High level multiphysics, RF, and CAD tools and simulators. Autodesk, Ansys etc. still dominate the field. The state of tools like OpenFoam is like the early days of Gimp and KiCad; theoretically possible to use but only if your background is in software engineering and/or if you are really, really poor and desperate e.g. a grad student on a tight budget. If you look at software like open source FTDT sims, almost all requires specifying layouts, project settings, and designs in ridiculously long config files that would put JS build tools to shame. If you are lucky, you might be able to design your model using a proper GUI e.g. Gmsh. If you are not, be prepared to start drawing out your model with a text editor, point by point. Imagine creating SVGs by hand, that's how ludicrous it is. Most of the "open source" stuff are grad projects, more of an exercise in show and tell than anything serious. Sure it is perfectly possible to specific the cross section of an airplane wing by hand. By the time you are done with that your colleagues using proper GUI tools have already ran their simulation and published three papers.
For those who are interested, one promising project is SU2:
One of the goals of the FreeCAD project [1] is to be a high-level interface for tools like OpenFOAM (via the CfdOF workbench [2]), and other solvers/meshers like CalculiX, Elmer, Gmsh, and Netgen.
Its modular, workbench-based, Python-around-C++ core approach provides an environment for people to make their own specialized tools, like the Arch Rebar tool [3] that was created as part of a Google Summer of Code project. [4] like airfoil design as you mentioned. There was a recent forum thread started by people interested in doing exactly that. [5]
I recently spent time at work trying to get OpenFOAM to do, well, anything using FreeCAD. I couldn't get it to install properly on linux or windows.
On windows, you're supposed to use some part of their autoinstaller through the freecad UI, which apparently didn't set some environment variable somewhere. On linux, I had package incompatibilities (using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS).
Hah, very true. I have been working directly with OpenFOAM upstream to improve the packaging situation on Debian/Ubuntu but unfortunately I didn't get started in time for the 18.04 release. It's a bit tricky too in that many FreeCAD developers use Linux but I would bet most of our potential engineering end-users would be on Windows. Thanks for your feedback.
What are some ways that FreeCAD can solve the problem of paying the rent of people who walk around holding their users' business problems and UI frustrations in their head?
100% this. When I startup-ed, I looked hard for a free alternative for RF simulation. There's some FDTD solvers, but as mentioned, they require you to spec the mesh, which is laborious and black magic which Ansys HFSS simply does for you.
Only saving grace is that these companies usually have some "start-up" discount (~95% discount), which of course I anticipate feeds the lack of open source development.
For those who are interested, one promising project is SU2:
https://su2code.github.io/