Author Topic: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W  (Read 24639 times)

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Offline ehughes

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #25 on: June 19, 2015, 09:23:59 pm »
Another big reasons is that Kicad is not compatible with itself.    In additional to stable releases,  they have no formalized file structure.   The *interface* is not versioned.    I did a (paid) design review)last year...    I was told to just grab KiCAD. I got what was on the website.  Horrible crash.   They said "oh,  we are using build XXXX,  just spend some time getting the build system going...."

a couple hours later....  Files still didn't open...

"Oh BTW, we applied this patch...   Rebuild again"
     
After several hours, I had to explain to the customer that they essentially paid me for KiCad.      I wanted pdfs but the prints it were making were garbled....

Using kicad as a "tool" is like going to the hardware store to buy a hammer....  Then they tell you "Here is a crucible.   Go to the local foundry with this fixture.   They will pour the steel into your crucible and then you can use these fixtures to build your hammer.  By the way, you will need to chop your own tree for the handle".

Sorry, but until this is fixed KiCAD is a hobby project for those who have lots of time to burn.    There are too many barriers to use in a workflow where you need to actually get things done.

At least the other tools have working copy/paste.....

As far as CERN is concerned.....    All of the real development is done with Altium Designer.   I think it was the bidding of a "purest" in the group.

There is no way a billion dollar particular accelerator is going to get held up because some money wasn't spent on real design tools.   No one with their head screwed on straight would consider KiCad a value proposition.




 

Offline c4757p

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #26 on: June 19, 2015, 09:28:24 pm »
Other than one (rather embarrassing) bug I can remember, which was fixed quite quickly, I don't remember it ever having trouble opening its own files...
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Offline rolycat

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #27 on: June 19, 2015, 10:07:31 pm »
There is no way a billion dollar particular accelerator is going to get held up because some money wasn't spent on real design tools.   No one with their head screwed on straight would consider KiCad a value proposition.

No one with their head screwed on straight would assume that CERN have any intention of adopting Kicad for critical design work in its present state of development.

They are an international scientific organisation for which openness and the sharing of knowledge is a core tenet. Unlike individual engineers, they can afford to take the long view and invest in its future.
 

Offline TabsTopic starter

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #28 on: June 19, 2015, 10:32:12 pm »
Arduino couldn't use CM because their hardware is licensed under the GPL. The GPL requires that the "source code" be made available, in this case the editable design files. If it is locked in the Altium cloud and is impossible to separate from it then they can't meet that requirement.

I'm no expert on the GPL but even the proprietary programs like eagle or Altium Designer can be used to create GPL h/w. You can freely distribute the source but you need the program to edit it. CM locks down the distribution and they can control access to the editing of the files. If this falls foul of the GPL or OSHW requirements then its just another example of how Altium has shot themselves in the foot.

The h/w community lacks the codification of the s/w world. C++ etc are very clearly defined and all you need is a text file. We have schemtics, net lists, pcb formats etc. The only standards we have on formats are output formats like gerber etc. There's an IPC standard for codifying footprints which was pushed by cadence. Altium now supports reading from this format.

Things are starting to fall into place to allow open hardware to expand in complexity - CM is basically a free version of Altium, KiCAD supports diff pair length tuning, push and shove etc. If Altium released CM in the true open sense it would end this debate from day 1. Unfortunately, Altium cant for the reasons explained above. I think the community will see past CMs superiority to KiCAD and recognise that Altium have entered this game for selfish  reasons. They dont want to get left behind by all the other vendors and they want to have their feeder tool sending customers to Altium Desinger. Both are valid reasons for developing CM. Its just that KiCAD embodies the spirit of open source better.

Again the legal grey area in the GPL is another reason for me to stick with KiCAD for my personal use and Altium Designer at work for work stuff.
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #29 on: June 19, 2015, 10:40:01 pm »
Yup, CM is definitely not GPL-compatible. Didn't even think of that.
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Offline ehughes

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #30 on: June 19, 2015, 11:56:25 pm »
A PDF schematic, gerbers and a BOM is enough to recreate a piece of hardware/modify it to your liking.

Open source hardware existed long before software.   Anyone who got electronics magazines in 70' and 80's knew this.     No one had issue that they didn't have the raw files use to draw the schematic in the magazine article.    The 'source' is design itself, not the tool to draw it.   

What if hand draw the schematic and layout the board with tape?   Do I need to send you the plans for my pen to appease the a GPL police?   Do I need to send you the the paper I used?

Even today...  Look at any good app note from linear, etc.   I could give a shit what file format they used to draw the pictures.   The fact that I have the picture of a complicated circuit is much more important than my ability to open in a particular software package.  The fact they gave the recipe that make the circuit work makes it open.   

    All of this licensing  is somewhat a joke when applied to hardware.   

I never found applying the religious views of the software community to hardware particularly useful for getting anything done.
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #31 on: June 20, 2015, 12:03:49 am »
Nobody's arguing for or against the GPL here, just that CM isn't compatible with it. Whether you like it or not, it's popular. |O
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Offline sleemanj

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #32 on: June 20, 2015, 12:11:53 am »
So my choices were:

kicad, eagle, design spark and circuit maker.


Out of interest, what caused you to not consider DipTrace?
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Offline HackedFridgeMagnet

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #33 on: June 20, 2015, 12:36:42 am »
@ehughes: sry you couldn't get Kicad working to your satisfaction. But I don't think the problem is Kicad.

Copy paste does work, I have used it many times, but is not obvious the first time you use it.

Quote
I never found applying the religious views of the software community to hardware particularly useful for getting anything done.
I'm not a big fan of reading or interpreting licences either but nonsense statements like this are not helpful.
Imo many people like, use and make OSS for many reasons and to denigrate them as being religious is rude.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #34 on: June 20, 2015, 12:44:26 am »
Sure, but the way open source software works you can't really expect the developers to adopt your point of view, or even a commercial point of view. If you want than then I'm afraid the onus is on you to make it happen.

The stuff I'm asking for is trivial and would help instill confidence in the uptake of the product IMO. It's advice, take it or leave it.

You can support something and want it to succeed, yet not actually contribute with your own effort. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Quote
Arduino couldn't use CM because their hardware is licensed under the GPL. The GPL requires that the "source code" be made available, in this case the editable design files. If it is locked in the Altium cloud and is impossible to separate from it then they can't meet that requirement. They could re-licence, but that would screw up their ecosystem.

Technical point, but ok, fine.

Quote
Even if the licence issues could be resolved, I doubt any commercial company would want to risk having their valuable designs reliant on Altium's cloud, or do their pre-announcement development work in it. Maybe they could export from another Altium product when ready, I don't know, but with CM alone it's a non-starter for a business.

I'm not saying they would or should, but if Altium were smart they want do whatever it takes to get these companies on board. That could mean adapting the product to fit the model of these companies.
Remember, CM is in beta and has not been released. That have and can change it how they offer it.

And in case I haven't been clear enough in the past, I think Altium have chosen the wrong business model for CM. They greatly risk the influential players not taking it up. And as I said in my original video 9 months ago, they need to target these influencers.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 12:53:02 am by EEVblog »
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #35 on: June 20, 2015, 02:03:52 am »

It isn't quite clear to me whether you don't think KiCAD is a "real" product just because it doesn't have a stable release that someone will support, or because it isn't fully baked yet.

There is nothing stopping someone ..

someone ... there is your problem... WHO IS 'SOMEONE' ? And don't say 'well you got the source...'
i am not a coder. i make hardware. i want to use a program that is stable, works and is powerful. not another glorified pen and paper. a program that understands diff pairs, can do push and shove in realtime, has live drc and lvs and can generate correct gerber and odb++ and has integration with suppliers and and and ...

basically : something like Orcad/Allegro , Altium or Mentor. Software with those capabilities.

good luck finding 'someone' who will write that for free...
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Online tggzzz

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #36 on: June 20, 2015, 06:48:49 am »
i am not a coder. i make hardware. i want to use a program that is stable, works and is powerful. not another glorified pen and paper. a program that understands diff pairs, can do push and shove in realtime, has live drc and lvs and can generate correct gerber and odb++ and has integration with suppliers and and and ...
I am quite prepared to concede you have very advanced requirements and expertise in the field.

A quarter of a century ago I would have agreed with that, but those are no longer "very advanced requirements", unfortunately. Consider the sub-nanosecond edge rates of modern digital ics used by amateurs, or the frequencies used by radio hams, how RF filters are constructed, or just look at the specs in consumer-grade electronics.

To me "very advanced" doesn't start until you have EM field solvers.

Comparison: the first computer I used had instruction rates in the audio band (2kHz). The first microcomputer I used had instruction rates in the MW radio band (1MHz). Thirty years ago that had risen to FM radio rates (100MHz). Now they are in the microwave bands (2GHz).
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #37 on: June 20, 2015, 08:39:01 am »
A quarter of a century ago I would have agreed with that, but those are no longer "very advanced requirements", unfortunately. Consider the sub-nanosecond edge rates of modern digital ics used by amateurs, or the frequencies used by radio hams, how RF filters are constructed, or just look at the specs in consumer-grade electronics.
To me "very advanced" doesn't start until you have EM field solvers.

I tend to agree. There is nothing stopping a midnight hobbyist these days from creating 12 layer monster motherboards with all sorts of advanced GHz level tech on it. It's an order of magnitude cheaper and more available than it was 10-15 years ago.
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #38 on: June 20, 2015, 09:21:54 am »
Alright I withdraw the words "very" and "advanced". That was more said in respect of my level anyway.  If you have those requirements then your choice is made easier and you can disregard programs that do not support them.

Fair enough. Many people don't realise just how demanding commonplace modern electronics is.

A classic example is that because their application is, say, 100kb/s or 100MHz signals then they only need 20MHz scopes and don't have to worry about inductance, capacitance and controlled impedance. But with digital electronics "the physics" doesn't care about the bit rate - it only cares about the transition time. So if that signal is driven by, say, a RPi output or a "1 gate 74 series" gate, then you have risetimes of ~1ns and so have to get decoupling and impedances right.

One way in which that manifests itself in "toy" implementations (especially with FPGAs) is that connectors have many signals and only a couple of grounds - often at the ends or even grouped together. What's needed, if you want a reliable and simple design is one ground (or Vcc) for every couple of signals. I want to debug my design, not debug someone else's poor board I've purchased - so looking at the signal:ground ratio on many cheap boards is a good way of weeding out the stuff I'm better off avoiding.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #39 on: June 20, 2015, 10:00:01 am »
A quarter of a century ago I would have agreed with that, but those are no longer "very advanced requirements", unfortunately. Consider the sub-nanosecond edge rates of modern digital ics used by amateurs, or the frequencies used by radio hams, how RF filters are constructed, or just look at the specs in consumer-grade electronics.

To me "very advanced" doesn't start until you have EM field solvers.
I tend to agree. There is nothing stopping a midnight hobbyist these days from creating 12 layer monster motherboards with all sorts of advanced GHz level tech on it. It's an order of magnitude cheaper and more available than it was 10-15 years ago.

Alright I withdraw the words "very" and "advanced". That was more said in respect of my level anyway.  If you have those requirements then your choice is made easier and you can disregard programs that do not support them.

I wouldn't. Virtually all the open hardware designs from people like Adafruit, Sparkfun Arduino are AVRs running 20Mhz. Even 84MHz Cortex M3 on Due hardly needs any of these "not advanced" features. All you really need to do is create gerbers, all the other stuff is pretty irrelevant.

AFAIK all those companies use Eagle, they could easily use Kicad if they wanted.

Out of hundreds of open designs I have seen, never seen any using 2GHz CPUs. That is just straw man stuff.

It may be a long time before any professional users should consider Kicad as an alternative, but for the typical Open Hardware, amateur/hobbyist type thing, Kicad has all the features they need.

Now, if the kicad devs could address the basic usability issues and stop borking around with it, that would be great :)
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 10:03:08 am by donotdespisethesnake »
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Offline TabsTopic starter

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #40 on: June 20, 2015, 11:31:16 am »
So my choices were:

kicad, eagle, design spark and circuit maker.


Out of interest, what caused you to not consider DipTrace?

In retrospect, I could have considered DipTrace. There wasn't anything stopping me.
If i'm honest, I went into the selection process with a biased view.
I kind of knew it was always going to be between KiCAD and Altium.
I even accepted/agreed with the CM pay to upgrade feature that Dave spoke about in the first review. I assumed if I wanted offline storage I could pay for it on a per project basis. But the cloud concept killed it for me. I also wanted to design offline and now I know you cant because of the internet connection requirement.

Altium needs to follow Daves advice and talk to all the companies that can influence open hardware community. They need to make what changes are required before they close the open beta. This is because many people may have decided not to bother with the open beta because they dont agree with the business model. If Altium make changes after closing the beta, those people wont get to try it until the official release.

My early requirements were:
  • Must be free (as cost, not liberty) and unlimited
    • If its limited then my project must fall within its limits
  • It must allow commercial use as I may want to sell the product
  • It should have an open source following as I may open source it
  • Must support diff pairs, length matching, push & shove, 3D (all the things I like about Altium)
  • Must have constraint driven design (rules, net class based rules)

It was too early to know all my technical requirements but I knew:
The biggest board would be 200x150mm, 4 layers
The most complex board would be ~10 layers at about half the size.
I hadnt captured the schematic so I didnt know the number of nets or drills so was a bit wary of tools that placed limits on these items.

I also investigated the software requirements and this made add native Linux support to the requirements list as a nice to have.
The project requires development for an ARM device and I read that ARM development with GCC compiler can be done under windows but was best in linux. This also made sense strategically because I'm not a s/w guy. I can do the basics but would need to open source the s/w if ever i wanted to push the product and make something thats actually useful.

Altium CM (what little I knew of it at the time) & KiCAD established themselves as front runners,
Unfortunately Altium CM wasnt ready and I had concerns about it.

My complete tool set is:
Ubuntu Linux + Xilinx Vivado & XSDK + KiCAD + FreeCAD (for 3D modelling).

 

Offline zapta

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #41 on: June 20, 2015, 01:48:41 pm »
Eagle will remain popular whilst a few major OSHW players support it. The likes of Arduino, Sparkfun, Adafruit etc.
If Altium were smart they would approach a handful of these companies and give them a hand to switch. But Altium isn't that smart.

These companies will not go with a windows only solution, even if Altium will fix the locked cloud issue.

A good product starts with good understanding of the target market and it's needs. CM started with a pile of code that has to be reused somehow without cannibalizing an existing revenue stream. That's a frustrating experience to everybody involved.

Kicad is moving very fast threes days which is very encouraging.
 

Offline djsb

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #42 on: June 20, 2015, 05:11:34 pm »
Release candidate 1 planned for start of July and stable release by the end of July. Looks like it will be called version 4.0 (or something like that). A request has gone out for an update to the official website and the inclusion of screenshots etc. Can't really say any more as that's all I know. I'm on the developers mailing list so I get all the news as it happens. Loads and loads of bugs being fixed (half my mailbox filled with bug squashing emails). New feature freeze until after stable release.
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Offline IanJ

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #43 on: June 20, 2015, 05:19:53 pm »
Hi all,

I went shopping recently for a new package having used Eagle for many years. Not necessarily looking for free, wold easily pay a few hundred.

Kicad = Got put off by the lack of download button, I couldn't believe what I was seeing....or not as the case may be. Once past that didn't like the main interface. Played around a while then parked it for now.

Circuitmaker = Was on the early beta and am impressed, but not so sure about the cloud storage etc. Yes, it's more flexible than some folks say but still!

AutoTrax DEX = Well impressed by the initial functionality so bought a license. Imports Eagle PCB files and Eagle library files....wow! However, I found a lot of glaring bugs mostly in the PCB module and wierd ways of doing things which I reported to the developer. He fixed some but then myself and some others came to blows with him in his private forums. I walked away. The developer is one helluva arrogant guy IMHO.

So, for now I am sticking with Eagle. Am stuck on Ver 6.6.0 as am not paying for the V7 update.

Ian.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 05:25:39 pm by IanJ »
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Offline ehughes

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #44 on: June 20, 2015, 06:23:31 pm »
Quote
@ehughes: sry you couldn't get Kicad working to your satisfaction. But I don't think the problem is Kicad.




It is not an issue of getting something to work.  It is the amount of time to get a minimum level of functionality.    Sorry,  but I value my time.    If I have to screw around for hours to compile a design tools before I can start working,  it is a non starter.

Most people are pragmatic and want to get work done, not fight with the tools.


Quote
Copy paste does work, I have used it many times, but is not obvious the first time you use it.

You second statement says it all.   Copy/Paste is such a fundamental idiom,  if it doesn't work out of the box in a standardized way, it is junk.   Sorry,  this applies to eagle as well.    I never met anyone who thinks "cut" means "copy"

Quote
I never found applying the religious views of the software community to hardware particularly useful for getting anything done.
I'm not a big fan of reading or interpreting licences either but nonsense statements like this are not helpful.
Imo many people like, use and make OSS for many reasons and to denigrate them as being religious is rude.
[/quote]

You missed the point.   It is not OSS software.  It is the attitude that everything through the whole chain needs to be completely "free".    That is the most unreasonable viewpoint I have ever encountered.    It parallels religious cult behavior.

There is no need to apply the GPL and OSS dogma to hardware. 
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #45 on: June 20, 2015, 06:42:09 pm »
You missed the point.   It is not OSS software.  It is the attitude that everything through the whole chain needs to be completely "free".    That is the most unreasonable viewpoint I have ever encountered.    It parallels religious cult behavior.

There is no need to apply the GPL and OSS dogma to hardware. 

Oh shut up. That's a strawman. Very few people think it "needs" to be, some of us would just like it to be. You're free to make all the proprietary, locked-down hardware and software you want.
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Offline TabsTopic starter

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #46 on: June 20, 2015, 10:09:52 pm »
I agree that as a h/w person, you shouldn't be expected to have to tweak or fix s/w.

That being said, I kind of think most people who complain about having to do this are ... somewhat making the problem for themselves.
This is purely based on my own experience of installing and working with KiCAD (or any open source software in general).

Just as the user is free to choose their update frequency, they are free to choose their install method.
Another way to say it "You're free to choose the length of rope with which to hang yourself"

If you are a Linux or s/w compilation expert and are used to compiling from source then by all means do it. heck, you can even chase down the dependencies and compile and install them.
You can tweak the compile flags to your hears content and optimise for your system. If you want.

If your not such and expert then why would you choose this option. Too many users have reported successful builds for the process to be wrong. If something did go wrong, its usually something you did.
If you get stuck, you can ask for help and you wont get criticised for your choice of installation method. Equally you shouldn't criticise a proven installation method that you do not have the technical ability to perform.

Instead, just download the pre-compiled binaries for you system.
Linux users have it easy because they can just search for it in their package manager. This usually gets you an older version of what ever the software version that your distribution checked was.
If you want the latest, bleeding edge, point your installation manager to the right location and it will bitch and moan that you're installing from a possibly unsafe source but it will install it for you.
windows users have a helper program/script; but may be a little more work. If you can't do it then your left with the old stable version and you have to wait for the next stable version ~so end of July 2015.
Just over a month from now. Too many newbies have reported successful installs this way for the process to be broken.

Btw the download link to the your final selection is one or two hyperlinks away (depending on how lazy you are) from the main KiCad page. Thats the same with Altium and eagle.
Only eagle actually says "Download".
KiCAD says "Installing KiCAD", Altium says "Free Trial" then makes you fill in some personal details, or you could go products > altium designer buts that equally obvious isnt it.

There you go, those of you who wanted a stable release cycle. At the end of July, you can install the new stable version. You will have caught up to what the daily build guys have been running. But that was your choice.
You chose to wait until that time, so you shouldn't complain about it being buggy if you're on an old version. That's true of any software regardless of it being open or not. 
Its kind of like complaining about a bug in Altium 10 that was fixed in the next version, but you still complain even though we're at v15.
You chose not to purchase the new version or to let your subscription pass. That's the nature of Altiums business model.

Of course, once you have your working s/w you still have to waste time getting over its learning curve.
So those of you who are just h/w and only want to get on with work may not like it because you'll probably be complaining that its not like Altium/Eagle/OrCad or whatever you're used to.
You have to at least spend some time getting to grips with the way the tool works. That includes the fundamentals like copy/paste.

On windows its Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V,
and apple is CMD+C, CMD+V
because the V makes sense (in Latin... because that's a standard language :-DD)

In KiCAD schematic its Ctrl+C , mouse click the paste button on the toolbar. You can also drag select and right click -> copy. You don't care that Ctrl+C is actually called 'save block' because it does the same thing as far as your concerned.
Except, the two are subtly different and you can use them differently and become more efficient. (Granted, if efficiency was a concern you wouldn't be using KiCAD - but that will get better).
In PCB its Ctrl+D. Its the disjointed nature of KiCAD. [That being said, Altium has legacy stuff like this eg p,t in sch and pcb does text and trace]

The differences are not rocket science. They're just different. If you can learn Altium shortcuts, then you can learn any programs shortcuts.
My opinion is that these trivial things shouldn't be the make or break factor in choosing any software.
Especially if the users of such software are meant to be technically capable people (more so than average joe blogs)
Fixing them will go a long way to making the software appealing, but the software is more than usable now.


 

Offline TabsTopic starter

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #47 on: June 21, 2015, 11:28:14 am »
Whats the work around?

Multiple accounts, virtual server on your local machine?
Why would someone want the workaround for CM?

Like Mojo-Chan already said, Such people will probably just run a cracked AD15.

Dave - why did you get banned from the AD forum? (hope you don't mind me asking).
I'm assuming it wasn't something personal and that your no holes barred "tell it like it is" attitude pissed someone off that was powerful enough to ban you.

I'm sure CM would have a "good behaviour" rule or other stuff like that for member ship to the forum (and therefore the use of CM).
Would a user be under the threat of being cut off from their work because they simply expressed an opinion that annoyed someone?
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #48 on: June 21, 2015, 12:57:34 pm »
Dave - why did you get banned from the AD forum? (hope you don't mind me asking).

I said some things they didn't like, they bleated about confidentiality agreement  :blah: and they accused me of promoting my blog by posting some of my content in response to specific questions that I happened to have answers for.
Like I needed to promote my blog that even then was getting more new subscribers per day than they had active forum users  ::)
They also threatened me with legal action if I continued to use Altium in the domain name of a new community forum I setup when the Altium forum went to shit when they changed to Morfik and they started banning everyone who complained about anything.

I see they continue to get about a handful of posts a day to their forum  :-DD

Quote
I'm sure CM would have a "good behaviour" rule or other stuff like that for member ship to the forum (and therefore the use of CM).
Would a user be under the threat of being cut off from their work because they simply expressed an opinion that annoyed someone?

Yep, they banned quite a few big long standing forum contributors IIRC.
 

Offline TabsTopic starter

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Re: So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W
« Reply #49 on: June 21, 2015, 10:50:27 pm »
Whilst I commend Altium for including so many great features in CM I have to put them down for their execution/packaging.
It's just another classic Altium shoot yourself in the foot business model.

I know everyone wants them to make it offline editable with private files as well, but like its been said before, I doubt they will do this.
The entire product line pricing seems to be totally messed up now. [UK pricing as follows]
Free CM
~£2000 for CS (you get private file storage for your money)
~£10,000 for AD (used to to be ~4k - 5k) [you get productivity upgrade like shortcuts for you money + all the FPGA & embedded crap that no one uses]

Even if Altium did somehow grant our wish, I now believe they need to go further.
Actually, saying that, I think I will argue they need to focus more on the execution/packaging of the model rather than focus on the technical capabilities.

If they were to move away from their centralised locked down type ecosystem for CM and to one that was more distributed, it would go a long way to alleviate
the concerns of the open community.
They need to give up on the idea of a central cloud based thing and let people host their own content (libraries, projects etc) and let people subscribe to each other.
They could still keep a proprietary format that only CM knew how to read but at least this way other people could keep the distributed cloud alive if Altium did a 180.
The same goes for the forum (or at least remove the dependence on needing to be logged in to the forum/community). So long as they control this side of things its
going to be more of a dictatorship than a free community.

For now though, I wouldn't recommend CM to people who have something in place already (especially for GPL or OSHW). I wouldn't even recommend it to people to who don't care what happens
to their designs (these type of people mostly care that their designs are out there for others to use as they want for as long as they want).
For people who have yet to choose, I would recommend KiCAD (especially in about a year or so) - The schedule roadmap is to work on the interface after this next stable
build is released (so new commers will still have to overcome the frustration of KiCAD as it is now). If you're in it for the long haul, KiCAD is definitely the right choice.
 


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