X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at gag.com From: Bdale Garbee To: Stefan Salewski , geda-user AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: developer excitement? was Re: [geda-user] gEDA/gschem still alive? In-Reply-To: <1436400557.676.46.camel@ssalewski.de> References: <1436400557 DOT 676 DOT 46 DOT camel AT ssalewski DOT de> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.20.2 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.5.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 09:30:01 -0600 Message-ID: <87y4ip1h8m.fsf@rover.gag.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Stefan Salewski writes: > Generally activity in Free Open Source seems to shrink since a few > years I don't see that at all. Quite the contrary. While it is true that there has been an exponential increase in the amount of corporately sponsored "open source" activity that has a somewhat different character than traditional "free software" work, there's still growth in the latter. There's massive growth in the hobby side of open hardware, where a "just give it all away" mentality is in full force for both hardware and software. Not quite what my old-school, "motivations matter" and "it's all about freedom" self would most like. But certainly not something to get depressed about! > For most people cheap is good enough Sad, but true. I personally see quite a bit more interest in KiCAD with the new/impending/whatever release, though. They're moving fast and are likely to suck in more of the Eagle crowd over time, I think? > I have learned in the last years that people really hate GTK. Yes. > But generally, EDA development is not that hard today. With a fine > language, a fine GUI and good libraries a good EDA tool set can be > developed in only a few thousend hours I guess. GUI may be the main > problem, GTK is only accepted for Linux/Unix today. Native Mac or > Windows GUI maybe instead? Or Android, HTML5? Keith and I eventually realized that Java really is the best available answer for "desktop" UI development, which is why all our ground station software is written in Java. Since source tree hosted on Debian that we can deliver objects for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android from. There are always things to complain about, but it works out *really* well. For the curious, you can learn more here: http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS http://altusmetrum.org/AltosDroid/ To the larger problem, I personally find that I'm just too busy *using* gEDA tools to spend much time working on them. Every product from Altus Metrum was designed and manufactured using a gschem->pcb workflow, we've shipped thousands of board sets, and are now a profitable small open hardware business. Pretty cool! You can find all of our published designs on git.gag.com in the various hw/ repositories. Our "shared library" of schematic symbols and pcb footprints used by almost everything else is in the hw/altusmetrum repo. Keith did write a tiny bit of code to shrink pads so that we could be more successful using a hobby-grade cutter to make paste stencils that I don't think has ever gotten merged, but we use it routinely with great results.=20 Bdale --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIVAwUBVZ6TejqTYZbAldlBAQpQFQ//Y/H7WNmyQkDeLJCEz7WJTyOWM2cHDsfD M4/Dg/tsw8CkA5o1ra5+71O0380MMcfaP9fEuZUL83sTXJLZkDbSfhCMS3n5TJ+T 95dHff5EAqdbCvTKtleEzRkPzwMut/zij4hC5jblWNDMELERwErH4hOwU2LVxA2O HzrZmNEtEfNtM1oPTGiZpVtxXTxF/Oh1W0a3HuqubnB3yGqG9NUCbZlG9SLK7d84 zY3COkpRGbS2h/hiyIA6hXAVA/Fj4rHVOoS3XbtZm/EqOWlh2UEP9gfwPyeqWg8M lXlhj/Iqc3GooTRf+dVC4oQb8EvPKzqlk2HLT1qMrBqVrmz3qr6NdXS0IQuqJX1W 0B36CvhwSiUXD3w3zTuVv19iGuAEMkO+ZLzC+KWzoRwB8vKLqFMSOzBgAAGNMtKN stpZNhiRezkHnI9RGID5FCelSwp2i4SU5iwWpmaei0oDSnPvjTDrCsw4H/f4pQQg sWuil/yjtcIQkqOTA+JyCnf0dEzG13usrM/xNSYgjfL+aIxRzFulwppjQug1+v36 vbOgcSmTPn4wdveItSlEwKAPzSQZZ2W4fX8GYcQUvr3Aho9WppTgFl1EDC0/ae28 MUW5pQsHZeVVUsLXMG3IISJDs19o8uIpAlS/RJ5kD8bx2nhnKnf8pxOsijYYQDSy pfIXl1GvS9o= =TJbK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--