Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:16:23 +0200 Rubén Gómez Antolí l...@mucharuina.com wrote: Is something how Kde us Gnome? Because after of years of desktop wars, both proyects colaborate in base (freedesktop) and expand his own style. There are something to learn in our own free software history? That's a good point. Where could things be best shared between KiCad and gEDA? While it would be nice to share a common schematic/PCB layout file format, that seems difficult given the different approaches taken by both tools. My initial thought is that the biggest value-to-effort ratio would be from being able realized by being able to share symbols and footprints between the tools. Of course even this has some serious difficulties: consider all the special attributes and such required for proper gschem symbols. Perhaps gschem's format is detailed enough that KiCad symbol information could be inferred from it. Footprints might be simpler to share since there seem to be fewer tool-specific details needed (just defining copper areas/pads, pins/holes, solder mask and paste, silk screen lines). Regards, Colin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Hi all, -Original Message- From: geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org [mailto:geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org] On Behalf Of Colin D Bennett Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 6:43 PM To: geda-user@moria.seul.org Subject: Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:16:23 +0200 Rubén Gómez Antolí l...@mucharuina.com wrote: Is something how Kde us Gnome? Because after of years of desktop wars, both proyects colaborate in base (freedesktop) and expand his own style. There are something to learn in our own free software history? That's a good point. Where could things be best shared between KiCad and gEDA? Footprint editor ? https://github.com/bert/fped Fped lives in Ubuntu and Fedora, and maybe other distros, with support for KiCAD users. Anyone interested in a parametric footprint editor with support for pcb ? Just clone, add code and stuff, and send patches to here. This way we can have common files for interoptable footprints. While it would be nice to share a common schematic/PCB layout file format, that seems difficult given the different approaches taken by both tools. My initial thought is that the biggest value-to-effort ratio would be from being able realized by being able to share symbols and footprints between the tools. Of course even this has some serious difficulties: consider all the special attributes and such required for proper gschem symbols. Perhaps gschem's format is detailed enough that KiCad symbol information could be inferred from it. Footprints might be simpler to share since there seem to be fewer tool-specific details needed (just defining copper areas/pads, pins/holes, solder mask and paste, silk screen lines). Regards, Colin Kind regards, Bert Timmerman. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
That's a good point. Where could things be best shared between KiCad and gEDA? Footprint editor ? https://github.com/bert/fped Fped lives in Ubuntu and Fedora, and maybe other distros, with support for KiCAD users. Anyone interested in a parametric footprint editor with support for pcb ? Just clone, add code and stuff, and send patches to here. This way we can have common files for interoptable footprints. It would be quite handy to make a backend for fped that outputs PCB footprints. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Hello: El 12/09/11 18:42, Colin D Bennett escribió: On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:16:23 +0200 Rubén Gómez Antolíl...@mucharuina.com wrote: Is something how Kde us Gnome? Because after of years of desktop wars, both proyects colaborate in base (freedesktop) and expand his own style. There are something to learn in our own free software history? That's a good point. Where could things be best shared between KiCad and gEDA? While it would be nice to share a common schematic/PCB layout file format, that seems difficult given the different approaches taken by both tools. My initial thought is that the biggest value-to-effort ratio would be from being able realized by being able to share symbols and footprints between the tools. Of course even this has some serious difficulties: consider all the special attributes and such required for proper gschem symbols. Perhaps gschem's format is detailed enough that KiCad symbol information could be inferred from it. Footprints might be simpler to share since there seem to be fewer tool-specific details needed (just defining copper areas/pads, pins/holes, solder mask and paste, silk screen lines). Sure. Start with a common schematic/PCB layout file format or work in a export/import tool is a excelent idea. After this, what about these basic library from Kai Martin? I suppossed that Kicad people wants a basic library too. I'm not a developer but I suspect that there are some tools too, like a good autorouter, that both apps can call. These are the base, beyond each app can run his own way. Perhaps, someone of the gEDA developer should contact with Kicad developers? Maybe we discover that Kicad people wants to earn that we say. In other way, what we lost? Regards, Colin Best regards. Salud y Revolución. Lobo. -- Libertad es poder elegir en cualquier momento. Ahora yo elijo GNU/Linux, para no atar mis manos con las cadenas del soft propietario. - Desde El Ejido, en Almería, usuario registrado Linux #294013 http://www.counter.li.org ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Hello: El 07/09/11 00:20, Kai-Martin Knaak escribió: Today, I received an announcement from the CERN people. Key statement was: /- We had a meeting at CERN on Friday and decided we would start contributing to the Kicad project in view of taking it to a level of quality and features suitable for our PCB design activities. \- Reason given: /- (...) the feeling that Kicad looks more like what we have in mind for our future PCB work and that we feel more capable of making important contributions to it. \- sad. ---)kaimartin(--- Is something how Kde us Gnome? Because after of years of desktop wars, both proyects colaborate in base (freedesktop) and expand his own style. There are something to learn in our own free software history? Salud y Revolución. Lobo. -- Libertad es poder elegir en cualquier momento. Ahora yo elijo GNU/Linux, para no atar mis manos con las cadenas del soft propietario. - Desde El Ejido, en Almería, usuario registrado Linux #294013 http://www.counter.li.org ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Again with you: El 07/09/11 17:58, John Hudak escribió: Um, with all due respectI don't consider myself 'simple minded'I am a professional EE, been working in this industry for a [...] If you believe that, you are seriously deluding yourselves. I came across posts from two university instructors who gave up using the tools (I would not consider them 'simple minded'). In a nutshell, user frustration got the best of them. I gave one of my summer students the job of trying to use gschem+pcbhe plain gave up b/c of inefficient use of his time. So, while this is a small sample, it may be wise to consider these issues as the project moves forward. OK, well sorry about the critical posts - it is not personal. If I violated protocol, I apologize. Some insightful ppl made some very good observations about the CERN situation...perhaps those observations may lead to changes for the good. In this line of think, I remember a Sport premise that, if you permit, I use how analogy: You need a 100 sport practicying people to get a 10 federate people (asocied to a federation, I'm not sure how works in other countryes) to get a 1 professional. If gEDA make run potencial users, how to gain a 1 developer/document writer/etc.? (In something past threads I discuss with other people in this list about this.) My english is ugly, I hope that you can understand I say. Best regards. Salud y Revolución. Lobo. -- Libertad es poder elegir en cualquier momento. Ahora yo elijo GNU/Linux, para no atar mis manos con las cadenas del soft propietario. - Desde El Ejido, en Almería, usuario registrado Linux #294013 http://www.counter.li.org ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:37:46 +0200 Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: CERN software engeneers don't fear complexity -- not under the hood, nor on the interface. They strive for elegance and excellent results instead. See the structure and the UI of paw, or root. Well... When I was at CERN back in 2005 I noticed for example that they were moving from Linux to windows. They changed the mail servers TO some winXX server. So I feel that even in CERN there is a move towards the click click click direction. I mean integrated solutions etc. I don't know what is going on there nowadays though. Levente -- Kovacs Levente leventel...@gmail.com Voice: +36705071002 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:10:57 +0200 Kai-Martin Knaak kn...@iqo.uni-hannover.de wrote: John Hudak wrote: Anyway, I switched to using KiCAD and it was like going from driving a FIAT stick to driving a 911 stick... Please elaborate on this one. What exactly constituted the difference that made you feel like that? You already told us about the library/M4 thing. But there was certainly more. What was it? I had a similar experience. I recently wanted to do a design that i'd like to publish as open hardware. For that i thought it would be a good idea to use an open source eda tool instead of the closed one i'm usually working with. I had a look at gEDA and kicad in the process and a few others as well. In the end, i decided that none of them was up to what i was used to work with. gEDA has no design flow whatsoever, which makes it hard to grasp the philosophy and get up to speed (hint: i want to do a design, not spend weeks learning a tool before i can even place a resistor). The UI of gschem seemed clumsy at best, but probably workable with some time spend learning it. I frankly couldnt figure out how to use pcb to do what i need to do. (you can call me stupid if you wish). My kicad experience was of similar nature, though because of different reasons: I'm used to complex designs and the need to set various paramters of my design as i need to. kicad for some reason doesnt seem to offer that. It mostly felt like being an OSS version of eagle. The good part of kicad was, that producing a PCB is easily possible even if you know nothing about the tool. But getting to more advanced features was hard to impossible within the time i tried it. Now comes the catch: When i was a teenager, i did an electronics project in high school. Not having access to the internet and not knowing anything about OSS (i dont think gEDA existed back then), i got a copy of Orcad for DOS (it was ancient even back then). But, within a day i was able to enter my first test schematics and produce something that looked like a PCB which we could use for trying the production in the chemistry lab. It took me way over a month to do a uC based project back then, but most of it was due to my inexperience in electronics than tool problems. I.e. i was able to produce a quite complex design with a quite complex tool (unless you want to tell me that Orcad is for the simple minded) with no prior design experience and definitly no tools experience at all. Now the question is, why isn't there any OSS EDA tool out there that combines the availability of complex features with ease of use like Orcad did 20 years ago? If there were one, i'd be happy to throw money at it, to help it being developed. Attila Kinali PS: for my OH project, i decided to stick with comercial tools. -- The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap -- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
John Hudak wrote: Um, with all due respectI don't consider myself 'simple minded' (...) and finally: Smart people seems to have not really big problems with current gEDA state. Note, that Stefan is not a native speaker. We, who use english as a foreign language, have a hard time to get the tone right. I can guess the german phrases Stefan had in mind. Let me assure you, their subtext is far less offensive and more tongue in cheek. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:20:53 +0200 Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: We had a meeting at CERN on Friday and decided we would start contributing to the Kicad project in view of taking it to a level of quality and features suitable for our PCB design activities. It was to be expected. -- Kovacs Levente leventel...@gmail.com Voice: +36705071002 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
You might want to consider import/export capability for the most widely used commercial product (not sure what that is at the moment). You may want to consider the following as well: 1) An updated tutorial that is accurate (IIRC, last edit is 2007, a bit long in the tooth, not to mention full of errors) 2. Description and verification of a BoM method that works 3. Fix tragsym, and better document how to use it 4. Make sure the tools that your tools require/use do infact interoperate - For example, I recently tried to use Calc (open office equivalent of Excel) and could not find a way to save as text file (tab delimited) option that is required by tragsym 5. Might want to provide a comprehensive and accurate description/document for schematic symbol creation and strongly suggest using that approach. I tried three approaches and the only one that had the shortest learning curve and works was a utube tutorial I found (it was the best I found and not even referenced anywhere in the gscheme website). I understand the 'freedom' to chose one of N ways to do development, or even write your own and hang it out there, but it really needs to work. So, someone followed up one of my posts (I admit it was a bit of a rant) that nothing would make me happywell, actually tools that work according to their usage documentation, and tools that seamlessly interoperate would make me happy. My experience with what I tried clearly does not do this. Once I finally got to generating a PCB I lost my desire to keep forging ahead. The whole deal with m4 libraries versus the others kept nagging at medid I make the 'right' choice? Is this going to somehow screw me in the end? Anyway, I switched to using KiCAD and it was like going from driving a FIAT stick to driving a 911 stick... Why am I saying all this? If someone at CERN who was not to familiar with gEDA picked it up to try and evaluate it, and did the same with KiCAD, and experienced the same problems I did, they would not be impressed, despite the dogma that is perpetuated about not being forced into one design paradigmThe other reason is if someone doesn't provide feedback the developers are going to thing everything is just wonderful. I am trying to provide useful feedback based on my experience. I still 'watch' what is happening here, eventhough I have begun using other tools, mainly because I think the concept is stronger and that it would get better in time. -John On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:45 PM, Peter Clifton [1]pc...@cam.ac.uk wrote: On Tue, 2011-09-06 at 20:37 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote: sad. Which part? The part where CERN found an open source app they liked, or the part where they're going to contribute to OSS? Sounds like a few spare cycles working on KiCad file-format import / export for our tools might be a wise move if we want them to reconsider after they have tried KiCAD. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: [2]+44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) Tel: [3]+44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) ___ geda-user mailing list [4]geda-user@moria.seul.org [5]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:pc...@cam.ac.uk 2. tel:%2B44%20%280%297729%20980173 3. tel:%2B44%20%280%291223%20748328 4. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 5. 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: CERN goes for KiCAD
you all never worried about cern before? why start now? better to just keep focused on your current customers then unknown future additional users. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Hello John, I am really happy (and a bit of surprised) that critical postings are still allowed for this list. On Tue, 2011-09-06 at 22:07 -0400, John Hudak wrote: You might want to consider import/export capability for the most widely used commercial product (not sure what that is at the moment). Import/Export is fine for all free/open available formats. Unfortunately many important formats are not free, so we would have to do reverse engineering or use confidential leaked documentation. Some of us refuse to do that, including me. An example is the specctre format. You may want to consider the following as well: 1) An updated tutorial that is accurate Yes, to make simple minded people happy we need all that. Smart people seems to have not really big problems with current gEDA state. The problem with simple minded people (like me :-) ) is, that they are consumers (stupid and greedy), with no intention and skills to really contribute. And they do not understand or care about the difference between free speech and free beer. Many of your points are easily to fix even for people with no programming skills, ie. writing new, really fine documentation. But it is hard, boring work, so I do understand that the developers prefer coding. DJ has done it very well with his http://www.delorie.com/pcb/docs/gs/gs.html -- unfortunately some beginners miss that tutorial. And it would be fine to have a few more clean and consistent documents like this. Do you think all that is really better for other tools? I am not convinced. Best regards, Stefan Salewski ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Steve Meier wrote: you all never worried about cern before? why start now? better to just keep focused on your current customers then unknown future additional users. For what its worth: Yes, I am worried about geda not being the preferred EDA tool in a scientific environment, becausethis is where I work. Traditionally, it is eagle, that everybody uses. Actually, I have been worrying ever since I seriously started with it. Its no fun to be the odd ball... CERN is a missed opportunity. No reason to deny it, no reason to give up, either. But maybe an occasion to think about the reasons. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de - not happy with moderation of geda-user mailinglist ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
John Hudak wrote: Anyway, I switched to using KiCAD and it was like going from driving a FIAT stick to driving a 911 stick... Please elaborate on this one. What exactly constituted the difference that made you feel like that? You already told us about the library/M4 thing. But there was certainly more. What was it? ---)kaiamrtin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de - not happy with moderation of geda-user mailinglist ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
John Hudak wrote: Anyway, I switched to using KiCAD and it was like going from driving a FIAT stick to driving a 911 stick. Just a head-up note: When I tried kicad a few months back, I felt the exact opposite. I just did not seem to get anywhere with a little test project. Of course this is because of my strong geda back ground and I sure missed a lot of advanced kicad features. But it is a hint that kicad is not (yet) in a position to win hands down, no matter what metric is applied. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de - not happy with moderation of geda-user mailinglist ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
you all never worried about cern before? why start now? It's not CERN itself that's the issue, it's that a big organization wanted to help a project, and it wasn't us. The more developers Kicad gets, the more users they'll get, which brings in more developers, etc. If we lose developers, we lose users, then lose more developers, etc. User base and developer base are tied together, and losing an opportunity like CERN to Kicad is only going to hasten this process. So, one of two things is going to happen: 1. Kicad gets all the attention and gEDA dies a slow and painful death. 2. gEDA gets it act together and starts attracting more users/developers. While I'm not going to look at CERN itself as a specific problem, I do see it as a wake-up call to the gEDA community. better to just keep focused on your current customers then unknown future additional users. Any project which stops attracting new customers dies. Note that customers is entirely the wrong term to use, unless the customers start paying cold hard cash. It sets entirely the wrong expectations. Users or even partners is a much better relationship - we're all in this together! ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Wed, 2011-09-07 at 15:01 +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: CERN is a missed opportunity. No reason to deny it, no reason to give up, either. But maybe an occasion to think about the reasons. I had wondered if part of the reasoning might be that KiCad feels a lot more local to them. (KiCad being a French originated project - CERN being on the French / Swiss border.) Although we do a lot of gEDA development from here in Europe, gEDA may still be viewed as more American, or less local. Not that I wish to imply that the CERN folks may be biased based on this - but it is a possibility. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 10:08 AM, DJ Delorie [1]d...@delorie.com wrote: you all never worried about cern before? why start now? It's not CERN itself that's the issue, it's that a big organization wanted to help a project, and it wasn't us. The more developers Kicad gets, the more users they'll get, which brings in more developers, etc. If we lose developers, we lose users, then lose more developers, etc. User base and developer base are tied together, and losing an opportunity like CERN to Kicad is only going to hasten this process. I can tell you that I switched from KiCad recently. I've been in this for 30+yrs, but there was still a small learning curve to get it rolling. But with some help from Dave McGuire, it was a smoother process, since he sits right next to me here. As you mentioned, it's very important to listen to your Users. That's one aspect with the KiCad group that is very strong. It might very well explain their growing popularity. Saying you don't need new 'customeer's, as was mentioned, is the wrong attitude. I used this tool once before about 15yrs ago as a hobbyiest, only to switch over to something else since the group I had joined had already been amassed with projects using another tool suite. It might be fine that this tool is very open and flexible - I'm all for that- so you really want to promote it. Expecting people to just read the FAQ's or RTFM, is not how you gain acceptance. And then remarks are made on this mailing list about simple minded people in regards to new users- or returning users. There's only one impression that comes to mind to the outside world - plain arrogance. Nobody want to deal people with that attitude. =Dan So, one of two things is going to happen: 1. Kicad gets all the attention and gEDA dies a slow and painful death. 2. gEDA gets it act together and starts attracting more users/developers. While I'm not going to look at CERN itself as a specific problem, I do see it as a wake-up call to the gEDA community. better to just keep focused on your current customers then unknown future additional users. Any project which stops attracting new customers dies. Note that customers is entirely the wrong term to use, unless the customers start paying cold hard cash. It sets entirely the wrong expectations. Users or even partners is a much better relationship - we're all in this together! ___ geda-user mailing list [2]geda-user@moria.seul.org [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:d...@delorie.com 2. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 3. 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: CERN goes for KiCAD
Um, with all due respectI don't consider myself 'simple minded'I am a professional EE, been working in this industry for a 28+ years, and have a few technical advanced degrees.I have both worked in and managed groups of EEs doing state of the art EE research and design. So, while I am not a hard core EDA user, I have used commercial tools from time to time, ranging from schematic capture to all out intricate board spins. I looked at opensource EDA tools perhaps 10- yrs ago, and decided Eagle was a better option. I decided to look again...my first impression about geda: I liked the philosophy (loosely integrated, extensible, multioptioned tool approach). I looked further...a lot of the last revised dates on documents and some tool drops were YEARS - giving the distinct impression of a dead/dormant effort. I polled a few NG that cater to practicing EEs...gEDA feedback was non-existant. Since I needed to get up to speed fairly quickly, I decided to RTFM and try it. While I fully acknowledge the difficulty of producing good documentation, without conveying the mechanics to potential users, you will loose them, guaranteed. (as an aside, that comment smacks of high power, overly clever sw developers who relish that fact they can program anything but can't keep focused on the real requirements). The more I read, the more I figured I had to 'write my own' scripts to do things (after all, if things don't work what else is there to do?). Um, I did not expect that I'd have to do that much additional work to get what I needed. As my attempts to do simple things resulted in trying yet another tool/approach, the frustrations built, productivity went to zero. Another impression, look at the websites of the two tools. One is definitely more polished than the other. That casts a big impression on potential users. If I have to hunt through 6 different websites and then burrow down 4-5 levels to find out the 'better' tutorial or find out how to do a BoM, that is one sure way to put off potential new users. Hmmm, free speech and free beer...I know there is no 'free lunch'...I have contributed to some open source efforts in the past, by way of small how to's, specialized scripts to do things, etc. I even started to 'clean up' the 2006 tutorial as I went along, figuring I'd 'give back'As I progressed, It became clear that it would be a much bigger job than what I had time for. and finally: Smart people seems to have not really big problems with current gEDA state. If you believe that, you are seriously deluding yourselves. I came across posts from two university instructors who gave up using the tools (I would not consider them 'simple minded'). In a nutshell, user frustration got the best of them. I gave one of my summer students the job of trying to use gschem+pcbhe plain gave up b/c of inefficient use of his time. So, while this is a small sample, it may be wise to consider these issues as the project moves forward. OK, well sorry about the critical posts - it is not personal. If I violated protocol, I apologize. Some insightful ppl made some very good observations about the CERN situation...perhaps those observations may lead to changes for the good. On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 8:18 AM, Stefan Salewski [1]m...@ssalewski.de wrote: Hello John, I am really happy (and a bit of surprised) that critical postings are still allowed for this list. On Tue, 2011-09-06 at 22:07 -0400, John Hudak wrote: You might want to consider import/export capability for the most widely used commercial product (not sure what that is at the moment). Import/Export is fine for all free/open available formats. Unfortunately many important formats are not free, so we would have to do reverse engineering or use confidential leaked documentation. Some of us refuse to do that, including me. An example is the specctre format. You may want to consider the following as well: 1) An updated tutorial that is accurate Yes, to make simple minded people happy we need all that. Smart people seems to have not really big problems with current gEDA state. The problem with simple minded people (like me :-) ) is, that they are consumers (stupid and greedy), with no intention and skills to really contribute. And they do not understand or care about the difference between free speech and free beer. Many of your points are easily to fix even for people with no programming skills, ie. writing new, really fine documentation. But it is hard, boring work, so I do understand that the developers prefer coding. DJ has done it very well with his [2]http://www.delorie.com/pcb/docs/gs/gs.html -- unfortunately some beginners miss that
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On 09/07/2011 09:48 AM, Peter Clifton wrote: I had wondered if part of the reasoning might be that KiCad feels a lot more local to them. (KiCad being a French originated project - CERN being on the French / Swiss border.) That is one thing. Also they stated their wants as integrated printed circuit board layout and valued not having anything else except maybe simulation hooks. I bet gEDA seems too complicated. The main thing was probably they asked me to be their gEDA rep. because I was a list member of upda...@lists.openhardwaresummit.org and I said too busy, I'll ask the core developers. I don't remember anyone getting excited or involved, so they figured not enough cooperation/interest. JG ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
John Griessen wrote: I bet gEDA seems too complicated. I bet not :-) CERN software engeneers don't fear complexity -- not under the hood, nor on the interface. They strive for elegance and excellent results instead. See the structure and the UI of paw, or root. The main thing was probably they asked me to be their gEDA rep. because I was a list member of upda...@lists.openhardwaresummit.org and I said too busy, I'll ask the core developers. I don't remember anyone getting excited or involved, so they figured not enough cooperation/interest. Yes. There was a significant difference to be felt on the mailing list. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Today, I received an announcement from the CERN people. Key statement was: /- We had a meeting at CERN on Friday and decided we would start contributing to the Kicad project in view of taking it to a level of quality and features suitable for our PCB design activities. \- Reason given: /- (...) the feeling that Kicad looks more like what we have in mind for our future PCB work and that we feel more capable of making important contributions to it. \- sad. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
sad. Which part? The part where CERN found an open source app they liked, or the part where they're going to contribute to OSS? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On Tue, 2011-09-06 at 20:37 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote: sad. Which part? The part where CERN found an open source app they liked, or the part where they're going to contribute to OSS? Sounds like a few spare cycles working on KiCad file-format import / export for our tools might be a wise move if we want them to reconsider after they have tried KiCAD. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
Sounds like a few spare cycles working on KiCad file-format import / export for our tools might be a wise move if we want them to reconsider after they have tried KiCAD. Has anyone compared their file capabilities with ours? It may be that we need to make pcb's format more flexible if we want to import their files, if they support features that we don't. Likewise, if we support features they don't, export might be tricky. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
DJ Delorie wrote: Which part? The part where geda is falling behind in visibility, user base, developer base and as a consequence in quality. The part where CERN found an open source app they liked, They did not seem to like any of the two candidates in the shape it is now. or the part where they're going to contribute to OSS? CERN is well known for their contribution to open sourced software. cernlib, paw, root are all GPLed to name just the big ones. They have like 40 packages in debian attributed to them. And of course CERN people literally invented the world wide web and gave it to the world to share. They even make their linux distribution available to all (scientific linux) A common denominator of CERN developed software is the tendency to do things right in the first place. Less eye candy, more efficiency and elegant structure. Try root and you know what I mean. And they tend to have a long breath. IMHO, this CERN style would have been a good match for geda. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: CERN goes for KiCAD
On 09/06/2011 05:20 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: We had a meeting at CERN on Friday and decided we would start contributing to the Kicad project in view of taking it to a level of quality and features suitable for our PCB design activities. They had said that at the start, really. No surprise. John -- Ecosensory ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
