Hi, I have a bit of a weird situation. I have brought a suit for non-payment against a client. Their response to a summary judgement included an affidavit from the current contractor stating that KiCAD is inadequate to develop a laser tag platform. The guy appears to think that only Altium can handle the complexities of a USB D-/D+ pair or something. So now I have to defend 'my' selection of KiCAD. Of course 'my' is in quotes as I had walked the client through EDA options I could use and even had support from the contractor (who was originally the assembler).
How much money is involved vs lawyers fees ?
What has gone wrong in the process, to get the client to this stage ? Half a story here ?
Did the point of failure/contention actually relate to the claim of
"handle the complexities of a USB D-/D+ pair or something"Rather than respond to the current contractor diversions, you should focus on written communications from the client, around
what was to be delivered, when.Most countries have small claims tribunals, that can sidestep Lawyers for amounts of a few thousand, and they often prohibit lawyers.
A clear paper trail is usually the key to success in those.
The current contractor is clearly not impartial, but one of the simplest layman's ways to implode claims of disparity, is to point to the 2020 reality :
* Altium can import KiCAD files
* KiCAD can import Altium files, and has been able to import Altium files exported in PCAD-ASCII for many years. That works quite well.
If both tools can import each others files, vague claims of "is inadequate to develop" are not believed by either supplier.
There are Projects that were started in Altium then migrated to KiCAD
Here is one example :
https://github.com/FPGAwars/icezum/wiki#news