Re: Future of e and vera
Not to worry. Just as the business/financial world still uses COBOL, an ancient computer programming language that is no longer taught in university, the ASIC/EDA-world will continue to use ABEL, Altera-HDL, e, VERA, etc.
Specman is often bundled/discounted with Incisive Enterprise Simulator (IES), but it is not a 'free' tool. It's a Cadence product and requires a Cadence specman license item. Systemverilog isn't completely free, either.
Mentor's baseline Modelsim/SE is limited to design constructs. Mentor requires an additional 'Questasim' for testbench/assertion/coverage features. Cadence is similar (IUS vs IES.) Synopsys is the only vendor which tosses in Systemverilog 'for free'.