Author Topic: Free Altium is Coming  (Read 360185 times)

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Tac Eht Xilef

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #525 on: September 24, 2014, 03:01:09 pm »
Since Altium/CircuitMaker will have 10x10cm limit, wonder how long it will take Eagle to change from that strange 8x10cm limit..

It's actually quite logical.

8x10cm is a half-Eurocard. 160x100 is a full Eurocard, and if that's not big enough there are bigger variants too (if memory serves, 160x233.5 is a "double" Eurocard, as used on early Acorn machines for the "double" Podules).

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocard_(printed_circuit_board)

(The more you know!TM)
The strange/annoying thing about it is a half-Eurocard rack is usually mounted so the 10cm side is vertical (i.e. the board is 8cm wide/deep & 10cm high), while the Eagle Light restriction is a hard 10cm wide & 8cm high. It's like they decided on the size to be minimally useful, then decided to be dicks about it by rotating it 90 degrees...

"The whole thing about this is that.... every design you create in the tool is going to be shared publicly, online"

Nooooooooope. I for one would like to keep at least the first few revisions private so I can fix everything I screwed up before someone else can see it.
This, particularly after the previous design (which I admittedly rushed) of my current project had too many stupid mistakes e.g. DC-coupled amp stage feeding a shunt/Pi LC filter, cocked-up voltage divider on an offset amp, etc.

Didn't I see something earlier indicating it would by default allow 1 or 2 private designs & force the rest to be public unless you paid up? Or did I dream that?

(Mostly academic to me anyway, unless it turns out to run well under Wineskin or Parallels/VMware...)
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #526 on: September 24, 2014, 03:29:53 pm »
On a longer conversation with my colleague, he understood the operation of your files to be similar to Dropbox. You get access to a Public Box to store your files for free (where everyone else who is signed in can also view them), or you can store them in a private box for which you pay a fee.

This is not how Dropbox works.
 

Offline janoc

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #527 on: September 24, 2014, 03:35:46 pm »
janoc, Bassman59,
CERN seems to be contributing most of the newer features such as push and shove I believe?

There are 5 top level contributors posted and none of them is from CERN. But I digress, I am not a KICAD developer, so I don't know how they are dividing the work. Even if CERN was doing most work now, is that a problem somehow?

I must admit I haven't downloaded from the BZR for a while, so things might have changed / merged or whatever, but from a pure downloader's perspective it is not actively *compiled*.

OK, let's clarify it then - I think what you mean is that the bleeding edge versions from the Bazaar repository are not available on the website (aka nightly builds). That used to be provided, I think they stopped doing that now. Which I can perfectly understand, because people tend to download what is essentially only an integration/testing code with no guarantee of being usable and then harass the developers that things don't work. Providing the builds also requires significant resources.

For me "not being actively compiled" means that nobody is actually testing the code whether it even compiles and that is obviously not the case.


 

Offline Wilksey

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #528 on: September 24, 2014, 03:55:01 pm »
Hi janoc,

No it is not a problem at all for me, I may be wrong or they may have merged, I assumed that CERN had forked a more useful branch of the code and developed some smart new features, but it may just have been another placeholder, I know when I searched it was labelled as the "CERN Branch".

I understand them not producing nightly builds, but if they compile it to test it they could put the binary somewhere downloadable even if it is every month or so, rather than nightly.

I base my observation by a conversation I had with a colleague of mine, so I can't speak for everyone.
Someone asked me what I was using to build a small board and I said I usually use Eagle but I am using KiCAD for this one just to try it out a bit more, and he went off and downloaded it.
I built my version from the sources, which had the P+S feature, of course when he used my version and realised his was different I explained he would have to download and compile the latest version or just grab the binary from my machine, he said he would grab the binary as his machine didn't have any dev environments on it as he wasn't a developer.

Which got me thinking that if KiCAD isn't going to have regular binary updates then it is more focused on the programmer / hobbyist rather than just the hobbyist.

So my original suggestion was that Eagle and DT can be downloaded with a binary, KiCAD can but the latest is via source only to build yourself, taking it a bit further away from your standard PCB / Electronics tinkerer who doesn't understand how to set up a build environment other than download the Arduino IDE, which of course there is nothing wrong with, but as you know building KiCad is not always easy!
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #529 on: September 24, 2014, 04:30:56 pm »
Which got me thinking that if KiCAD isn't going to have regular binary updates then it is more focused on the programmer / hobbyist rather than just the hobbyist.

A second hand rumor I heard is that in a month or two Kicad will start providing stable builds.  I am holding my breath.  A good enough free open source and OS agnostic local application is the best option for me.  Will see when Kicad will fit the bill.  In the past I did the same with the transition from Intellij to Eclipse and it took years. Currently using Eagle. Altium Free as described here is not an option for me, too restrictive and single OS support.
 

Offline Wilksey

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #530 on: September 24, 2014, 05:13:08 pm »
I hope that rumour is true!

I would like to promote the use of KiCAD as it is quite mature in itself, and despite people's negativity towards the libraries etc I can't really see a reason not to use it.

With this latest Altium cloud rumour the developers of KiCAD could really get some more supporters if they increased their binary release schedule (purely MY opinion from talking to other engineers).
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #531 on: September 24, 2014, 06:01:36 pm »
janoc, Bassman59,

First of all, apologies, I should have clarified that the last "stable" release on the KiCAD download website is an older version.
CERN seems to be contributing most of the newer features such as push and shove I believe?

CERN is contributing P&S but most of the mainline development is done by the folks who've been doing it for a long time. As I noted, the developer mailing list is quite active.

Quote
From the perspective of going into a website (such as DT, Eagle) and downloading the "latest" binary, KiCAD is not actively compiled, maybe that would be a better term or phrase.  There may be very good reason for it not to be, but I remember back along when I saw some videos of KiCAD with some newer features and I couldn't for the life of me find the "download" for it, I thought it was someone's own personal version they had modified for themselves, until i found a link to a CERN branch and compiled that.

I must admit I haven't downloaded from the BZR for a while, so things might have changed / merged or whatever, but from a pure downloader's perspective it is not actively *compiled*.

Your complaint is a common one. A lot of people write to the kicad-users list asking for the latest "stable" version, and they have to be told, "the developers aren't interested in declaring anything 'stable'," and the users -- especially Windows users -- quite rightly say that building is difficult, how do I know I've got the right stuff, etc etc. Now there are various folks who've set up nightly builds which get published, or at least they've posted occasional snapshots. Some are linked to from the main Kicad website (which is out of date, of course).

I'm of the opinion that users shouldn't have to build the program from source, but the developers clearly disagree. I remember a couple of years ago, trying to build kicad, and went down the rabbit hole of dependencies of dependences, and reporting build bugs to the developer launchpad site, and being told, "we don't have Macs, why don't YOU fix it and contribute, or send us a Mac and if we have time we'll think about supporting the platform." Luckily (for me, I suppose), at least one developer is strong with OS X development and took over ensuring that the tools all built on Macs. Yes, there are a lot of Mac users who want to see tools that run on the platform.

Anyways, one of the biggest complaints the developers were getting was about chasing down the dependencies, so they really made the effort to simplify that, to the point where the main makefile will download and build the dependencies for you. And, as I said, at least on OS X 10.9.5 with the latest Xcode 6, the tools build all the time.
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #532 on: September 24, 2014, 06:05:59 pm »
For me "not being actively compiled" means that nobody is actually testing the code whether it even compiles and that is obviously not the case.

It is certainly not the case. They're very good about not committing changes which break the builds. Because when it happens, their shit gets jumped.

 

Offline os40la

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #533 on: September 24, 2014, 07:54:43 pm »

To drive home this point, if I get in the beta, I will go around and start turning people's board outlines into swastikas and tastefully drawing penises on schematics.

(So yes, I will be that troll.)


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 :palm:  ... If Altium is trolling this thread then I think you just kissed your beta testing goodbye... :-DD

P.S. I did think your post was funny though.  >:D
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Offline DerekG

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #534 on: September 24, 2014, 09:38:43 pm »
On a longer conversation with my colleague, he understood the operation of your files to be similar to Dropbox. You get access to a Public Box to store your files for free (where everyone else who is signed in can also view them), or you can store them in a private box for which you pay a fee.

This is not how Dropbox works.

Note that I said "similar" to Dropbox, not the "same" as Dropbox. As he understood the conversation at Maker Faire, you have to be signed in to the CircuitMaker/Altium server to be able to save your file for later retrieval. Other's using the software will also need to be signed in to take part in the "sharing" of files.
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Offline Rigby

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #535 on: September 24, 2014, 09:57:46 pm »
To drive home this point, if I get in the beta, I will go around and start turning people's board outlines into swastikas and tastefully drawing penises on schematics.

(So yes, I will be that troll.)

So, I highly doubt that it will work that way.  It likely will be more like a GitHub structure where you can SEE other people's private stuff, and you can fork it.  The fork is yours and you can modify that to your liking and you can request that the person whose code you copied incorporate your changes, and they are free to accept or decline your offer.

Also, I think that my designs are public by default is a good thing.  It's the same on GitHub and it's a good thing there, too.  Note that I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL, and that I don't think that this feature would be suited for any professional.  As a hobbyist, I think the ability for someone to help me and to offer advice is a good thing.  I (hopefully) won't have to incorporate them, and hopefully I will be able to ignore/ban specific users from pestering me. 

It doesn't bother me a bit that I will (and I definitely will) make design decisions that are embarrassing.  Hiding mistakes is no reason to do anything, in my book.  I can't be taught if I don't expose my mistakes and at least entertain advice others take the time to give.

As to you trolling, I think that's an absolute waste of time and I don't get why people do it.  You're creating a private joke that only you are in on, and you're annoying the hell out of other people.  Where's the reward in that?  Where's the positive outcome?  I don't get it.  You lost what little bit of respect I had for you when I read that statement.  Sorry.
 

Offline timb

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #536 on: September 24, 2014, 10:32:20 pm »
It was a joke dude. I'm obviously not going to troll anything.


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Offline JensAndree

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #537 on: September 25, 2014, 12:39:53 am »
Making it cloud-only and open to all will make CircuitMaker a hostile environment for us beginners since we sometimes (or often I should say in my case) do stupid mistakes, or just initially bad layout, which we'd prefer not to share with others until we've got it right.

This is sad since I was really looking forward to take my first steps outside Eagle in a professional tool with hope to improve my skills but I'm simply not comfortable with sharing my work from day one.
I also do a lot of work with things I'm not ready to publicly show until I want to, if I want to, and that's also sad.

My final view is to "cloud only" services in general. I want my work, i.e files, on my computer where I control them and not floating around with no possibility to permanently delete files as and when I want to. Especially if I run the software locally! If it was a web-service it could be debatable but I still prefer local storage and ownership/control.

I know this is provided for free - and this I applaud Altium for - but the whole cloud malarkey is not my thing and I guess so for many others as well?
I hear there will be a recurring fee (?) to be able to secure the work, but still only in the cloud... What happens if you forget or are unable to pay in time? Will all your previously "secret" work be made public?

It feels really bad to complain about a free professional tool but without feedback it would be impossible to hope for improvement/change.
 

Offline miguelvp

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #538 on: September 25, 2014, 12:43:58 am »
Add an annotation stating that it is work in progress and non functional and move on :)
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #539 on: September 25, 2014, 01:15:02 am »
I hope that rumour is true!
I would like to promote the use of KiCAD as it is quite mature in itself, and despite people's negativity towards the libraries etc I can't really see a reason not to use it.

KiCAD will never, ever, hit the mainstream until someone takes it by the horns and takes responsibility to produce an "official" stable version available on an official central website that does not deal with the source etc.
A version so that when a user joins a forum and asks for support or wants to report a bug etc, they can say that they are using "Version X".
There are countless other examples of this, and KiCAD will be no exception.
Mark my words.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #540 on: September 25, 2014, 01:42:21 am »
KiCAD will never, ever, hit the mainstream until someone takes it by the horns and takes responsibility to produce an "official" stable version available on an official central website that does not deal with the source etc.

I heard that this will start happening in a mater of months. Will see.  Until then, Eagle for me.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #541 on: September 25, 2014, 02:54:47 am »
Also, I think that my designs are public by default is a good thing.  It's the same on GitHub and it's a good thing there, too.

No, this is not how github works, you can work for months locally with full version control capabilities without pushing up to the cloud.
 

Offline Zeta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #542 on: September 25, 2014, 05:28:26 am »

- NO, you will not be able to save files locally, they must be stored online in the cloud.

- The free version will have a limit on how many projects you can keep "private".


Basically means you cannot do anything non-opensourced with the free tool.

Of course I won't pretend to know you enough to say it is weird not  to see you calling out this as bullshit but it is quite surprising to see you going so off-character without a monetary incentive, especially since on several occasions you have called "shitty" any software that needs to call home.

Also, reading/hearing you say "Community" so many times :palm: leads me to think that those marketing guys at Altium have done a really good job.
 

Online tautech

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #543 on: September 25, 2014, 05:56:02 am »

- NO, you will not be able to save files locally, they must be stored online in the cloud.

- The free version will have a limit on how many projects you can keep "private".


Basically means you cannot do anything non-opensourced with the free tool.

Of course I won't pretend to know you enough to say it is weird not  to see you calling out this as bullshit but it is quite surprising to see you going so off-character without a monetary incentive, especially since on several occasions you have called "shitty" any software that needs to call home.

Also, reading/hearing you say "Community" so many times :palm: leads me to think that those marketing guys at Altium have done a really good job.
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Offline AlfBaz

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #544 on: September 25, 2014, 06:03:25 am »
I guess time will tell but I feel there may be some major implications with this model of forced sharing.

Having a company take a community incentive and holding it to ransom for their profit seems nothing short of abhorent
 

Offline Zeta

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #545 on: September 25, 2014, 06:13:50 am »

"The whole thing about this is that.... every design you create in the tool is going to be shared publicly, online"

Nooooooooope. I for one would like to keep at least the first few revisions private so I can fix everything I screwed up before someone else can see it.

This is exactly how Upverter works and it's not a big deal. In fact, it can be pretty nice WRT community collaboration and design reviews.


most probably, it won't be a big deal for you or for me. Noone will pay attention to our boards before we announce them. But just imagine if one bloody day a new non-finished schematic silently appears on Dave's account. it turns out Dave has decided to continue working on his uSupply. Soon after everyone and their moms will be asking him why he didn't use this or that part. saying this way is better or just complaining about his poor choose of color for the wires. Then you will have a kid burning his house because he build a project based on an schematic not ready for public release just yet.
 

Offline Wilksey

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #546 on: September 25, 2014, 10:53:49 am »
I hope that rumour is true!
I would like to promote the use of KiCAD as it is quite mature in itself, and despite people's negativity towards the libraries etc I can't really see a reason not to use it.

KiCAD will never, ever, hit the mainstream until someone takes it by the horns and takes responsibility to produce an "official" stable version available on an official central website that does not deal with the source etc.
A version so that when a user joins a forum and asks for support or wants to report a bug etc, they can say that they are using "Version X".
There are countless other examples of this, and KiCAD will be no exception.
Mark my words.

Mainstream for hobbyists maybe!
Bit of a large risk to take to use open source for professional use, especially if they change format of anything whilst fixing a bug, and you can't explicitly state a version number as you have said.

But I should imagine it wouldn't take much for someone to take the proverbial bull and make it into a stable release.

zapta thinks this might be on the cards in any case, so watch this space I guess!
 

Offline Rigby

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #547 on: September 25, 2014, 11:14:56 am »


Also, I think that my designs are public by default is a good thing.  It's the same on GitHub and it's a good thing there, too.

No, this is not how github works, you can work for months locally with full version control capabilities without pushing up to the cloud.

Are you saying that Github repos aren't public by default?  Are you saying that public stuff isn't a good thing?

I didn't say anything about working locally, so I'm not sure why you've chosen that point to disagree with.
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #548 on: September 25, 2014, 11:26:44 am »
Of course I won't pretend to know you enough to say it is weird not  to see you calling out this as bullshit but it is quite surprising to see you going so off-character without a monetary incentive, especially since on several occasions you have called "shitty" any software that needs to call home.

I'm just stating facts as I know them.
I have called out this as being bullshit, d you want me to do it again? Ok, it's bullshit, and I told Altium the product will sink or swim based on this could only thing. I think most likely sink unless they change it somehow, and I'd explained how they can do that.

Quote
Also, reading/hearing you say "Community" so many times :palm: leads me to think that those marketing guys at Altium have done a really good job.

Umm, the community features do look pretty good. Have you actually seen the tool?
Not everyone needs "community", but for those that do it seems they are doing that part right.
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: Free Altium is Coming
« Reply #549 on: September 25, 2014, 11:27:29 am »
Dave wants to be un-banned from their forum.  :-DD

Even if they unbanned me, I wouldn't use it, it sucks.
And mine is 100 times bigger  :P
« Last Edit: September 25, 2014, 12:14:11 pm by EEVblog »
 


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