alt Hacker NewsFreeCAD is the first program I ever used where I actually drafted hate mail to the devs (but the oss nature gave me restraint in actually pressing send)
I spent 2 days crash coursing freeCAD (this is with a general understanding of the theory of 3D design already) to try and make an adapter plate for my car. A plate with 6 holes in precise spots and tapped. It was absolutely brutal and after the first 3D print trial had the a couple holes misaligned, I trashed freecad got the free fusion360.
No shit, in 20 minutes I had made the exact part I needed. The program actually worked the way you would expect. I didn't even need a tutorial it was so intuitive. Even if I hadn't spent the previous 2 days getting bent by freecad, I'm pretty sure it would have taken me only an hour max with a blank slate mind in fusion.
Now I'm getting angry writing this. If the FreeCAD guys see this, thanks for the hard work, but understand your minds must work completely differently than even the average engineers.
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I get frustrated when people recommend FreeCAD as an alternative to SolidWorks, Fusion etc. The comparisons often miss the point of it being substantially worse. We understand this, but someone new (Maybe you or I prior to learning CAD) do not; it feels dishonest, and disrespectful of peoples' time.
I am not trained to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to explore 3D printing. The usual suspects (FOSS missionaries with a deep-rooted hotly burning hate for capitalism) gave me OpenSCAD, which was okay to dick around with but QUICKLY showed its clunkiness ("compiling"... what a joke). So then I gave FreeCAD a look, because everyone said it's just like the commerical programs. It was not. Documentation and tutorials were a mess. The program itself was a mess. UX that makes you want to strangle someone.
So then I looked for free student versions of commercial software. They had a clear UI and UX, clear tutorials. It was a joy to model the parts I needed.
If I needed 3D modeling for engineering in the future, I would absolutely pay for a commercial program. FreeCAD was simply no competition. I don't know if it is now. Nor do I have any motivation whatsoever to even bother to give it another look.
If I need a license for hobbyist purposes, I'm sure some of the commercial offerings are happy to give me one for free because that would translate into commerce for them if I ever needed it professionally.