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Date:	Sun, 3 Aug 2014 17:21:19 -0700
From:	Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo_bernardo AT yahoo DOT com>
Subject:	Re: [geda-user] How it may work some day...
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----- Original Message -----

> From: Dave McGuire <mcguire AT neurotica DOT com>
> To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
> Cc: 
> Sent: Monday, August 4, 2014 2:33 AM
> Subject: Re: [geda-user] How it may work some day...
> 
> On 08/03/2014 08:58 AM, Stefan Salewski wrote:
> 
>>  Yesterday I wrote some minimal description of the intended behaviour of
>>  my gschem clone, see
>> 
>>  http://www.ssalewski.de/PetEd.html.en
>> 
>>  In first line this is for myself -- to motivate me to continue the
>>  cleanup process and to ensure that my cleanups will not change the
>>  intended behaviour...
>> 
>>  Recently someone pointed me to one of these commercial Web-based editors
>>  -- this one is from Digikey called SchemeIt, see link at bottom of my
>>  page. I can remember I have tested a similar tool about one year ago for
>>  a few seconds -- looked not really bad. Some people say that this kind
>>  of Web-based tools is the future -- is someone really using it?
>> 
>>  And schematics and PCB layout on smartphone and tablets -- I can
>>  remember that some people said that that is the future. I still can not
>>  really imagine how this should work, and I have not seen such Apps yet.
>>  Is someone using it, and is it really the future? Or is someone of you
>>  already working on such an App?
> 
>   I can't imagine it either.
> 
>   But keep in mind one important concept, one which most people seem to
> have forgotten: We are not all just "passengers" in stuff like this.  
> We
> are steering where this stuff is going, these use cases and work
> methodologies.  We don't have to just "follow along" with 
> "what everyone
> else is doing", because what happens if everyone just does that?  Nobody
> steers, much to the delight of salesmen everywhere.
> 
>   A very bad side-effect of nobody steering is that SOMEONE will notice
> this and start taking advantage of the situation.  That's usually
> salespeople and suits, and they usually gravitate toward creating vendor
> lock-in situations.  That's what's going to happen with these silly
> "web-based design" tools.  Sure, they'll say "Oh, your data 
> is safe, you
> can download it!"  ...but nobody actually WILL, and when those companies
> close up shop, or someone in China starts selling a board that looks
> suspiciously like yours, you're S-O-L.
> 
>   So, don't worry about what "is the future".  Decide what works 
> best,
> using your wisdom and experience, and DO it, and don't let some salesman
> tell you otherwise.  Smart people will likely independently converge on
> related (if not actually similar) solutions, and dumb people,
> well...they can pay us for our advice.
> 
>                  -Dave
> 


We already see vendor lock-in with software like "DesignSpark" and with
many of the web-based services. The odd web service will publish their
file format so you at least have some hope of writing a translator if
their software becomes unavailable, but is that software really so good
that you'd give up using your free software which you have control over?
In addition to that, there is no guarantee that a web service will continue
to publish their file format in the future, so you can't really trust
any mention of guarantees unless there is a reliable third party involved.

I think you can do ECAD on your phone when your phone has an 800mm screen.
I know some people have tried to compile kicad for an ARM/Android system
and I think if people want to do that, it's fine as long as they use their
own time and they don't break the code or make it unmaintainable. (Remember
the Linux ARM wars?) Ultimately it is the users who contribute to the code
development who drive how things change. If someone gets gEda running on
a tablet I'll think "oh, that's interesting" but I doubt I'd take such an
effort seriously.

- Cirilo

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