Free Unlimited Version of AutoTRAX PCB Design Software

[firewalker]

This message was changed, I saw Autodex instead. Direct Quoting does not show the message was edited. So I copied and pasted it.

Yes, Iliya asked me to change it. So I did. I added the word KiCad. Nothing more, nothing less.

Alexander.

[Wilksey]

I am a bit baffled why certain users are defending Ilya as he has proven himself time and time again to be unwilling to show any kind of gratitude to people who point out flaws in his software and are actually trying to help him create a better product, he clearly does not want to be told the truth and buries his head and spews illiterate ramblings about a trojan horse, not all byte patchers embed trojans or viruses into their modifications, trust me I know!

The point that people are so upset about is the fact he posted someone's personal details, whether firewalker gave him the correct information or not, the intention was there to post that users information without a second thought, and for what reason? A "threat" to post a link to a free legitimate version of software offered by the author not so long ago.

I'm sorry to those that disagree, but Ilya's ban was a long time coming and good riddance to the nuisance!

[timofonic]

Obviously the situation was flaming.

IIliya has quite conservative ideas and has even more social awkwardness than me, but I somehow try to control my stupidity and learn from my tons of constant errors (so someday I'll be a behavioral expert!). I'm far for perfect on it, but I'm able to accept critics and try it harder next time!

People made fun of his attitude, with lack of reading between lines and unable to empathy to others. He was unable to put in shoes off others and understand users' needs too.

I see this served to know DEX developer even more and a somehow interesting cybersocial experience, but a flame thread was created.

Some people got too emotional and somehow they behaved a bit like the "bad guy" here (the DEX developer), without control themselves avoiding the use of strong words instead of only using strong and well reasoned arguments, which have been used too but lacked a more polite form. I know it's hard to do, I'm quite impulsive and emotional sometimes too, but emotional self-control can avoid so much conflicts and damages.

I suggest to use the advantages of written words in a non realtime communication method: Read it twice, think about what can happen after your message and if your contribution is useful or just a way to get out your bad mood from your mind.

I know this may sound as typical political correct shit here that even Linus Torvalds was blamed because of it (but he's somehow polite, just demanding and having a strong attitude with bad done stuff from skilled developers because of laziness or shit like Nvidia and propietary software drivers), but here it is:

- There have been KiCad developers or collaborators involved in the discussion, this isn't good for the project or attracting users, even worse if they became part of a heated discussion. Please consider it, you are having a great responsability as being part of this _promising project_ and a really good and healthy FOSS EDA project is something very needed in this industry for tons of reasons (kill oligopolies and making Open Hardware concept easier to realize are just two of tons more of them)

- I understand you can become extremely annoying if someone published your full name and address here on the Internet, there's no excuse for that at all. Despite he "stole" software (that's assuming a intellectual work can become a property, that violates physics laws and is a very artificial limit that seems to be not positive for progress, that's because copyleft was born), which he didn't and just was a bit "trollish" because wanted to make fun of that developer's attitude. There's have been provocation involved, but the developer acted in a very irresponsible and illegal way so it should be very hardly punished (he deserves it even in legal form too).

- It's a shame skilled developers wastes resources on this kind of useless and destructive flamebaits and uses this time on other stuff such as development or user feedback instead. I'm referring to both KiCad developers and to the DEX developer.



------
DEX developer is a very small fish on the big sea of EDA, but he acted worse than many giant fishes out there.

This is one of the reasons I prefer Free Software:

Good managed FOSS projects will finally end becoming successful and getting better at many more areas than proprietary ones. They aren't just better at respecting user freedom (that's important), but they're a lot better at receiving user feedback too.
------

In an ideal world:
- IIliya would think very deeply for weeks about his attitudes and even consult good mental health professionals. I think this could be good for everyone out there, but the big issues are able to find good ones and able to afford one if your country's mental health public mental care sucks (that's very common). He would fix his issues and apologize for them.
- The rest would give apologies for contribute to the flame with someone that has obvious social issues and forgive him. And even consult mental health professionals for anger management and other issues, like I did.
- Illya and other developers would become a prolific KiCad developer and get good incomes for a living by a bounty system, this would be followed by many other previous proprietary EDA developers. They would reimplement good ideas of his previous software and even be logical and reasonable about other's feedback, plus new ones or useful ideas from others.
- Everyone would be happy and most electronics geeks in the world would use KiCad, develop our own electric cars and make all kind of Open Hardware with our very inexpensive but really good OSHW 3D printers.
- World peace would be achieved.
- People would instantly learning all about EE, CS and other knowledge+skills by downloading it to our brains in minutes. This would be achieved by using new Dave's Open Hardware, BrainPlug, plus with tons of copyleft work  processed by Open Source advanced AI and many copyleft mind uploads.
- We would colonize space in a peaceful, progressively social and knowledge promoting way, as in the Star Trek stories. Dave would be one of the commanders.
(Note to people: This  last part has many ironic stuff. If your brain is unable to detect it, please consult a mental health professional if you didn't it before).

[c4757p]

Highly offensive? Iliya shared a customer's private information that was given to him with trust. That's slimy and disgusting and I told him so. Then he lied and I told him he was a liar. Profane? Sure. I was angry at him. I was stunned that he did something so wrong and so stupid. No, I don't normally talk like that. But I fail to see how it was "highly offensive". Iliya demonstrated himself very clearly here to be a piece of shit.

You just did it again.
I had to delete one of your posts. Don't make me have to do it again, because if the moderators have to hit the delete button too many times on a particular user, the next button hit is the ban button.
Play nice.

erm, I just did it again? One single usage of "shit"? I agree that prior postings of mine in this thread were a bit over the top, but again? With a single "shit"? Come on Dave, that's like every second word out of your mouth.


Circuiteromalaguito: I pretty much agree with everything you said.

[timofonic]

Highly offensive? Iliya shared a customer's private information that was given to him with trust. That's slimy and disgusting and I told him so. Then he lied and I told him he was a liar. Profane? Sure. I was angry at him. I was stunned that he did something so wrong and so stupid. No, I don't normally talk like that. But I fail to see how it was "highly offensive". Iliya demonstrated himself very clearly here to be a piece of shit.

You just did it again.
I had to delete one of your posts. Don't make me have to do it again, because if the moderators have to hit the delete button too many times on a particular user, the next button hit is the ban button.
Play nice.

erm, I just did it again? One single usage of "shit"? I agree that prior postings of mine in this thread were a bit over the top, but again? With a single "shit"? Come on Dave, that's like every second word out of your mouth.


Circuiteromalaguito: I pretty much agree with everything you said.

Okay. So let's stop this SHIT and let the fun continue again.

Peace, bro!

[c4757p]

Peace, dude. O0

[firewalker]

 

[CatalinaWOW]

I have tried to control myself, but must respond.

We have here a extremely talented software developer with extremely poor social skills.  (That seems strangely unsurprising, doesn't it?).  He has developed a useful, but flawed piece of software.  One that I personally like better than the other options in its price range.  Maybe I can learn to like KiCAD, but that's not where I am right now.

What has our respond been?  To push all the buttons on this geeky nerd, and then punish him for his responses and tar the software he has developed.  Were his responses way out of line and out of proportion to the provocation.  Of course they were.  Refer to the first sentence of the above paragraph.  Have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?  Possibly, but then that doesn't matter when you can chalk up a victory in a flame war does it?

A fine demonstration of evolved social skills.  Perhaps we should go find some greek letters and call ourselves a fraternity.

[miguelvp]

I agree with CatalinaWOW, that's why I felt I had to respond in the moderation report thread.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/moderation-reports/msg726962/#msg726962

I for one, I'm not celebrating the end result.

[PA0PBZ]

I reported this thread to the moderators around the 5th with the suggestion to close it because I saw this coming, unfortunately no action was taken.

[0xdeadbeef]

Well, we all learned to swallow our pride and sometimes be rather polite than to tell everybody how stupid they are. Ilya obviously didn't. And honestly it's about time for him to learn. There's no way he'll ever be a successful entrepreneur if he's behaving like that. While I wouldn't suspect him to change his ways after being banned, there's maybe a slight chance he'll realize that his kind of attitude and way of dealing with potential or existing customers is hurting himself.
Which would he really desirable as there's surely potential in his software. At this point, I still find it unusable for me, but he sure has the ability to make it a decent EDA tool. It surely wouldn't hurt though if he'd find a way to improve his way of public relations and customer support.

[Bud]

I agree with CatalinaWOW

I do not, because the guy did not seem to understand where to stop. He continued fueling the fire instead.

[ez24]

I for one, I'm not celebrating the end result.

me too

Is there another alternative to this kind of thing (a ban)?   Like a suspension?  I think all three should have been suspended for a month.   They really goated Iliya and if I remember right the "s" word was not the only slang used, there was some rather rude language and things used against Iliya, like I have never seen before on a forum (only in a bar fight).  All parties should have been locked up.

Loosing a developer of a useful (or maybe useful) software is not a good thing no matter what happened.

My suggestion to Iliya is hire a salesman (could be a student intern) and let him come to this forum, it would be a good experience for a student.

  Iliya RIP       

[c4757p]

Losing a businessman who cannot be trusted with his customers' private data is always a good thing. Like I said, I regret the inflammatory way in which I chose to say some things, but I stand by the meaning behind them (and every last bit of offense that they delivered directly to him, he deserved it. The rest of the forum did not, however). He is an unethical businessman and a liar. Good riddance, hopefully forever.

[nctnico]

OTOH Iliya has been warned many times to act more professional many times so people can help him improve his software. Sometimes things are just not meant to be.

[ez24]

Kinda off subject but I think I saw it here a few posts back

 O0

Afro -  what does this mean?  Is it a retro 70s thing ?  I just wish I had one (I am bald).

[c4757p]

I'll be completely honest, I have no idea what it's supposed to 'mean'. But sometimes, it just feels appropriate. O0

[Wytnucls]

I only have good things to say about Ilyia. I am grateful that he made his PCB application available for free for a while to hobbyists like me, who have no interest in purchasing expensive professional programs to produce one board as a learning experiment.
Unlike most here, I did take the time to learn how to use DEX and in the enjoyable process, had a fair amount of interaction with its developer. Exchanges were always courteous and solutions to problems were offered within days, if not hours.
It is sad that he is not present here anymore, but all is not lost as the software development will continue and for those who bought the program, his support is still available on the AutoTRAX site.
 

[ozwolf]

I only have good things to say about Ilyia. I am grateful that he made his PCB application available for free for a while to hobbyists like me, who have no interest in purchasing expensive professional programs to produce one board as a learning experiment.
Unlike most here, I did take the time to learn how to use DEX and in the enjoyable process, had a fair amount of interaction with its developer. Exchanges were always courteous and solutions to problems were offered within days, if not hours.
It is sad that he is not present here anymore, but all is not lost as the software development will continue and for those who bought the program, his support is still available on the AutoTRAX site.

+1

[pickle9000]

Ilyia did good by me. I purchased the program to try out out on a few small jobs and had no real learning curve. The software itself seems very solid and for small one offs it fit's the bill.

On the service side. He implemented a program change and had it up and running within 48 hours. The beauty of a one man show is being able to do that sort of thing. No complaints there.

I have read the thread and basically it's a train wreck. No winners. This will do damage to his product, mainly because of the willingness of others to criticize the software and thus make it better. I would like to see the software survive and improve.   

[firewalker]

AutoTRAX version 6 is no longer free.

You can download version 5 from http://kov.com/DexDownloads/DEX_NonCommercial.exe
This is the last version that is free for non-commercial use. If you use this and do not wish it to update to version 6 simply click no. You will now be asked again. So keep of copy of this.

Version 6 loads up a lot faster than 5 versions and contains over 3000 modifications/improvements to the code base.

Unlike other EDA programs, DEX has just one simple to understand price for use. Although it is not free, the ridiculously low price of $49 is extremely good value for what you get and it goes to fund new development.

I apologize if this is upsetting, but I do have to eat and fund development.

Thanks to all who has contributed valuable feedback and suggestions, yes, even to free-electron.

Regards
Iliya Kovac

I was sure I had downloaded the free version by single clicking a link on this forum! And guess what... It is still available for download. 

Alexander.

[Wilksey]

Maybe he is still "active" as the link 404's

[firewalker]

Yep, it's dead now.

Alexander.

[Deathwish]

The chances are he is reading this anyway, it only takes a throw away email to register and a proxy to come through.

[firewalker]

Proxy? The ISPs in UK use static IPs?

Alexander.