So, What's the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W

[Tabs]

Hi all,

I started a H/W project a few months ago and was trying to select a CAD tool to implement the PCB in.

I considered making it open source but never made a decision (still haven't) but didn't want my tool selection to hinder open sourcifying the project in the future.

I use Altium at work but it was too expensive. So my choices were:

kicad, eagle, design spark and circuit maker.

I rejected eagle (even though it seems to be the current standard for open source) because I feel the writing is on the wall for eagle. Having seen Daves CM review I believe this even more.
Between Farnell jumping in bed with Altium wrt circuit studio and Altium releasing circuit maker I don't see future funding for eagle to develop.
Infact, now that circuit studio pricing is available, I might have to eat my words. I agree with Dave, the pricing is way off the mark and eagle users have no reason to jump to circuit studio.
They do, however, have every reason to jump to circuit maker. Especially if they used eagle for open source h/w. In any case, eagle's still stuck between a rock and a hard place (business/funding wise)

Since circuit maker wasn't in open beta at the time i started my project, I made the decision to use kicad. I didn't choose circuit studio because - why waste my money, when I can waste my time with KiCAD.

Saying KiCad does everything a PCB designer needs is a bit like saying "some transparent overhead projector film and a black sharpie does everything a PCB designer needs"
yeah, sure you could design a 10 layer board with DDR3, PCIe and a truck load of other high speed interfaces, but would you? You'd need a stupid amount of time and infinite patience.
A bit like KiCAD then isn't it? 

The worst part of learning KiCAD was trying to figure out why my keyboard at work wasn't working the way it usually does with Altium.
Its only then, you realise your finely honed muscle memory of Altium shortcuts has been replaced by KiCAD shortcuts. 

Eventually KiCAD grew on me and I can now separate it from Altium at work. I actually like it.

After watching the review I found myself considering implementing the next two boards of my project in CM and moving the first from KiCAD to CM.

I decided to stick with KiCAD.

For me, CM in the cloud (Altiums cloud) is a bit risky. I'm not comfortable with the idea of Altium being able to lock me out if everything goes the way of the dodo.
Also, since my project is split over multiple PCBs (each PCB being considered as its own project in Altium) I would be over the CM limit of two private projects (assuming it works like Altium)
I know, I know, I haven't gone open source but I may in the future.

I think I secretly like the idea behind open source h/w. A rather romantic notion. Brings a tear to the eye as Dave says.

So for me, I'm hedging my bets towards KiCAD.
I use it with the daily updates automatically applied. Aside from frequent git library issues (now solved with a setting on my side), everything seems to run fine.

So what's your take?

Regards
Tabs

[EEVblog]

I've said it before, KiCAD will never become a standard until it has a stable release and looks like a real product that someone has responsibility for. None of this daily build rubbish.
But that's pretty close I believe.
The problem is Altium, are, well, Altium, and they always "almost" get it right whilst shooting themselves in the foot.
I also said this before, Altium (and CircuitMaker) could win the entire OSHW industry within months, bury eagle, bury KiCAD, and any other competitor, all they have to do is get the balance right 

[c4757p]

Altium will never "bury" KiCad, there'll always be some demand for an open solution, even if not much. Lots of commercial products with very good and affordable offerings have still not managed to "bury" their FOSS competitors.

Also - stable release coming soon, keep your pants on... O0

[EEVblog]

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.

I'm not a linux software geek, so any program that I have to download a "daily" build of gives me the heebie-jeebies. It gave me the hibbie-jeebies when I worked at Altium and it was company policy to use the daily builds. Heck, the hardware team I was in had to settle on and use a "known build" on the side we could trust just to get some real work done.
Last time I looked at KiCAD it wasn't easy to even download a compiled installable version, it was just on some guys personal website.
Sorry, but if you want a program to become an defacto industry standard, that just doesn't cut it, at least not for me.
I know this has changed a bit recently and is changing very quickly.

Dave. I think I'd be more interested in seeing you do a small project with KiCAD than with CM. But it would be good to see you do one with either (or both for comparison). Something needs to happen to drive change in the OSHW community. You are in a unique position to influence change considering your PCB design expertise and your established audience.

Yes, and I won't be committing to KiCAD until such time as it looks and feels like it's a real product that has a stable build that everyone gets behind, and it looks like it's a project that's being controlled. I believe this is close.
Note that this could in fact be just all about appearances, having a central official websites with a central official build that almost every uses. Oh, you want the source and nightly builds, ok, they are hidden over here.

Take a look at the website currently:
http://www.kicad-pcb.org/

Where do you download it? Links to a directory on some guys personal website, that's bullshit, no thanks.
They need a big fat download button on the front page to the Windows install executable. A huge community forum for support, and a stable version released maybe every 3 months or something.
At least give the appearance that this thing is a real product Joe Average should trust.

Several things need to happen to generate a critical mass around which a thriving community can coalesce. You can't make a stable build  appear but maybe you can sow the seeds of a need for one with your stamp of authority. It is time to generate some ripples in the cosmos.

I don't have the time nor the enthusiasm to help drive KiCAD to become an industry standard, sorry. Call me when it's ready.

There was a recent thread on the forum about a continuity buzzer/tester. Perhaps it would be a suitable project for an OSHW design. Your uSupply is another natural but it is more prone to delay because you have historical baggage attached within your personal investment in it.

The uSupply is currently being done in Circuit Maker. David2 just started the project last night.

[EEVblog]

Altium will never "bury" KiCad, there'll always be some demand for an open solution, even if not much. Lots of commercial products with very good and affordable offerings have still not managed to "bury" their FOSS competitors.

Of course, but the current defacto standard is Eagle, by many order of magnitude over KiCAD.
If Altium made Eagle redundant, well, KiCAD remains were it is.

[c4757p]

Take a look at the website currently:
http://www.kicad-pcb.org/

Where do you download it? Links to a directory on some guys personal website, that's bullshit, no thanks.

Bullshit? Why? The old stable release links to the university where the creator of KiCad works - that's not good enough for you? - and the new release is still upcoming.

They need a big fat download button on the front page to the Windows install executable.

Agreed. I'll suggest it tomorrow.

A huge community forum for support, and a stable version released maybe every 3 months or something.

Perhaps we should see about joining up with Chris's forum [https://forum.kicad.info/]. I'd like to see that. Perhaps we can work in a nice fat link to it on the homepage too. Hmm...

[EEVblog]

BTW, Chris write a good article on the essentialness of the Internet for design:
https://contextualelectronics.com/learning/simple-plane-experiment-kicad-vs-circuitmaker-vs-upverter/
Thus making the internet-tied nature of Circuit Maker (and others) a little bit less of an issue (but still it's major one).

[EEVblog]

Bullshit? Why? The old stable release links to the university where the creator of KiCad works - that's not good enough for you? - and the new release is still upcoming.

Oh come on, really?
It's a very bad look, it does not instil a lot of confidence. I as Joe Average have no idea that guy is the creator, nor where he works etc, all I get is a link to some unknown dodgy sounding file server:
http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/cao/
If oyu want a program to be taken seriously by Joe Average then it's got to be better than this.

[LukeW]

The amount of pre-existing time that you've invested in one of these software packages makes a big difference.

If you've spent many, many hours learning how to use KiCad well, or Eagle or Altium or whatever, then the value of that experience and the time that would need to be spent re-learning something different makes a big difference. If the software you're already experienced with is suitable for what you want to do, why change?

If you're paying for person-hours at any sensible rate for an EE in a professional or semi-professional context then suddenly paying $1000 for a software package does not seem so expensive compared to the time spent learning to use it to do the job efficiently, and that learning curve applies to any one of these tools.

[codeboy2k]

Bullshit? Why? The old stable release links to the university where the creator of KiCad works - that's not good enough for you? - and the new release is still upcoming.

Oh come on, really?
It's a very bad look, it does not instil a lot of confidence. I as Joe Average have no idea that guy is the creator, nor where he works etc, all I get is a link to some unknown dodgy sounding file server:
http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/cao/
If oyu want a program to be taken seriously by Joe Average then it's got to be better than this.

I agree with Dave's point of view on this.

All they need to do is put the big fat download button for each platform.  Behind the scenes it can go to the creator's personal directory on his University's server, no one will care. 

I like Kicad, and once you get used to it, it's pretty decent for free.  It's got some weird-ass behaviours that don't always make sense, and it really needs some polish.  I'd like to donate some of my programming time to it, if I didn't think the devs were such assholes.  As it turns out, I'll probably just do the fixes/improvements for my own use, if it ever comes to that.

CircuitMaker will take some market away, but there will always be those who never want to use a product that is not open sourced.

[c4757p]

I'd like to donate some of my programming time to it, if I didn't think the devs were such assholes.  As it turns out, I'll probably just do the fixes/improvements for my own use, if it ever comes to that.

I find the current "leadership" easy enough to get along with. No comment on whom I think you might be referring to.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Bullshit? Why? The old stable release links to the university where the creator of KiCad works - that's not good enough for you? - and the new release is still upcoming.

Oh come on, really?
It's a very bad look, it does not instil a lot of confidence. I as Joe Average have no idea that guy is the creator, nor where he works etc, all I get is a link to some unknown dodgy sounding file server:
http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/cao/
If oyu want a program to be taken seriously by Joe Average then it's got to be better than this.

Lol I'll translate the host name:
 University of Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.

i think the subdomain name iut-tice may be a campus.

I'll admit that the name Fourier may mean nothing to Joe Average but it would mean something to you.

I kind of think it adds a bit of distinction having your builds served from a University bearing the name Fourier.

[EEVblog]

Lol I'll translate the host name:
 University of Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.

And how is Joe Average expected to know that? You have to actually go to ujf-grenoble.fr to figure that out first.
Oops, no you can't I just checked http://ujf-grenoble.fr/
nothing!
You have to put www in front to get anything.

"ujf" could mean anything and indeed looks random, as does "iut-tice" and "cao"
http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/cao/
Come on, without any knowledge you can't expect people to think that's not a dodgy looking address.

It's a just a joke for a product they are trying to get people to take seriously.
Damn, every time I get an idea, I get a domain name for it and host the files on it, and at the very least make it try and look serious. Yet they haven't done some simple stuff like this after how many years?
It's not rocket science - stable build everyone uses, hide the damn source code (99.999% of otential users don't care), install executables on the main page with a big download button, and a user forum on the same site.
Chris Gammell had to go set up his own forum!
This stuff needs to happen at a minimum for this to become the successful defacto tool. It's the small things that matter.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Not sure why Joe Average is so important to this thread. Maybe Joe Electronics Hobbyist.

It took me 2 clicks from this thread, not searches, to find that it was the uni website.

a similar example is the url http://www.uts.edu.au/ all acronyms but not that hard to click.

Come on, without any knowledge you can't expect people to think that's not a dodgy looking address.

Well maybe, but it seems like someone is squatting Kicad.org and www.kicad-pcb.org links to the uni anyway. I personally don't see the url as an issue.

I reckon Kudos to the developers (including c4757p) for their great software, soon may you take over the world. 

[EEVblog]

I reckon Kudos to the developers (including c4757p) for their great software, soon may you take over the world. 

Of course. I'm just trying to help them make the product a bit more polished.
If I look at it and see these little things that don't instil confidence in me, I'm sure there are others out there too.

[Tabs]

I installed KiCAD by adding a download source to some that runs an automated build script which compiles it for Ubuntu which is the linux distribution I use.
The process wasn't difficult and now the daily builds come via Ubuntus version of windows update. I can choose not to install if I wish.

That being said, what's the definition of stable?
I install the daily builds and I've never seen the effects of whatever was updated. Apart from the libraries (which was my fault for not changing to local copies).
None of the updates has broken my KiCAD installation and I've always been able to work on the one project I have in KiCAD.
I think that meets many peoples definition of stable. Including my own.

The problem with KiCAD (in my opinion) is its disjointed nature. Not sure if its a result of KiCAD being made up of by a rag-tag fleet of disparate programs and programmers.
With Altium everything is very cohesive. There's a pattern or similarity in driving the schematic capture and layout and there's a number of options when it comes to libraries.
There's nothing wrong with the workflow sch->footprint assignment -> pcb. Its just different to Altium where you assign the footprint upfront.

It has its advantages and disadvantages.

I'm told KiCAD has come along massively since CERN got involved (even if it is just 1 or 2 CERN programmers).
It just needs a better and more modern GUI and better support for library creation, management.

All of these things are on the roadmap and will eventually get fixed. I hear eagle is rarely updated so in this respect you would assume KiCAD would eventually surpass eagle.
Eagle has its market share because it was the first viable tool that supported open source development by having a free version. I'm not sure that new people should even consider
eagle now that CM is here. For private projects I think KiCAD still beats eagle (i've never tried eagle so my opinion doesn't really count - i'm just being lazy).

I think the open source community is going to drift towards a split between KiCAD vs Altiums offerings.
KiCAD needs a slick interface, Altium needs to re-assess limitations on CM or pricing of CS.

I think you will always get the die-hards who will say its not open if the tool is closed. There's no arguing with that mindset. Its probably why eagle never conquered.
You also get places like CERN who (correct me if im wrong) must make everything they do public domain because they are publicly funded (by governments).

For my professional (work) stuff - I stick with Altium
For my professional/hobby (home) stuff - I'll stick with KiCAD. it can only get better.

[EEVblog]

That being said, what's the definition of stable?

A version that is formally released that almost everyone uses.
It doesn't actually matter how "stable" it actually is, that word shouldn't even be used actually.

Why is this important? It's because when people jump on the forum with support questions then you don't have to ask what "build" they are using "whether they compiled it themselves or did something else weird etc. If you release say one major version every 3 months then support becomes much easier for everyone.
Until KiCAD does this, it will never catch onto mainstream IMO.
They have to get totally out of this mindset that it's an open source tool for tech people who care about the source, builds, and know about GIT and talk penguin etc.

[EEVblog]

Eagle has its market share because it was the first viable tool that supported open source development by having a free version. I'm not sure that new people should even consider eagle now that CM is here.

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.

[EEVblog]

So the biggest problem with Kicad seems to be the URL of the download server, something that can be trivially fixed.

No. I said it's a small issue that does not instill confidence in the product.

The biggest problem with Eagle seems to be that people are spreading FUD about it being abandoned, although personally I think it's the stupid board size limits in the free/cheap versions.

No. The biggest problems are the stupid board size limits as you suggest, and the ancient UI.

The biggest problem with CM is that it's tied to Altium's cloud that no-one likes or trusts and which historically hasn't worked well for other software.

Correct.

Also, I find it amusing that people are talking about Kicad not being able to become an "industry standard", as if they care

I care. I would love to see KiCAD become a defacto industry standard for OSHW.
But being a 25+ year Altium user, I'd also like to see CircuitMaker succeed.

, and as if CM could ever become popular while it requires the use of their stupid cloud infrastructure.

If Arduino, Sparkfun and Adafruit started using it, you watch CM become the defacto industry standard within 6 months.

Eagle, DIPtrace, DEX, Kicad... None of them as as powerful as CM perhaps, but for open source stuff freedom and confidence are far more important.

You'll likely get little argument here.

[tggzzz]

I've said it before, KiCAD will never become a standard until it has a stable release and looks like a real product that someone has responsibility for. None of this daily build rubbish.

This isn't a vote for KiCAD, but you might care to realise that there is a very widespread movement towards incremental releases. Some example phrases are "release early, release often", and "devops". Naturally it can (and will) be taken too far by some people

I'll note that I've never my linux system borked by any of its daily releases. My other system, which is a "real product that someone (theoretically) has responsibility for" has been borked - and it seems that some people get crippled every couple of months! Conclusion: having a single person with responsibility is neither necessary nor sufficient.

As for anything that relies on a corporate cloud - never. Just look at Microsoft's "Plays For Sure(TM)" music purchase system. Now they've turned it off it is "Silence For Sure".

[Thor-Arne]

I'm sure the CERN KiCad development roadmap has been posted before.

Several important improvements is listed here, and for what I can see from the daily builds the future is promising.

But I agree that the web-page needs more improvements, and "stable" releases should be releases at more or less frequent intervals, say every 3-6 months.

I've had very little trouble using KiCad, and it didn't take too much effort to learn the UI.

[ludzinc]

What I don't understand is why CERN is investing in KiCAD.

Why not just pay for a known working commercial product, and redirect the software engineers wages back to physicists?

[c4757p]

Because open.

http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2011/07/cern-launches-open-hardware-initiative

[sync]

What I don't understand is why CERN is investing in KiCAD.

Why not just pay for a known working commercial product, and redirect the software engineers wages back to physicists?

Maybe for the same reasons CERN developed the world wide web instead of just using a commercial product.

[Tabs]

That being said, what's the definition of stable?

A version that is formally released that almost everyone uses.
It doesn't actually matter how "stable" it actually is, that word shouldn't even be used actually.

Why is this important? It's because when people jump on the forum with support questions then you don't have to ask what "build" they are using "whether they compiled it themselves or did something else weird etc. If you release say one major version every 3 months then support becomes much easier for everyone.
Until KiCAD does this, it will never catch onto mainstream IMO.
They have to get totally out of this mindset that it's an open source tool for tech people who care about the source, builds, and know about GIT and talk penguin etc.

This is an interesting point. Whilst on the surface its very valid. A known baseline for comparison is always the best place to start when fault finding or asking for help. You just log on to the forum, tell them the problem, tell them the version and if its a known issue your more likely to get a solution. The same argument applies to daily builds. The only difference is if you assume the majority of the installed user base is on the official release version then you increase the chances of someone having faced the same problem. If your'e on the daily builds then at most you have a 1 day window where others on daily builds can see if the they can replicate the problem. If the problem is still there the next day or more then you can assume its a major issue, in which case it will be sorted faster. This bugfix cycle wont change if you assume the opposite from my starting position. ie if the installed base was majority daily build users.

The fact is, if you have a problem which is in the software (as opposed to a duff setting you made) then your'e only going to find the fix in a later version.
This is why, when your'e on the formal version, the first response you get to a problem is "Have you installed the latest update?".
Whenever I have an issue with Altium, this is the first thing that gets said. I'm always advised to install the update.
If your problem is a setting somewhere or a "How do you do xyz" then you can resolve that regardless of version (I would assume that the S/W doesn't play musical chairs with setting locations or how to work a feature).

On Altium, I fear the dreaded "Access Violation" error that I always seem to get sooner or later on a new release. Thats why I have v14 for official work & v15 to do the parts of my workflow that v14 cant do properly eg Variant BOM generation using database parameters.

Point is all S/W (even pro level commercial) have their issues. Many of them have moved towards the daily release system for updates because it improves the cycle time for bug fixes and reduces the scope to introduce new bugs to only the bits that was changed. Thats a smaller amount of code delta than between major releases. I have an Altium subscription and i seem to be averaging 2-3 days between notifications of an update on v14 or v15. That may as well be daily builds. As always, I can choose to update or not.

Since the users of KiCAD and Altium are free to choose their own update frequency, I don't think the daily builds should be criticised as harshly as they seem to be.

Other issues like the website are insignificant. I agree with Dave that it could be better, but its not a deal breaker.

The more fundamental issues should be considered.
CM makes you dependent on a commercial entity, with its own goals and interests. it also has silly restrictions that seem to have been self enforced on Altium by Altium. Its going to be hard for them to loosen the strings on CM without takings the legs out from under circuit studio (which may violate commercial agreements with element14) or Altium Designer itself. 

KiCAD wont ever have these restrictions or these commercial issues. It will only ever have technical issues like GUI design and library management. These will be solved (eventually ... I hope).

The only thing that makes the difference then (as in the future) is marketing and market adoption.
Will the the Altium marketing hype be able to convince the open source community enough for them to give up the freedom (as in liberty) that true open source tools allow their users?

[ehughes]

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.

[c4757p]

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...

[rolycat]

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.

[Tabs]

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.

[c4757p]

Yup, CM is definitely not GPL-compatible. Didn't even think of that.

[ehughes]

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.

[c4757p]

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.

[sleemanj]

So my choices were:

kicad, eagle, design spark and circuit maker.

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

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

@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.

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.

[EEVblog]

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.

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.

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.

[free_electron]

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...

[tggzzz]

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).

[EEVblog]

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.

[tggzzz]

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.

[donotdespisethesnake]

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

[Tabs]

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).

[zapta]

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.

[djsb]

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.

[IanJ]

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.

[ehughes]

@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.

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"

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. 

[c4757p]

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.

[Tabs]

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 )

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.

[Tabs]

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?

[EEVblog]

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  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 

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.

[Tabs]

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.

[poorchava]

I would choose Diptrace. It has less features than Altium, to but is much much better than Eagle, KiCad and other stuff. The most pimped out (unlimited in every respect) version is like 700$ should you need it and this is a one time payment rather than a yearly subscription. They support at least Windows and Linux natively, to not sure about Apple. DipTrace is also being developed very actively and devs are actually responsive to user requests.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

[Tabs]

I would choose Diptrace. It has less features than Altium, to but is much much better than Eagle, KiCad and other stuff. The most pimped out (unlimited in every respect) version is like 700$ should you need it and this is a one time payment rather than a yearly subscription. They support at least Windows and Linux natively, to not sure about Apple. DipTrace is also being developed very actively and devs are actually responsive to user requests.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

Yeah, I had my mind stuck in Free (as in cost), but your right. DipTrace is a good choice.
It would be good if someone could do a DipTrace Vs CM or CS.
Altium used to have a really good bang per buck value but its dropped due to the recent price hike.
Would be interesting to know what $895 (DipTrace) gets you compared to $3000 (CS £ -> $)

[rolycat]

Shouldn't "the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W" be widely available to everyone? I don't see a tool costing over $500 ever being a viable candidate.

That's why Eagle is the current king. The limits may be silly but they are loose enough for most people, it's cross platform and most importantly it really is free (no stupid cloud, registration, DRM etc.)

It may not be the best by a long shot, but it's the best of a bad bunch. The sad thing is that despite that, no-one else seems to be able to beat it.

With a new Kicad stable release imminent, someone else may well be able to beat it.

Kicad may still be quirky, but it's getting very capable.

[Wilksey]

Firstly,

I hope to see more videos regarding CM from Dave / Dave 2.0, especially with the build of the new design.

KiCAD is fiddly to set up the build environment, but once you have it set up, you can make it work, my windows dev machine has a make batch script from the winbuilder package that works just fine, I have to update the version but have scripted that also.
I have been using KiCAD more and more recently and found it very capable.

I am a long time user of Eagle, and use AD for work purposes, so also a long time user of AD!

Eagle works, it is more comparable to Circuit Studio in terms of offline working rather than Circuit Maker in my opinion, but there is no doubt that CM / CS feature set is more complete and favourable than that of Eagle, DipTrace and KiCAD.

As I have said before, even if they pull the plug on Eagle today, it will still be used in 20 years' time, if they pull the plug on CM, then you will be recreating your designs in <insert favourite package here> without even being able to download a free viewing tool to reference from, far too risky in my opinion.

Plus, if I wanted to create a few "non open source" projects, I would be able to with CS / Eagle / DT/ etc but only have a few "sandboxed" projects with CM so I would only be able to have one private and one work in progress project at any one time, hmm.

DipTrace isn't better than Eagle or KiCAD, Eagle isn't better than CM or KiCAD either, they are just different, personal preference!

KiCAD so far has not broken anything with their daily builds, which is a good thing, it is still very much in development, and not really comparable to the likes of the commercial products (CM, Eagle, DT etc), it's a very advanced and decent product for what it costs, but not for your average Joe Public, but any decent engineer should be able to use it.

There are some things which we all think differently about for various reasons, at the end of the day the choice is yours what you use, I always recommend downloading all of them and asking yourself what would happen if the company were to either go bust, or pull the plug, would you be able to use it still, or would you feel comfortable potentially having to redo all of your work in another package and rerun the learning curve.  If you are happy with the later and CM works for you then use that, if you want a more risk free solution use AD or CS, or another package with offline support.

Personally, I would chose CS over CM purely for my own paranoia reasons, but wonder if its worth spending the few extra £'s on the full AD over CS.  It will be interesting to see what AD16 has to offer, I prefer the ribbon over the old UI aesthetically it looks better in my opinion.

[EEVblog]

Shouldn't "the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W" be widely available to everyone? I don't see a tool costing over $500 ever being a viable candidate.

Which is why I think Eagle is ultimately a lame duck. Fine and dandy for anyone doing small PCB's, but then it costs over $1000 to do a simple 161mm long single sided PCB. One could argue that Altium may indeed be a less crazy option.

[Tabs]

Shouldn't "the future standard CAD tool for open source H/W" be widely available to everyone? I don't see a tool costing over $500 ever being a viable candidate.

That's why Eagle is the current king. The limits may be silly but they are loose enough for most people, it's cross platform and most importantly it really is free (no stupid cloud, registration, DRM etc.)

It may not be the best by a long shot, but it's the best of a bad bunch. The sad thing is that despite that, no-one else seems to be able to beat it.

One of the main reasons eagle is king is because they were among the first capable free cad tools for pcb design. Also, there's kind of a catch 22 here.
Eagle places limits on the size and complexity of any design when using the free version. Open source makers were then constrained to a maximum set by those limits.
Its almost as if the makers had gotten used to that level of complexity and stopped pushing the limits.

They then turn round and say eagle does everything I need. Why do I want CM/CS/AD?
The time it takes to learn a new tool (especially one as complex as AD) (and the cost) then become a turn off when you think you don't need its functionality.
"Ask not what the tool can do for you. Ask what you can do with the tool"

Like Dave said earlier, the cost to develop multi gigahertz stuff today has dropped massively, but you don't see many open source projects pushing that far.
There's the iMX6 Rex board that Robert Feranic did, but that was in AD.

When more capable tools like CM come around, it will bring up the level of open source h/w and then people will start to look to move to those packages.
(as long as its compatible with their open source licence if they use one - GPL, OSHW, CC-BY etc).

[Tabs]

What you actually need is not a standard CAD tool but a standard file format. Take the file to the tool of your choice and all the objections go away.

[/quote]

There are standard file formats now for everything except schematics.
GERBERS, ODB++
Netlist,
IPC-2581 for PCB layout (can replace GERBERs & ODB) -> Altium 15 will import but not export (obviously dont want you going anywhere).
BOMs

I read something about the a standards body working on standarised file formats for schematics but I cant find anything on the net.

[LukeW]

KiCAD is fiddly to set up the build environment, but once you have it set up, you can make it work, my windows dev machine has a make batch script from the winbuilder package that works just fine, I have to update the version but have scripted that also.

Many users, even highly skilled professional EEs, don't know / want to know / want to stuff around with build environments, batch scripts and packages.
That's probably a significant point in favor of Eagle or Altium.

Ideally it should be quick and easy to download and install without compiling it - ideally on Windows, Linux and OSX. That's what Eagle currently offers, it's pretty painless to install across all three major OS families, and it Just Works on any one of them - which I think is a key factor that makes it attractive.

[c4757p]

I do not understand why so many people insist on building from source, and then complaining that they had to build from source. Download the installer and run it.

[free_electron]

pen and paper ... or pencil and paper.

anyone can read it , irrespective of operating system.  you can work your way up from there 

[Bassman59]

Ideally it should be quick and easy to download and install without compiling it - ideally on Windows, Linux and OSX. That's what Eagle currently offers, it's pretty painless to install across all three major OS families, and it Just Works on any one of them - which I think is a key factor that makes it attractive.

You haven't been paying attention! A stable release is planned for the end of next month. It will include painless binary downloads for the three platforms you mention.

[Isaac000]

All this "discussion" about Eagle vs. KiCAD vs. CM/CS, etc.
Why barely a mention of 2 other alternatives?
DesignSpark and PCBWeb.

Both are free, basically unlimited tools. Your files are stored locally, so you always have access. The application, as far as I know, doesn't need a connection and will keep working even if they close up shop. (Okay, the day DigiKey or Allied close up shop, probably last of your concerns if the app stops working).

PCBWeb appears to handle up to 12 layers (I've only used 2) and some really large board sizes. Is it bug-free? No, but it seems to be actively developed and the developers are responsive to my complaints/suggestions. I've developed 2 DC-DC switchers and other boards with this thing. Gerbers got sent off to the fab and they had no trouble with it. It's super-easy to download, install and learn.

DesignSpark looks like it'll do 14 layers (again, I've only used 2) and also some pretty big board sizes. Again, I've done a couple of easy circuits with it, DC switchers and the like and no problems. A bit of a steeper learning curve than PCBWeb, but by no means hard. It was also easy download and install, no troubles registering. My files are local and it doesn't need a network connection to keep working. I don't see it stopping even if the developers stop.

I had a go at KiCAD and while I'll keep it around, I doubt I will use that over the other 2 options. I also tried CircuitMaker and I don't see why you would go with that, it's slow and sluggish compared to the other 2 and all my stuff is way up in the cloud. You can do ZERO work when you're not online.

If you have Eagle and you're happy with it and it does what you need, why switch? But if you're just starting and looking for a tool, why would you not go for a free option that has no limits?

[Isaac000]

By the way, has anyone tried ECAD Part Wizard? Seems to be from the same guys as DesignSpark.
Downside, you need to have MS Office 2007 and higher to work. I have that at work here and gave it a spin.

If it's not already in the library, submit the request, about 20 minutes later, I have the schematic symbol and footprint all ready. Tried a few more parts and same thing. Why spend my time creating my own footprint??? :-)

It exports to DesignSpark, Altium, OrCAD and others. There's also a button to request export to other formats as well. I can easily re-organize the schematic symbol as I see fit, it imported perfectly into DesignSpark along with other pertinent part information all populated too.

[Wilksey]

DS is Easy PC / Pulsonix essentially, but the file formats are not compatible.

I build KiCAD from source as the binaries are usually out of date by a few days, I am fine with building from source, even when stable comes out  I will run side by side the latest dev release for comparison.

I was going to try and integrate it into Jenkins, but I set a script to build every day and save the old version, just in case.

You do not have to build from source, you can download the binary.

For me, what sets KiCAD ahead of EAGLE (And I use EAGLE a lot!) is the 3d view for the board, I don't care about components, but seeing the silkscreen and solder mask representation, same as on AD, is key for me, and I do use Eagle 3D scripts to export to POV RAY and Sketchup, bit it's a faff!  So +1 for KiCAD there.

[xjordanx]

Actually, those people won't switch for the same reasons most Altium users won't switch away from Altium: they've built whole businesses on EAGLE. Believe me, those conversations have been had....

The answer is almost always: "maybe someday I'll have time to actually look at it". Classic business problem of being too busy to spend the time on learning something new that will ultimately make you a lot less frantically busy. It takes lots of willpower and discipline to consider ECAD change...

[xjordanx]

Really? Define "source" in "open source".

I define it as editable copyable content which can be used to reproduce the original and derived works. It has nothing to do with what tool was used to create it. 

[xjordanx]

CS is currently $495USD. A way better value prop for closed source design. Perpetual license. No data hostage.

Or Upverter which is free as in beer and unlimited projects (including private).

[xjordanx]

Would a user be under the threat of being cut off from their work because they simply expressed an opinion that annoyed someone?

If you personally attacked / insulted another member, posted porn links or images, used bad language (other than with @~# masking characters - that would probably be okay)... the usual offences every forum warns against, then yes you would be moderated (not banned).

Oh, and if you expressed an honest opinion related to problem you encountered with the actual software - that is welcomed, though nobody could promise a development outcome from it in all honesty.