right; I got the date from the most recent entry on the site. - Ed.]
Posted by: Norm C. | May 13, 2010 at 12:05 AM
You missed one in your list.
NX from Siemens PLM Software runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS X.
Posted by: Mattias | May 13, 2010 at 01:58 AM
Good news.
CAD on Linux is really great !!
RE:MATTIAS
Also ARCAD a very powerfull 2d/3d/visualisation architectural CAD is missing.
RE:NORM C
QCAD 3 will be release at Q3 2010 with support for dwg 2.5 to 2010 as Ribbonsoft said at QCAD forum
Posted by: SMOS | May 13, 2010 at 09:53 AM
@ SMOS
Thanks for the info. DWG support would be a first. Looks like I need to monitor that forum.
@ MATTIAS
I'd love to see NX running on Linux with my own eyes. Or a good review. I've combed the net and haven't found much info, a couple screenshots but not much else. I wonder if I'd be able to get a demo DVD if I contacted the local VAR! Even though I'd have no intention of buying it (let's say it's out of my price bracket!)
Posted by: Norm C. | May 13, 2010 at 11:09 AM