I see some very good efforts in many things:
- Some recent improvements in TechDraw seems to be very "welcomed" (sorry by english is not my mother language) by technical users
- I see that OCCT has some flaws, but it one of the most powerful engine around, and some efforts are done to improve his behaviour. But if you see some discussions on OCCT other than FreeCAD forum, you will see that OCCT is not alon ein failing on some operations, maybe because they are complex or need some heavy computations and maybe some desired result are "not easily achievable" without doing some cheating, in FreeCAD and OCCT that are open source this is more clear, in other engines you will have to "trust" on the internal calculations
- Assembly is a nightmare, but I think that the point is "the paradigm" of "how an assembly" will be done, as someone as already told, the tripartion of Assembly were (are?) done to fulfill different scopes, so maybe the efforts to unify three different "incarnations" has to be done after a deep discussion on "what assembly is made for".
So to make thing shorts, one of the main concerns about FreeCAD "future" is "there will be a sort of guidance" maybe a "foundation" and a place were some discussion will be done about a "roadmap" and "development plans" and where some decision were taken and "developed" or the development will remain "pro bono" made by volunteers without an "overall view".
I have not found clearly a place where "main developers" are listed and a there is a clear "attribution" of tasks, maybe because I haven't searched well, so the general impression is that there is no a "clear path", and many users share this opinion.
But maybe the real question is:
FreeCAD is an usable state?
In this sense my answer is clearly "YES"
FreeCAD would be usable in production environment?
Maybe, for a small shop that design things, i could say "yes", there are some examples around of "things made using FreeCAD" that prove the answers.
Different thing is about "interoperability" with other software, but even with "some major CAD programs" there are incompatibilies between formats even if they are made by the same "company" that is "leader in the market".
FreeCAD is usable in teaching?
I think "Yes" as many things are doable and the basis are all here.
How OCCT is a good engine?
I think yes see as example
https://dev.opencascade.org/doc/occt-7. ... algos.html
To see how powerful is the engine.
About curved surfaced, i have a problem and I have researched around, as many "universities papers" are focusing on this argument, the thing is not so plain and easy as a first glance it may seem, and many "modeling engines" are failing to calculate or obtain smooth surfaces, as the "base research" about new algorithms and "new ways" of doing thing is revealing that this "is not an easy task".
There are some quirks on curves as it seems that the "matter" is splitted in many WB, but maybe simply making a WB that expose simply a toolbar with buttons that invoke operations from different workbenches will suffice to make "a unified view" of the matter.
Sorry for "jumping in" maybe in an inappropriate way or Off Topic.
Regards
Carlo D.