Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Wednesday 06 December 2006 17:03, Evan Lavelle wrote: > If you want to share knowledge, and you have the courage of > your convictions, then you give it away, *no* strings > attached. That's what universities are for. If I write a book > on a technical subject, then that's precisely what I do. Really Can you give us a pointer to a book you have written and given away with no strings attached? Can you give us a pointer to a large project that you did yourself at your own expense and gave away with no strings attached? That someone else attached strings, made a big profit from, and gave you none? That brought a lawsuit against you for IP theft, when they in fact took from you? Why do you complain about a "share and share alike" arrangement, when you seem to have no objection to really oppressive restrictions of proprietary software and contaminated standards? You miss a key point in comparing GPL to a patent. With GPL, you actually need to deliberately copy to infringe. Studying it, learning from it, and re-implementing is legal and done often. With a patent, it is considered to be infringing if you accidentally do something in a similar way, even with no knowledge of existence of the patent, even if the owner of the patent took from you. Can you give us an example of some work you did, perhaps thought it was nothing special, but someone several years later got a patent on essentially the same work, that today would prevent you from using your own work? Why does it matter so much to you? What do you personally have at stake? Why can't you just use it and say thanks? I do agree with you on one point, I think, that you implied but did not explicitly say: Government funded work should be placed in the public domain, which will allow derivative works of all kinds, including GPL, proprietary, and public domain. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
al davis wrote: As DJ said ... "don't talk about a license unless you've actually read it and understand it." Indeed; I agree entirely. I personally have read it, in detail, several times, and have also seen a number of (mostly pseudo-)legal commentaries on it. I believe that I understand v2 as much as it's reasonably possible to understand it, given the ambiguities in its drafting, and it's limited legal testing. Note that I didn't say that you can't make money on a GPL'ed licence; the FAQ is clear on that issue. The issue is whether you can use the code without strings attached, and you can't. In this respect, it's no better than a patent. A patent disseminates knowledge - there must be full disclosure - but there are also strings attached. In this case, the quid pro quo is that the issuing government grants a limited-time monopoly on the exploitation of that knowledge. GPL'ed software also disseminates knowledge, with full disclosure. The quid pro quo lies in the fine details of how you can use that knowledge, how you can combine it with your own knowledge, and the restrictions placed on that combined knowledge. In both cases, you can make arrangements with the licensor for commercial exploitation. If you want to share knowledge, and you have the courage of your convictions, then you give it away, *no* strings attached. That's what universities are for. If I write a book on a technical subject, then that's precisely what I do. If I answer a particularly complex question on Usenet somewhere, then that's what I'm doing. In none of these cases do I add specific riders about how precisely my knowledge may be used, nor do I prohibit its use in circumstances that I personally do not approve of; that would be absurd. That's *real* freedom. Where is the "freedom" that is so continuously talked about in the GPL documentation? Why is it necessary to define four different sorts of "freedoms"? Why is a large amount of the GPL documentation about detecting violations and reporting offenders? In what country, exactly, does all this count as "freedom"? Or is just ideology? I've never been involved in (or even seen) a rational discussion of software licensing, and I don't want to get involved in a flamefest now. I'm only replying to your and DJ's message because of the quote above which is, on the face of it, both condescending and irritating, but I'm prepared to believe that it was intended as neither. If you or anyone else gets this far and wants to reply to me, I suggest you do it offline. Evan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Wednesday 06 December 2006 05:03, Evan Lavelle wrote: > That's what it's for, as you point out. It's not a subtlety. > Where would Spice be now if it hadn't initially been BSD'ed? > We'd have got something else, of course, but i suspect we > wouldn't have heard of 'Spice'. Actually I think we would have been better off. The big ones would have been happy to pay some money to buy commercial rights. The smaller parasitic ones probably wouldn't exist. Some others that now pay nothing back would actually pay something back, supporting more research. We would likely not be using a 15 year old crappy rewrite of what was then 10 year old technology today. > The business of universities is disseminating knowledge, with > no strings attached. It's not such a big deal if someone > makes money out of it; we all have to make money. In fact, > it's essential that the process of giving away knowledge, > without strings, should create wealth, or there would be no > universities in the first place. As I said, it is intentional. There is nothing wrong with it, except that it makes it harder for the university to make money. The problem is that the BSD type license encourages private use and litigation from parasitic companies that give nothing back to the university, other than legal problems. Several high profile lawsuits in the EDA industry have their roots in this BSD license problem. > The real tragedy is that universities have been continuously > moving away from this open model, and seeking to close and > protect their knowledge, primarily through the patent system. That's true. It is tragic that false statements about GPL are so extreme that they don't realize that something like GPL is the solution to their problem. Fortunately, some universities do realize this. > This is absurd, but the opposite extreme - as exemplified by > the GPL - is equally absurd. What sort of message is this > giving out? Here's the message: We want to share with those who share with us. If you want to make a commercial derivative, contact us and we can make arrangements. When you see a license, any license, it says what you can do without any additional action. If you are a business, there is nothing stopping you from contacting the owner and negotiating a different arrangement. Legitimate businesses know this and negotiate. Illegitimate businesses whine about it. A lot of GPL software is funded this way. > Perhaps "see how smart we are, but don't touch - > this is what we do with all your taxes"? There are honourable > exceptions, of course - Antlr, for example, from Terence Parr > at the University of San Francisco - smart guy, smart > licence. > > The uncomfortable truth: the GPL is simply pointless > religious bigotry. Making money is not evil; it's a fact of > life. There, I said it. Somebody had to. The GPL says I want to share, but I don't want you to steal my work, block it, and use it for your profit without giving me any. I have nothing against making money. I do have a problem with "business" people who want to steal code to make their business, giving nothing at all back to the developers of any kind. As DJ said ... "don't talk about a license unless you've actually read it and understand it." ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
> This is absurd, but the opposite extreme - as exemplified by the GPL > - is equally absurd. What sort of message is this giving out? "You can do what you want with this source, as long as you don't stop others from doing what they want with it". Red Hat charges a lot of money for the GPL software we produce, and most of it is custom. Please, folks, don't talk about a license unless you've actually read it and understand it. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
al davis wrote: The BSD ver 1 license has an interesting subtlety that the closed source developers love to exploit. Derivative works have no strings attached. You can take the code, edit it into a new code block that does the same thing. Now you can do anything you want. .. make it proprietary ... release under GPL ... That's what it's for, as you point out. It's not a subtlety. Where would Spice be now if it hadn't initially been BSD'ed? We'd have got something else, of course, but i suspect we wouldn't have heard of 'Spice'. The business of universities is disseminating knowledge, with no strings attached. It's not such a big deal if someone makes money out of it; we all have to make money. In fact, it's essential that the process of giving away knowledge, without strings, should create wealth, or there would be no universities in the first place. The real tragedy is that universities have been continuously moving away from this open model, and seeking to close and protect their knowledge, primarily through the patent system. This is absurd, but the opposite extreme - as exemplified by the GPL - is equally absurd. What sort of message is this giving out? Perhaps "see how smart we are, but don't touch - this is what we do with all your taxes"? There are honourable exceptions, of course - Antlr, for example, from Terence Parr at the University of San Francisco - smart guy, smart licence. The uncomfortable truth: the GPL is simply pointless religious bigotry. Making money is not evil; it's a fact of life. There, I said it. Somebody had to. Evan [Ok, I know you all hate me... going to unsubscribe for a few days :) ] ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Michael Sokolov wrote: >Andy Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> a) (Most) Hardware guys want to design and implement hardware. Tools >> are the means to that end, not the end in itself, and we'd rather do >> our work than deal with tool build failures. > >I just feel like adding one different data point. > >I come into the world of hardware design from a software background. >And not just any software background, but specifically a religiously >zealous free software background, and specifically UNIX, all command >line and non-visual. It's just like if you were describing me, especially the text-oriented part, 80x25 (or 80x24 on a vt terminal) forever ;) However, I admit I need to use visual tools when the task itself is visual, which is the case for laying out a PCB. As long as I find the interface comfortable (for example I can use the keyboard for giving commands to save time on clicking and use the mouse mostly for entering coordinates), I'm happy to work with an GUI on the visual part. Fortunately both gschem and pcb provides an interface I like. Btw, about the windows users, I think it's important to make the intended audience very clear. Reading back the rich mailing of the previous days, yhis mostly happened. As I think this issue would raise from time to time, it might worth to write a short summary on a webpage or a wiki or whatever is fashionable nowdays. On the other hand, it seems there's need for a windows port while there's noone has the energy and time to do it, unless paid. Maybe it would make sense to set up a sourceforge project for a native windows port and ask for donations. For example get someone who has the skills to do the port, ask him how much it would cost and then tell: "dear windows user, we collect money to pay this developer, as soon as X amount comes together, he starts working on the port." Then if there are really so many windows users, I guess they could put together the money, if not, they should go and invest even more money in buying a commercial CAD. Finally, about a live cd. Some devs may remember that I made some minor efforts in creating a working chroot environment for gEDA a few months ago. It was promoted only on the geda-dev list. Meanwhile I had to put together a live cd for my students as they have windows at home. I've spent much time on getting the CD working well, but still it has many problems. Majority of the problems are not related to gEDA or chroot, but: - as mentioned above, I'm a text console oriented guy so I don't know much about GUIs thus I have no idea what a real GUI user needs; mount is so simple that first I didn't provide a GUI tool to make my students able to mount their USB pendrives. - I use old hardware from the pentium I era, so I have no idea what to do when my kernel fails on one of the user's computer because it's the latest 64 bit processor with n+1 cores and whatever APIC/ACPI/APM/SATA totally unknown to me :) If anyone is interested I can share the chroot which can be put on any live CD or just run from HDD (it's not small, I didn't have to optimize for size as I had a whole CD). At least if there's user feedback and enough contributors, I think there's more chance to produce an usable live CD than a windows port. Windows users also should consider trying colinux with the live cd or the chroot environment, whichever is possible. The chroot stuff and/or the live CD offers "you don't need to install, there's no dependency you need to care about" thing, which is what some users want, if I got it right. Igor2 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Hi Dan, [snip] >1) I do think it would probably make sense to create a more unified top >level build and top level distfile for gEDA. While there may be some >users who want to install gschem for schematics and only want to use it >for postscript output, most people probably want to install the entire >suite. A single > > ./configure --prefix=/opt/geda-2006xxyy > make > make install > >would be useful. If others agree I can probably create a top level >configure script and Makefile.am. I suspect this would make many of the >problems go away. > Actually I've been working on a unified and *simple* build and install scheme for the entire gEDA suite for GNU/Linux and maybe other Unix systems. I've almost got it all (gEDA/gaf (C), iverilog (C++), and gspiceui (C++) to start; rest should be easy) working where I can generate a set of binaries (contained within a .tar.gz with a trivial installer) that can be run on virtual any Linux distribution from say ~July 2001 going forward. I'll generate a demo tarball soon. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
DJ Delorie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'll probably just hire someone else to do [layout] once I'm done with the > > schematic entry phase and am confident enough in it. > > hmm... ask here first ;-) That's exactly what I was going to do when I'm done with the schematics. But I need to get all my schematics captured first, and right now a few pages are still on the loose. :-) There's a new development, though -- there is one woman in our coven who is going through a divorce, needs new career skills, and wants to learn something related to electronics. We (the coven) are thinking about training her in PCB layout. I don't know yet what if anything will come out of this plan (is she interested in PCB layout? can we hook her up with a teacher?), but if we do go down that path, I'll probably give her my open source hardware designs to practice her layout skills on. MS ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Andy Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > While it's not likely a serious PCB editing tool will be text based > (top-shelf PCB layout people have excellent visual and visualization > skills and can do a great job of using the least amount of PCB real- > estate while getting the least-congested routing), Yes, that's why I think it would be best for me to simply outsource the layout step to someone more apt at it than me. When looking for someone to hire for the layout, I would still prefer someone who would do it in GNU pcb (or some other free open source tool with an open text-based file format if there are any) rather than some proprietary tool -- even if I hire someone else to do the job, I would still like to "own" the product in the sense of being able to modify it. > "schematic" design > entry can be done, and done well, in a plain-text format. > > At my last day job (before the company was bought out and half the > staff shit-canned, but I digress), we used a text-based pinlist > design entry method. Yes, I know of course that this can be done. Foregoing the graphical schematics and writing the netlist directly in vi would indeed be much easier for me and would allow to me work on my design from anywhere and not just from the one single physical location where I have an X11 display, but there is one big disadvantage. The traditional schematic drawing is a really important piece of documentation for a circuit. I'm nowhere near a professional HW engineer, so I would certainly like to be able to show my design to other engineers for review. A circuit without schematics would probably be seen by most people the way we software hackers look at software without source code -- as useless. For these reasons I've decided to bite the bullet, go outside my comfort zone and use a graphical drawing program like gschem, and have my circuit design captured in the traditional schematic form. And it still comes as a great aid that the .sch files are text-based! I can maintain them in CVS with no sweat, and I can even edit the vector graphics by editing the file in vi -- if I want to move an object, I don't have to drag and drop it with a mouse, I can edit the coordinates in the .sch file instead. This is very useful to me, and I'm very thankful to the gEDA developers for this ability. BB, MS ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
[snip] >gschem and gnetlist -- should just work under cygwin. If not it should >be pretty easy I'd guess. In terms of a non-cygwin windows version I gEDA/gaf just works under cygwin thanks to a few dedicated individuals. >suspect it is basically not hard except for guile. There I just The mingw version works under Windows as well using the native gtk+ libraries. I even got the guile part under control after spending some time debugging various quirky behaviors. Mind you, mingw gEDA/gaf isn't trivial to build, but it's quite doable if you are willing to spend the time. [snip] >is the bulk of the work. Even if you ship a mingw bash shell, it won't >look and feel like a gui point and click tool. Yup. This is my main objection to a Windows "point and click" type installer. All of these tools are NOT Windows programs. They do not play nice on Windows. I don't want negative perceptions of the gEDA suite to be formed based by users who don't realize the history of the software. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Hi, I guess I forgot to mention that some people have very strong opinions on this very topic. [snip] >On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. >Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many >places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they are >forced to use Windows. Oh dear. I certainly did not intend to imply that ALL Windows users are jerks. Especially considering that I use Windows (ssshh!) every single work day... :) Sorry if I implied such. > >It is quite normal to end up with many "jerks" when you open your >product to a few thousands more people. Just ignore them because for >each jerk speaking to you are 1.000 good people on your side. > Indeed. However, it only takes a few jerks generating lots of noise to drive away contributors. Look at some of the sci.electronic.* groups as an extreme example. Maybe I can finagle something where the Windows binaries are included (get one and get another one free type bonus :-) with my super uber secret (oops) plans for universal Linux binaries package. That way people who use Linux can run the Windows version without too much pain. Benefits of this include: 1) Expectations will be adjusted correctly that the programs in the gEDA suite do not follow standard Windows practices. and 2) There is some minimal barrier to entry to keep away all the difficult users away. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Dec 5, 2006, at 3:31 PM, Dan McMahill wrote: Mike Hansen wrote: You can also install cygwin under windows and install gEDA under cygwin. I believe there are a multitude of problems with this arrangement so you will have to check docs. I could be wrong but I thought things mostly worked there now. This is where this thread started! The problem with the version of guile (1.8.1-3) that's offered by Cygwin has a hardcoded path that breaks the build. Apparently, there's a later version (1.8.1-4) fetch-able via cygwin setup from http://lilypond.org/ but the cygwin setup craps out when downloading. I tried building guile from the cygwin source but there was another dependency complaint. So there's something strange going on tonight, something's going on that's not quite right, and I've wasted enough time with it so I'll just happily use the OS X port and move forward. -a ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tuesday 05 December 2006 16:43, Stuart Brorson wrote: > > This was when I found out > > about the real impact of the NGspice licensing problems, > > which brings up a serious lesson we all need to learn. I > > think the NGspice developers still don't understand what > > the real problem was. > > Ummm, what is the problem? Is it just the BSD ver. 1 licence > thing, or something more? No. It is not the BSD ver 1 thing. If that was the only issue, Debian would put it in as "non-free". Remember ... For a long time Debian omitted KDE because of a license issue. KDE was GPL, but linked to a library that was licensed QPL, which is not GPL compatible. QPL and GPL are both OK, but not linked into the same binary. Eventually this was solved by changing the license on the library to GPL. More recently, look at the Firefox issue. Debian would not include the Firefox graphic because of a license issue. They shipped a modified Firefox with the old Free graphic logo. The Mozilla foundation said "the Brand requires our logo, or call it something else". So now we have Iceweasel, which is a pure GPL variant of Firefox. To see the issue, ask we need a logo for Iceweasel. How about making it by changing the colors of the Firefox logo. Sorry, you are not allowed to make a derivative work of the logo. That was the issue in the first place. With that background ,,,NGspice collects all that is Spice. Some of the extras came from unknown places with unknown licenses. Mostly, it was academic stuff where each one made its own one paragraph license sort of BSD like, but with subtle differences in the wording, just enough to be incompatible, like the KDE-QT issue. Removing all of the offending code puts it back to just plain Spice. The lesson here is just thinking "I want everyone to be able to use this", and wording it wrong, you may accidentally inject a subtlety that will prevent the users you want most from using it. Debian is extremely strict at being absolutely legal and holding the moral high ground. Comparing the distributions, this is the primary distinguishing characteristic of Debian. So, why don't Gentoo and NetBSD have this problem? It is my understanding that they don't really distribute. They just provide a script that downloads from the official source. Why do I know this???NGspice was in Debian for a while, then was removed. I discovered it when I was trying to make an EDA-Knoppix disk, and "apt-get install ngspice" didn't work. A google search revealed the dirt. The BSD ver 1 license has an interesting subtlety that the closed source developers love to exploit. Derivative works have no strings attached. You can take the code, edit it into a new code block that does the same thing. Now you can do anything you want. .. make it proprietary ... release under GPL ... you can even patent your changes and prevent the original author from extending his own work. Berkeley would not change it because it does exactly what they want to do, which is technology transfer. The goal is to get the technology incorporated into products. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
> Use 1and1.com for $5.99 per year. My local isp is $12/year and... local! That's where I get all *my* domains. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
[snip] >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >So, isn't Xantrex some kind of mood drug? > Let's try to keep discussions on geda-* somewhat related to electronics. Please. Thanks, -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Dec 5, 2006, at 8:53 PM, Michael Sokolov wrote:
For a hard-core UNIX programmer like me, the only way to design
hardware
is to make it look like UNIX software: write the source with vi,
keep it
in CVS and compile with make, all in the absence of a graphical
display.
A graphical display won't do me any good because my mind can't handle
it. I have what's called an 80-column mind, meaning that my brain
can't
really process anything that isn't ASCII in 80 columns.
The text-based nature of gschem schematic and symbol files is another
life saver for me. While I do grudgingly use an X11 display while
drawing schematics (the graphical aspect really pushes the limits
of my
comfort zone), I very often exit gschem, fire up vi and edit my .sch
files directly, right in the centre of my comfort zone. I love ASCII!
And when I do use the gschem GUI, I make heavy use of the keyboard
shortcuts and use the mouse as little as possible -- I hate mice!
While it's not likely a serious PCB editing tool will be text based
(top-shelf PCB layout people have excellent visual and visualization
skills and can do a great job of using the least amount of PCB real-
estate while getting the least-congested routing), "schematic" design
entry can be done, and done well, in a plain-text format.
At my last day job (before the company was bought out and half the
staff shit-canned, but I digress), we used a text-based pinlist
design entry method. The interface was emacs with custom menus, and
the whole thing ran on Solaris (later ported to Red Hat and OS X).
Basically, you placed components in your design schematic. The
components had a "spec file," which had a part number and a list of
all of the pins on the device (which could be fun for a 456-pin
BGA). When placed on the "schematic," you could see the vendor-
assigned pin number and pin name, and your schematic net name. The
"spec files" were pretty smart, as they contained not only pin name/
number info, but also loading info, so you could run a "netcheck"
that ensured that input pins weren't left open, output pins weren't
overloaded, etc. The whole system enforced several rules. All nets
had to have "useful" net names, instead of like what the graphical
schematic program which lets you not give a net label and it'd assign
something like Net_C01 for you. No-connects had a specific syntax.
Etc. Being text-based made it a snap to use with CVS. There were
also a few post-processing back-ends. One was the "netcheck," a
second built a Tango PCB netlist, a third used the database of part
numbers to build BOMs and stuffing guides.
By being custom in-house, it neatly sidestepped the problem of
vendors changing their proprietary formats, or getting bought, or
both (Accel to PCAD, anyone?).
It was all pretty remarkable, built in-house and maintained over the
course of about 15 years. The biggest downsides to this were that
there was a lot of tribal knowledge ("how does this work and where is
it documented?"); it was constantly "in development" so it was not
uncommon for the maintainer (who was also the company president!) to
change something which broke everything; and of course in-house tools
don't look good on a resume ("what schematic capture did we use?
Uhh, none; a custom text pinlist ...").
PCB layout was still done with a graphical tool. As I said, PCB
layout is a visual process, no way around it. We used PCAD, and
migrated to Mentor Expedition for the large designs that PCAD choked
on (24-layer VME boards, anyone?). But the pinlist schematic front
end remained until the company was consumed.
-a
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Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Mike Hansen wrote: You can also install cygwin under windows and install gEDA under cygwin. I believe there are a multitude of problems with this arrangement so you will have to check docs. I could be wrong but I thought things mostly worked there now. It would be great if there was a native Windows port of gEDA. However doing this would be a substantial effort and I would imagine most users would want to see new efforts put into new features rather than a whole new port. And it appears most if not all of the developers for gEDA are developers concentrating on the Linux platform. Probably most developers use linux but a few of us don't. However I think we can safely say that all of the developers are using a unix like operating system (linux, solaris, netbsd, osx, etc). > Thus you aren't likely to get the current group to put any effort into a Windows port. Perhaps we can pull a new group of developers in from the Windows world to work on the port(highly unlikely, I am a Windows developer and I have zero desire to put any effort into this knowing the magnitude of the effort). I think the magnitude of the effort (for some definition of "the effort") may not be too bad. gnucap -- my guess is this is pretty simple to build with mingw and produce a windows binary that doesn't need cygwin. Under cygwin I'll bet it "just works". If someone wanted to build a windows installer that would probably be pretty easy and there is an example in the pcb tree. Of course gnucap is a command line and text i/o program. If you want a gui with menus and clicky things, well, they don't exist in gnucap. pcb -- Should just work under cygwin. The framework is all there to build a windows binary including a windows installer. What is left to end up with something fully functional: - build the m4 libraries into newlib libraries at runtime. This is easy, nearly all the framework is there. I should make sure I've commited it. - use fopen() instead of popen() in a couple of places for file i/o. This is probably also fairly easy. I'm guessing a couple of hours or for someone slow like me a day. gschem and gnetlist -- should just work under cygwin. If not it should be pretty easy I'd guess. In terms of a non-cygwin windows version I suspect it is basically not hard except for guile. There I just can't comment on the magnitude of the work. The kicker here is that gnetlist is a command line utility. refdes_renum is a perl script. garchive is a python program. All of these utilities (the "friends" part of gschem-and-friends) really want to have a unix sort of a shell and have things like perl, python, /bin/sh, etc. around. I'll bet this is the bulk of the work. Even if you ship a mingw bash shell, it won't look and feel like a gui point and click tool. gwave -- good luck. Probably works on cygwin, or could be made to work, but I'll bet guile-gtk for non-cygwin would be a major pain. icarus verilog -- probably works out of the box on cygwin or at least would be easy. In terms of mingw, the same comments as gnucap apply. A live CD version of gEDA would also be a welcomed addition. Something like Knoppix with gEDA installed. That would be as painless as it gets. Forgive my stupidity if this already exists. I started on that once with a NetBSD live CD but wasn't that interested to follow through on it. -Dan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Adrian Nania wrote: I do believe for more than 98% of people working with electronic components it is not possible to install and use the latest gEDA version. The endless compiling errors and flavor dependencies are unbelievable. Yeah, we can always google around and after many hard working weeks have an installation method working for just a few days before some "justified" changes in name or settings. I have two comments about this. 1) I do think it would probably make sense to create a more unified top level build and top level distfile for gEDA. While there may be some users who want to install gschem for schematics and only want to use it for postscript output, most people probably want to install the entire suite. A single ./configure --prefix=/opt/geda-2006xxyy make make install would be useful. If others agree I can probably create a top level configure script and Makefile.am. I suspect this would make many of the problems go away. 2) I have to blame a lot of the problems on packaging systems used by the various OS vendors. For example, it is always as easy to install the latest geda on NetBSD as any other software because you just do (cd /usr/pkgsrc/cad/geda && make install). No doubt about it though, it can be a pain. On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they are forced to use Windows. geda, I believe, works alright on cygwin. To create a non-cygwin version certainly requires dealing with guile but also you still need to have a shell available. gnetlist is a command line utility as are several of the other components. I've had the "make the Windows port available" discussion many many times (both virtually and in person). Just this last week I was talking to another OSS developer (for a totally different program and *significantly* (100x to 1000x) larger user base) and he stated that the moment they released a Windows binary: the whining, the complaining, cluelessness, and general jerk behavior increased *a lot*. I wonder how much this was coupled to them being windows users vs it just being a big increase in the total number of users. I suspect with geda there would be a lot of the former because the suite is not a fully integrated, do everything only via the mouse, sort of tool. I'm not opposed in general to doing things which help in terms of software working on cygwin or mingw but at the same time it is hard to get too motivated on that front. After all, this is a hobby for me and I will probably *never* run the windows version of any of this myself. -Dan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
DJ Delorie wrote: >> Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. > > Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? > > :-) Stuart Brorson wrote: Should I grab the name before some spammer gets it? Use 1and1.com for $5.99 per year. John G happy customer of 1and1.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
> I'll probably just hire someone else to do it once I'm done with the > schematic entry phase and am confident enough in it. hmm... ask here first ;-) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
DJ Delorie wrote: Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? :-) No, www.gedaconsulting.com of course! JG ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Dave McGuire wrote: None of the hardware people that *I* associate with use Windows. None. Not chip design folks especially. John G ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Adrian Nania wrote: [snip] I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of software developers only. Adrian [EMAIL PROTECTED] So, isn't Xantrex some kind of mood drug? John G engineer, non SW developer ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
> But wait! I think RedHat has already cornered that market! :-) We're open source. I don't think our market *has* corners. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
This was when I found out about the real impact of the NGspice licensing problems, which brings up a serious lesson we all need to learn. I think the NGspice developers still don't understand what the real problem was. Ummm, what is the problem? Is it just the BSD ver. 1 licence thing, or something more? Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tuesday 05 December 2006 15:27, Mike Hansen wrote: > A live CD version of gEDA would also be a welcomed addition. > Something like Knoppix with gEDA installed. That would be > as painless as it gets. Forgive my stupidity if this already > exists. Quantian Linux. http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html It is not EDA specific, A Knoppix / Debian variant tailored to numerical and quantitative analysis. It is too big for a CD. You need a DVD. It has other numeric stuff too. It is not up to date. Before that, there was "Boreas Linux" . I have used Boreas in teaching, with mixed results. Quantian is more recent, and more complete. A couple of years ago, I started to make one, but stopped when I found Boreas. It is not hard to do. This was when I found out about the real impact of the NGspice licensing problems, which brings up a serious lesson we all need to learn. I think the NGspice developers still don't understand what the real problem was. It is not hard to do. Making one is a good opportunity for someone coming in to make a contribution. There are detailed instructions for doing it on the knoppix web site. Where there are Debian packages, it is really easy. Where there are not, is more work but still doable. Be careful of licensing. If a package is not in Debian, find out why before including it. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Andy Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > a) (Most) Hardware guys want to design and implement hardware. Tools > are the means to that end, not the end in itself, and we'd rather do > our work than deal with tool build failures. I just feel like adding one different data point. I come into the world of hardware design from a software background. And not just any software background, but specifically a religiously zealous free software background, and specifically UNIX, all command line and non-visual. I'm very fanatical about free software and use exclusively free operating systems. Free as in freedom of course, yadda yadda yadda. The reason I get into hardware design is simple: I want a platform for my software hacking, and the platform I like does not exist. If I want a toy that does not exist, the only way I can get it is to build it myself. I am extremely thankful to the gEDA developers for an EDA suite that runs under UNIX and stores its design files in a simple text-based format. I'm a UNIX fanatic and cannot use anything else, so without gschem and pcb the world of hardware design would have been simply out of reach for me. For a hard-core UNIX programmer like me, the only way to design hardware is to make it look like UNIX software: write the source with vi, keep it in CVS and compile with make, all in the absence of a graphical display. A graphical display won't do me any good because my mind can't handle it. I have what's called an 80-column mind, meaning that my brain can't really process anything that isn't ASCII in 80 columns. This works really well with FPGAs once I have managed to obtain a UNIX command line version of one vendor's FPGA compiler. Write Verilog in vi, type 'make', an FPGA configuration bit image comes out. Test it, check the source into CVS. Yay, just like C programming in UNIX. Hardware design for software hackers who want toys that don't exist, way to go! Open source hardware copying the ways of open source software. Regrettably it's harder with board-level designs: unfortunately the PCB layout and routing technology is not at the point where one can write the schematic source code, another text file (also treated as source code) with board mechanical dimensions, etc., then type 'make' and have a Gerber file come out. PCB layout is unfortunately a laborious manual operation unlike compiling a C program or an FPGA. To be honest I dread the thought of PCB layout. I'll probably just hire someone else to do it once I'm done with the schematic entry phase and am confident enough in it. The text-based nature of gschem schematic and symbol files is another life saver for me. While I do grudgingly use an X11 display while drawing schematics (the graphical aspect really pushes the limits of my comfort zone), I very often exit gschem, fire up vi and edit my .sch files directly, right in the centre of my comfort zone. I love ASCII! And when I do use the gschem GUI, I make heavy use of the keyboard shortcuts and use the mouse as little as possible -- I hate mice! OK, this is enough rant for me today. I just wanted to give a different perspective, diametrically opposite from the typical 'hardware guy' asking for a Weendoze version. Blessed Be, MS ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? Make that www.gedaconsulting.com. Should I grab the name before some spammer gets it? Go for it! Later, if a viable business grows out of gEDA and its many friends, then you can rent sub-domains to the rest of us on it ... for a small fee (or other payment in kind), of course! Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tuesday 05 December 2006 15:01, Stuart Brorson wrote: > I think RedHat has already cornered that market! only for IT like stuff, not EDA. I can see sort of a cooperative business model, where companies would buy in and fund it in exchange for prioritizing what they need. Years ago, all of the big electronics companies that were innovators had their own internal CAD groups. Some still do. Some that let their CAD groups go are regretting it. They are finding out that having their own was a significant competitive advantage. Now they are finding that putting a significant portion of their "intellectual property" in the hands of the likes of Mentor, Synopsys, and Cadence might not be such a good idea. Going to a conference like ICCAD, it is interesting to hear the opinions of "open-source". Of course, the big CAD companies say it is not an issue. Others say in 5 years it will be all open-source. I see a business opportunity in providing "corporate cad" services to small companies, based on free tools, with the money paying for development of those free tools. It is interesting to hear the reaction to this from the existing companies. The big EDA companies (except Mentor) do not see it as a threat to their business. The small consulting companies do not see it as threat either, they see potential partnerships. The only ones that see it as a threat are the ones the seem to have some get-rich-quick scheme. They have some kind of invention and a patent or two and hope to be acquired by one of the big guys. They are furious about it, even though their product is often built as a proprietary extension to some BSD licensed program. Another business opportunity is to sell CAD systems, ready to go, complete with the hardware. Each one is custom. Considering all of the parts that are available, it seems easy to do. There are already lots of businesses that do this for IT applications. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
It would be great if there was a native Windows port of gEDA. [.] Thus you aren't likely to get the current group to put any effort into a Windows port. Not unless we are paid handsomely. Of course I speak only for myself here; if somebody wants to put in all that work for free, they are welcome to do so! Perhaps we can pull a new group of developers in from the Windows world to work on the port [] If you can get that to happen, wonderful! The code is GPLed, and is available for any and all to do what they want with it! A live CD version of gEDA would also be a welcomed addition. Something like Knoppix with gEDA installed. That would be as painless as it gets. Forgive my stupidity if this already exists. Quantian is the most well-known Live CD with gEDA pre-installed: http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html The version on the disk is getting a little old, however. A quick Google search turns up others too. Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
If all you have available is a Windows box there is an easy solution to this: grab a free copy of VMWare, find one of the many images of Fedora for VMWare on the net and download it. Run your VMWare Fedora image on your Windows box and go ahead and install gEDA on the VMWare image. It's simple, painless and works well. That's how I do it here. Performance is good with a relatively decent machine(2GHz+ machine). You can also install cygwin under windows and install gEDA under cygwin. I believe there are a multitude of problems with this arrangement so you will have to check docs. It would be great if there was a native Windows port of gEDA. However doing this would be a substantial effort and I would imagine most users would want to see new efforts put into new features rather than a whole new port. And it appears most if not all of the developers for gEDA are developers concentrating on the Linux platform. Thus you aren't likely to get the current group to put any effort into a Windows port. Perhaps we can pull a new group of developers in from the Windows world to work on the port(highly unlikely, I am a Windows developer and I have zero desire to put any effort into this knowing the magnitude of the effort). A live CD version of gEDA would also be a welcomed addition. Something like Knoppix with gEDA installed. That would be as painless as it gets. Forgive my stupidity if this already exists. From: "Adrian Nania" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: gEDA user mailing list To: "gEDA user mailing list" Subject: RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 09:36:29 -0800 I do believe for more than 98% of people working with electronic components it is not possible to install and use the latest gEDA version. The endless compiling errors and flavor dependencies are unbelievable. Yeah, we can always google around and after many hard working weeks have an installation method working for just a few days before some "justified" changes in name or settings. On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they are forced to use Windows. It is quite normal to end up with many "jerks" when you open your product to a few thousands more people. Just ignore them because for each jerk speaking to you are 1.000 good people on your side. Adrian -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ales Hvezda Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 5:23 PM To: gEDA user mailing list Subject: Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure Hi, [snip] >It is possible for some good Samaritan to compile for windows and make >available all the updated gEDA packages? > I've had the "make the Windows port available" discussion many many times (both virtually and in person). Just this last week I was talking to another OSS developer (for a totally different program and *significantly* (100x to 1000x) larger user base) and he stated that the moment they released a Windows binary: the whining, the complaining, cluelessness, and general jerk behavior increased *a lot*. Right now I am absolutely thrilled with the quality of the users and discussions on the mailing lists and I have no intention of crashing a good thing. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user _ View Athletes Collections with Live Search http://sportmaps.live.com/index.html?source=hmemailtaglinenov06&FORM=MGAC01 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tuesday 05 December 2006 14:23, Stuart Brorson wrote: > Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. To all reading this .. Please take this as an invitation. There are no problems, only unmet business opportunities. One way to increase the priority of any task is to pay for it. Speaking for myself, I would very much welcome financial support for my work. Lots of free software developers would do it full time if it paid the bills. On Tuesday 05 December 2006 14:29, DJ Delorie wrote: > Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? Make that www.gedaconsulting.com. Should I grab the name before some spammer gets it? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? Heh But thinking about it, having an e-commerece site for things related to gEDA, with PayPal ability, credit card processing, etc, isn't totally far-fetched. That way users who wanted expedited patches, custom software features, symbols, and footprints, or clueless newbies who needed excessive hand-holding could be given a way to get what they wanted for a price. But wait! I think RedHat has already cornered that market! :-) Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Monday 04 December 2006 19:26, Adrian Nania wrote: > It is possible for some good Samaritan to compile for windows > and make available all the updated gEDA packages? To answer this, you must understand how the binary packages are made, and who does them. Speaking as the creator of gnucap, one of the tools ... I develop on a system I like, which may or may not be the same as anyone else has. We try to make the code as portable as possible, in hopes that it compiles anywhere but there are always surprises. None of us have a collection of different systems, or the patience to use them all. To do so, we do accept a certain set of tools as standard, which basically includes a shell, "make" and a set of compilers with a command line interface. Those who like a graphic environment make one by wrapping the tools. Some common ones include emacs and kdevelop. But we don't require anyone else to have that. There is a "configure" script that sets up things like where the libraries go and some features that man be in or out depending on your environment. We also use libraries that are easily available, such as gtk. Most of us use all free systems, and we certainly dont require anything that isn't free. We consider the free operating systems to be the highest priority, and the makers of the free operating systems consider free applications to be their highest priority. By "free" here, I refer to the FSF definition, libre, freedom, etc. not zero cost closed source. We distribute as source in tarballs, without the libraries that you can get elsewhere. If you have a minimal system, you must get the libraries yourself, from somewhere else. Most users do not compile their own code, but rather rely on pre-compiled packages.These packages are usually for a specific distribution, and they are maintained by someone else, not the same people who create the software. These package maintainers pick up the tarball, compile it, customize it for a particular distribution, make sure it gets all the libraries, and package it so it is ready to use. As you would expect, these are always a little behind the original source packages. I must emphasize again, that these packages are made by someone other than the the original creator of the package. It is a serious ongoing committment. These people are also the first contact for the binary package for that distribution. They also provide valuable testing by building in many different environments, and feeding back the results. For the Windows packages to be successful, it must be the same arragement. It is more difficult because Microsoft seems to go out of its way to make this difficult. The first step is to put the extra infrastructure in place. Then you can do specific packages. It isn't just a matter of making a package. Someone needs to make a commitment to keep track of the updates, and be an active member of our community. That means to be available to answer the flood of questions that will certainly come. For myself, I develop Gnucap, but I just use the Debian (unstable) packages for everything else. I only install from source if I must, but I require that I have the option to do so. One reason sometimes I must is to get a later version. The packages are based on official releases, not CVS checkouts or development snapshots. Again, for a Windows port to be successful, it must work the same way. Someone new must step up to the task. The rest of us are all too busy with our piece. If you are willing to take on the task, we will all help you do it, in the same way that we help those who do the packages for other systems. We will expect the same feedback and cooperation from you, and a commitment from you to support your users. It is a difficult task. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Dec 5, 2006, at 11:50 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: On Dec 5, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Adrian Nania wrote: [snip] I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of software developers only. Maybe I am wrong to suspect the main audience for this tool must be on the hardware developing side. You're being funny to name anyone else clueless fools. Adrian, your assumption that all hardware developers are Windows users is incorrect. I'm not even sure it's in the majority anymore, at least amongst hardware developers who know anything at all about computers. None of the hardware people that *I* associate with use Windows. None. -Dave I suppose that since I started this thread, I should chime in. I am a hardware developer, and since I no longer work for a Big Company that uses Unix-based tools, I use Windows. (My OS preference is Mac OS X.) As a hardware guy, I've often been frustrated with my attempts to build software from source on the various Unix and Linux boxes I've used. There's always a dependency that's missing or the wrong version. At my previous job, I sat across from the Linux Guy who was usually able to help me sort things out (my hardware had to run on Linux boxes), but truly, how many hardware guys have a Linux Guru in the same room? As a hardware guy, I want to design my FPGA, I want to lay out my PCB, I want to write my microcontroller firmware. I don't want to chase down inscrutable build errors, like the odd hard- coded path issue in guile that started this thread. I come to gEDA because all of my new computers are Macs and I'm interested in professional-quality tools for that platform. I recently posted a snarky comment to sci.electronics.cad, basically saying that "you get what you pay for with tools." DJ Delorie asked, "Why?" and then I realized that I depend on free, open-source tools. The good news is that I was able to build Apache and Subversion for OS X without problems and I've got a Mac mini running as the Subversion server. I use emacs. So I did a little investigating and found that one could use fink to fetch and install gEDA on OS X using X Windows. And it worked. But if it hadn't been "simple" -- meaning if it took more than an evening of futzing -- then I would have said, "Nope, this doesn't work" and that would've been that. So I suppose my points are: a) (Most) Hardware guys want to design and implement hardware. Tools are the means to that end, not the end in itself, and we'd rather do our work than deal with tool build failures. b) I wanted to get gEDA up and running under Cygwin because I have to use a Windows box during the day and being able to use the gEDA stuff on that platform is useful to me, and perhaps others. Thanks too the developers for all of their efforts. It's appreciated. -a ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
> Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. Do we need a www.gedaconsulting.org ? :-) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Adrian Nania wrote: [snip] I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of software developers only. Maybe I am wrong to suspect the main audience for this tool must be on the hardware developing side. You're being funny to name anyone else clueless fools. Different people have different opinions on this issue. One, easily defendable position is this: The main target audience for this software is *ourselves*, the developers. We do it for our own amusement, and for our own use. However, we *do* share it with the world, and *are* responsive to feature requests and bug reports since it's part of the fun. But only as long as the feature requests and bug fixes are *fun* for us. Supporting a Windoze port is not my idea of fun, so I won't do a Windoze port. But if somebody else creates a Windoze port, I say: good work! I just don't want to support it. The secondary audience for gEDA is users clueful and resourceful enough to get it working on their own boxen themselves. I am personally happy and proud to have contributed to a project which seems to have thousands of downloads, and certainly scores -- if not hundreds -- of active users. Their enjoyment and productivity is part of my fun. For that reason I also try to make it reasonably easy to install and use the bits of software I have contributed. I *do* expect that they require only minimal handholding, however. In any event, my goal is *not* to emulate a private company and product software for as many users as possible. Working on gEDA only provides me fun (and not money), so I am only prepared to work on things which are *fun*. Producing *commerical* sofware involves doing many things which aren't fun, like maintaining current documentation, running lots of regression tests, and supporting angry, cranky, idiotic users. I only do unpleasant things when I am *paid* for it (or if my wife insists). I don't know why you expect that I -- or any other open-source developer -- would do something unpleasant just because it would make your life easier or easier. Therefore, if you want a Windoze port, try doing it yourself. Or be prepared to pay my consulting rates. Cheers, Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Dec 5, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Adrian Nania wrote: [snip] I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of software developers only. Maybe I am wrong to suspect the main audience for this tool must be on the hardware developing side. You're being funny to name anyone else clueless fools. Adrian, your assumption that all hardware developers are Windows users is incorrect. I'm not even sure it's in the majority anymore, at least amongst hardware developers who know anything at all about computers. None of the hardware people that *I* associate with use Windows. None. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
[snip] I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of software developers only. Maybe I am wrong to suspect the main audience for this tool must be on the hardware developing side. You're being funny to name anyone else clueless fools. Adrian -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stuart Brorson Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 10:06 AM To: gEDA user mailing list Subject: RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Adrian Nania wrote: > I do believe for more than 98% of people working with electronic > components it is not possible to install and use the latest gEDA > version. The endless compiling errors and flavor dependencies are > unbelievable. > > Yeah, we can always google around and after many hard working weeks > have an installation method working for just a few days before some > "justified" changes in name or settings. Actually, it compiles and installs easily, as many have found. If you had a different experience, that's too bad. If you have a constructive suggestion to make, or have an install issue to raise, we'd like to hear about it -- politely. If you're just feeling cranky, well, go kick your dog and don't post to geda-user. We're not interested in your rants, and they make you look bad to boot. Remember, this list is archived, so from now on people Googling you will find your strange rant. > On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. > Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many > places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they > are forced to use Windows. Please remember that gEDA is an open-source project, and is the creation of volunteers who offer this software to the wider world for free. The developers only work on gEDA for fun. If you want a windows port, you have the following options: 1. Try doing it yourself. 2. If you can't figure it out for yourself, ask *nicely* on the list, and maybe somebody will do it for you if it looks like fun. 3. If that fails, you can pay an open-source developer to do it for you. Otherwise, you're SOL. The developers of gEDA owe you nothing, and if they don't want to devote their time to a Windows port, you're on your own. Anyway, its very presumptious of you to think that we will just jump to it and create cost-free software for you because you asked. > It is quite normal to end up with many "jerks" when you open your > product to a few thousands more people. Just ignore them because for > each jerk speaking to you are 1.000 good people on your side. I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Adrian Nania wrote: I do believe for more than 98% of people working with electronic components it is not possible to install and use the latest gEDA version. The endless compiling errors and flavor dependencies are unbelievable. Yeah, we can always google around and after many hard working weeks have an installation method working for just a few days before some "justified" changes in name or settings. Actually, it compiles and installs easily, as many have found. If you had a different experience, that's too bad. If you have a constructive suggestion to make, or have an install issue to raise, we'd like to hear about it -- politely. If you're just feeling cranky, well, go kick your dog and don't post to geda-user. We're not interested in your rants, and they make you look bad to boot. Remember, this list is archived, so from now on people Googling you will find your strange rant. On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they are forced to use Windows. Please remember that gEDA is an open-source project, and is the creation of volunteers who offer this software to the wider world for free. The developers only work on gEDA for fun. If you want a windows port, you have the following options: 1. Try doing it yourself. 2. If you can't figure it out for yourself, ask *nicely* on the list, and maybe somebody will do it for you if it looks like fun. 3. If that fails, you can pay an open-source developer to do it for you. Otherwise, you're SOL. The developers of gEDA owe you nothing, and if they don't want to devote their time to a Windows port, you're on your own. Anyway, its very presumptious of you to think that we will just jump to it and create cost-free software for you because you asked. It is quite normal to end up with many "jerks" when you open your product to a few thousands more people. Just ignore them because for each jerk speaking to you are 1.000 good people on your side. I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to hords of whining clueless fools. Why should we subject ourselves to that? Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is already a big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the barrier to entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless -- particularly without any compensation. Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
RE: gEDA-user: strange build failure
I do believe for more than 98% of people working with electronic components it is not possible to install and use the latest gEDA version. The endless compiling errors and flavor dependencies are unbelievable. Yeah, we can always google around and after many hard working weeks have an installation method working for just a few days before some "justified" changes in name or settings. On the other hand, many times we do not have access to a Linux box. Windows is unfortunately or not the single available desktop in many places. Now, I do not believe Windows users are jerks. Usually they are forced to use Windows. It is quite normal to end up with many "jerks" when you open your product to a few thousands more people. Just ignore them because for each jerk speaking to you are 1.000 good people on your side. Adrian -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ales Hvezda Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 5:23 PM To: gEDA user mailing list Subject: Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure Hi, [snip] >It is possible for some good Samaritan to compile for windows and make >available all the updated gEDA packages? > I've had the "make the Windows port available" discussion many many times (both virtually and in person). Just this last week I was talking to another OSS developer (for a totally different program and *significantly* (100x to 1000x) larger user base) and he stated that the moment they released a Windows binary: the whining, the complaining, cluelessness, and general jerk behavior increased *a lot*. Right now I am absolutely thrilled with the quality of the users and discussions on the mailing lists and I have no intention of crashing a good thing. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Hi, [snip] >It is possible for some good Samaritan to compile for windows and make >available all the updated gEDA packages? > I've had the "make the Windows port available" discussion many many times (both virtually and in person). Just this last week I was talking to another OSS developer (for a totally different program and *significantly* (100x to 1000x) larger user base) and he stated that the moment they released a Windows binary: the whining, the complaining, cluelessness, and general jerk behavior increased *a lot*. Right now I am absolutely thrilled with the quality of the users and discussions on the mailing lists and I have no intention of crashing a good thing. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
On Dec 2, 2006, at 4:40 PM, Ales Hvezda wrote: Hi, I'm doing an experiment: I'm trying to see if I can get the gEDA tools running under cygwin. I started with the instructions at http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:cygwin. I've never actually used the cygwin port, but... [snip] so it can't find guile, because it's apparently looking in: /home/janneke/... which makes no sense. libgeda and friends use guile's guile-config to determine paths for include and library files. Try: guile-config compile and guile-config link and guile-config info I'm guessing that is where the /home/janneke/... is coming from. Ah, guile-config link and guile-config info both reveal the /home/ janneke/ stuff. Google tells me that there's a newer version of the guile stuff at http://lilypond.org, but that connection to cygwin's setup is broken and the official cygwin mirrors don't have the new version yet. so, the hell with it. -a ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure
Hi, >I'm doing an experiment: I'm trying to see if I can get the gEDA tools >running under cygwin. I started with the instructions at >http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:cygwin. I've never actually used the cygwin port, but... [snip] >so it can't find guile, because it's apparently looking in: > >/home/janneke/... > >which makes no sense. libgeda and friends use guile's guile-config to determine paths for include and library files. Try: guile-config compile and guile-config link and guile-config info I'm guessing that is where the /home/janneke/... is coming from. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
