Assume you have a symbol whic= h includes a link to a PDF Datasheet.
The link may change.

Yes.=A0 Offensively.
Assume y= ou have a symbol which was included in many your schemas from CVS. Example = capacitor or other usable for you.

Througth time autor change= pin length and make this less.

All schemas in you archive is broken.

Yes, they can generate trouble:
1. When you have an untrusted source

Yes. Example gedasym= bols.

(for this prob= lem you should make a
local backup copy.)

If insert symbol from local copy = to schemas always, how to detect source change. Before placing perform diff command?<= br>

If ins= ert from changeable, and make backup after, this similar my propose.

=A0

2. When there exist different sources with the same name. For this case
you can insert more data into the symbol, i.e. authors name and version
number.

That is, all versions must be kept, even when they are o= utdated....
That is,= project developers must ha= ve a centralized repository= of characters.

My feeling is, that in the academic world references are the way of
choice. In your master or PhD thesis you generally give references to
the books and papers you have used, you do not provide a full copy.
=A0Yes. But sources papers cannot be changed.

Or do you copy articles from Wikipedia to your local computer? I think not
in general case -- but there may be exceptions, i.e. if that article es
very important or you have no online access for a while.

Wikipedia is bad example for scientists article.

Long time ago I suggested that gschem should store a checksum for each
referenced symbol, so changes of that symbol can be detected. I still
think that that is a good idea. Further gschem could save some fields,
i.e. author and version. So if it becomes unclear which symbol the
schematic is referencing, there is some information available to decide.

I open file from gschem. Gschem sees that = the checksum is incorrect. =

What gschem should = make?

I agree that for some cases copies of symbols are preferable. Some
people like self-contained documents

Self-contained docume= nts more relaible versus referable.

Reliability that you should strive.<= /span>
Reliability are not redundant.
=
In some cases, it more conveniently.<= br>Imagine I want to send <= span class=3D"">the scheme to another developer to edit or cut of part of this or simple = view.
I send him a circuit file and say: this symbol take from Stefan<= /span>, this from Kar= l, at this from DJ Delorie, and the rest<= /span> from I send in archive.
:)))