What is LibreCAD?

LibreCAD is a free Open Source CAD application for Windows, Apple and Linux. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers. You, too, can also get involved!


OSX Download
Windows Download
Linux Download

Features

LibreCAD is a feature-packed and mature 2D-CAD application with some really great advantages:
  • It's free – no worry about license costs or annual fees.
  • No language barriers – it's available in a large number of languages, with more being added continually.
  • GPLv2 public license – you can use it, customize it, hack it and copy it with free user support and developer support from our active worldwide community and our experienced developer team.
  • LibreCAD is an Open Source community-driven project: development is open to new talent and new ideas, and our software is tested and used daily by a large and devoted user community; you, too, can get involved and influence its future development.

Help

Although LibreCAD does have its own built-in help system where you can read about the program and learn how it works, it's always nice to talk to other LibreCAD users, to exchange ideas or share improvements on the project. Developers will be pleased to hear we use github as our main source repository.


Report bugs or feature requests
Please use our tracker on sourceforge for bugs and feature requests: Support requests can also be added from the project page at github as new features are always implemented in the development branch, please test the master branch at github first. The current release branch, 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT, has been under feature freeze.
Wiki
Project wiki pages are available at: Please feel free to help users by writing wiki articles on LibreCAD.
IRC channels: Come chat with us live on IRC at freenode.net. The #librecad channel is for both developer and user channel. So whether you are a coder or user, come and join us. ps: It might be a bit quiet right now as we are just starting the community. Just be patient keep hanging out. It will grow!
Mailing Lists
For the mailing lists we use Nabble for both the forum and mailinglist. The nice thing about Nabble is that users who like forums better, can use the web-interface to post and read messages. But for people who like mailing lists, they can use their own mail-clients to post and read messages. You do need to subscribe before you can use the mailing lists or forum.
We have currently two mailinglists in place:
  • LibreCAD-user: Use this mailinglist if you have questions about using the program LibreCAD.
  • LibreCAD-dev: Use this mailinglist if you want to participate in the development of LibreCAD, or have ideas you want to discuss and implementation.

Get Invovled

The LibreCAD team is a small group of dedicated people. Lots of things have been worked out, but plenty of bugs and features are still waiting to be solved. How can you help? We need people that are coders, testers, translators. We currently don't have everything in place, so it will always help if you have existing resources we can use, know what other projects do in specific areas, or, most important, do what you do best and have fun doing it!

Come join our community, and contribute in any way you like:

  • Developer: If you are a developer, outstanding in c++, or a beginner we can use all the help. With a bit of determination, the IRC channel and the Libre-CAD-dev mailinglist, we can help you started and get going. The code is available at github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD, and you can use the Qt Creator IDE to work on the project. Qt Creator is available from Digia here: http://qt-project.org/downloads.
  • Make Documentation: Developers are usually bad in making documentation, so if you like making documentation, great! We are changing the icons within LibreCAD so it would be great if there is somebody that can help putting the new icons in the documentation. We also have been adding some small features that are not added yet.
  • Localisation: help localize LibreCAD, we currently try to support over 15 languages, but the language files are getting a bit out-dated. We have made a translation server overhere : http://translate.librecad.org/. You can complete new languages, or request creating translations for a new language.

Why do we need this help?

Because we cannot do this alone! We don't have any large company behind us, and this is all evening and weekend work. Here are a couple of other reasons:

  1. It's fun to do and rewarding, may not in a money sense but it's fun to be part of a team.
  2. You can make new friends.
  3. You can learn new skills! Remember, even if you are a junior level developer, it's still good to see and learn how others solve real life problems.
  4. Working with a team of developers is attractive and good for your skills, Then it looks good when appears on your CV.

Sponsors and friends

Sponsor
JetBrains have generously supplied us with CLion licenses for the development of LibreCAD. Information about their powerful IDE can be found on their website
Friend