Hi everybody,

this time I have a surprising message for you. Maybe some of you know, I still work part time for Bentley doing Vue and PlantFactory support (mainly reactivations and legacy license compatibility keys).

Now Bentley has made one step further and has this message for you:

Subject: Exciting Opportunity for the VUE & PlantFactory Community!

Hello everyone,

A few years ago, Bentley Systems made VUE and PlantFactory freely available to our user community. Today, we’re exploring an even bigger step: making the source code of these products available under a free software license, sponsored by the Academy Software Foundation.

Before we move forward, we want to hear from you—the creators who have kept these tools alive and thriving.

• Would you support this initiative?
• Would you or your organization be interested in contributing to maintain and evolve these tools as part of an open-source project?

Your feedback is critical. This decision will shape the future of VUE and PlantFactory, and we want to ensure it reflects the needs and enthusiasm of this community.

Please share your thoughts in the comments or send us a message. If you’re interested in actively participating, let us know! We’d love to identify individuals and organizations ready to help lead this exciting new chapter.

We need your input soon—your voices will guide whether we take this step forward. Let’s make something amazing together!

Thank you for being part of this journey,

The Bentley Systems Team

Please reply to this message, send me a message here or send me an email. I think most of you remember the email address, you can find the contact as well on the e-on software download page too.

I hope there are enough people that are interested so that this can become reality - that Vue and PlantFactory stays alive.

Sounds good to me, though I could only support it via giving it publicity. Vue's use of Python is possibly important, re: future seamless integration of "AI rendering" of scenes as an option. Which would release some of the 'it's CPU-rendering only!' pressure, for people considering trying the software.

Such calls are probably best also posted where there are developers, if you haven't already, since I doubt there are few reading this Renderosity Vue forum.

 Very good idea 👍 

Definitely, YES!

I wish more software would do this when End of Lifed.

Very much yes!

Definitely interested in hearing more about this! 

This is the best news Ive heard for a long time. Been hoping this would happen. I'm currently trying to set up and export Plant Factory plants for use with the new Megaplants tools in UE5.7. This definately would help make the process achievable.

YES!  I support this.  I would be glad to support this via donations.

Is there a particular address to contact Bentely about this?

This is the webpage for Bentley:

Download e-on Software Products for Free | Bentley Systems

Very excited for this!!