Lukas Louw wrote: : A few other factors that will influence market penetration for "newcomers" : like gEDA.
: The larger EDA compnaies sell their product on teh golf course and dining & : wining at corporate level.
: They attend trade shows, advertise etc., so mainatain a high visibilitty and : thus credibility to teh corporate muck a mucks.
: They provide instant phone based tech support
: The list can go on and on.
: Without real financial backing for proper marketing, any new package may as : well resign itself to servicing hobbyist and micro to small scale commercial : users.
You make a fundamental mistake here. GEDA is not a commerical software package with all the apparattus whcih comes with that, such as booth babes at trade shows, 24x7 telephone support, and sleazy marketeers glad-handling CEOs at the golf course. It will likely never become such a beast, either.
GEDA is an open-source project whcih has acheived a good level of maturity. We developers work on it for fun, and because we use it for our own designs. We also share it with the world for the same mixed reasons that other open-source developers share their programs. Lots of engineers out there use gEDA because it is open, zero-cost, stable, and useful to them. OTOH, they don't use it because it was sold to the IT manager after a tennis game with the regional sales manager, or because it is dictated by corporate policy, or because a sales guy promised that it would integrate with the corporate database.
We developers push gEDA here an in a few other forums because by increasing gEDA's user base we get more exposure for our work, and -- hopefully -- attract more smart volunteers to add to and further improve the suite. And as the gEDA Suite improves, more people will use it because it works for them, and they won't have to use software sold to the IT manager after a tennis game, or forced on them by IT policy, or purchased because some sales guy lied about it's ability to integrate with the corporate database.
It's the same virtuous cycle as is happening with Linux, and all the zillions of other open-source projects out there.
Did you try it, or only looked at web-site and price? I'm representative of a company developing this product, it is cheap because is developed by small company in Russia, but number of people switched to DipTrace from Eagle, P-CAD, etc. for their jobs. Just look at testimonials on web-site - they are real, and there are many others not published. However I think it is not a nice choice for very complex jobs. We have a number of RF projects or Flex Circuits with 1000+ pins made with DipTrace.
You're right, perhaps I did get carried away a little, but many of your statements such as "We developers work on it for fun" can really be seen as a negative to most people embracing gEDA. As I said before, I still like the concept, and will keep an open mind...
Since you are in the mode for comments, I'll add mine. They are from a perspective of someone who has not tried gEDA, and only seen its website and other information (such as threads in this newsgroup). I'm having a look at different EDA suites at the moment, and planning to test them with a small card. Please view this post as constructive criticism, rather than just plain criticism - gEDA clearly has a lot of work behind it and a lot of potential, but it is needs a lot of work if your average designer is going to be able to use it.
First off, I like the idea of open source EDA tools. I use plenty of open source software (such as gcc for a half dozen different embedded targets, and Open Office or LaTeX for documentation). The key benefits I see in being open source, for something like EDA tools (where neither I, nor most other users would want to play with the source code) are the open file formats and freedom from node-locking and other such license restrictions. Regarding file formats - this is a major pain in the EDA branch, with every vendor having their own closely guarded file formats to ensure you can't easily switch to a different vendor. Like most professionals, I don't have a problem with paying appropriate prices for tools - but I do have a problem with paying money for tools and then spending days fighting with a vendor to get license codes and dongles to work correctly, and then days more to try and get it working at my home office as well as the main office.
There are several problems with gEDA, as I see it. First off, there is the lack of integration - it appears to be a random collection of loosely related programs, rather than a complete solution. As a user, I would not want to have to figure out which command-line program is used to generate netlists from a schematic design, and which parameters are used to get a format that PCB likes. Having the parts as separate executable programs is a good thing - not everyone wants to use all the parts, and may want to use alternatives for some parts of the design flow, and command-line programs are much better suited to batch processing or other automation. But they should work better together.
The second big issue is the appearance of the programs. If a potential user is not put off by the myriad of assorted independent sub-projects, then they certainly will be put off when they look at the screenshots. The Xaw PCB screenshot looks like something from an early 1990's DOS program, while the "new" GTK brings it to the level of Win 3.1 days. There is just no way most potential users are going to view gEDA as anything other than specialist "nerdy" software for the kind of users who thinks lynx is a suitable browser for every day use, and that WindowMaker is a poor window manager because it wastes too much resources on eye-candy.
The third issue is lack of Windows versions. Like it or not, that's what most designers use. Too many essential programs are windows-only for anything else to be practical for most users. Cygwin X is not a solution - it is arguably worse than useless, as it might delay efforts to make a proper port. While I couldn't work without cygwin, it brings new levels of extreme to dll hell, and the X server is unsuitable for real work. Any windows ports should therefore use mingw, or even Visual C++ - most serious cross-platform software supports one or both of these as their main windows compiler.
As it stands, gEDA appears more as a half-finished programming project that happens to be useful for EDA work, rather than an EDA design suite. Just look at the FAQs - they are much more concerned with compilation and software libraries than actually using the software! It is a rare user who does professional EDA design and is happy downloading libraries and following compile instructions - and such people seldom have much time to spare to try gEDA.
What really needs to be done is for someone to go through what is needed for a practical EDA suite that people will use. Pick a decent cross-platform toolkit (wxWidgets, gtk 2 or the GPL'ed version of QT are about the only sensible choices). Re-write the GUIs of all the main apps (I know PCB has a gtk version - consider it a prototype and throw it out) with a view to consistency, integration and ease of use. Even better would be to do it in a language like Python. Keep all the back-end stuff that you can - I'm sure that is fine. The different parts don't necessarily have to be in one monolithic program - but they should look like they come from the same vendor!
Have a look at Kicad. I haven't yet tried it, but while gEDA was thrown out of my list of candidates for testing (along with software that required ordering demo CDs from distributors) at the first round, I will definitely be trying out Kicad. It might not do all that I need, but it sure looks like a solution, at least for small boards.
Oh, and add an autorouter. I realise that this is hardly a minor request, but it's an essential for many users.
I can understand that fine. All we can give you here is some ideas of what would make the tools more attractive to us and other potential users - it is entirely up to you to decide whether you want to implement them. For example, making a windows port is essential if you want to reach a wide user group - something like 90% of potential users will drop out as soon as they fail to find windows binaries on the download page (and that applies even to users like me who also use linux). But do you really want to make such a port? That's another question - if all it means is more work for your current developers, and more support on your mailing lists, then it is worse than useless to you. If it attracts new developers, or at least new contributors of libraries and examples, or even some sort of financial backing, then it's a different matter.
For the record, David Brown (see below) and I are not the same David, but we seem to think a lot alike -- must be the name!
gEDA community, we don't mean to gang up on you, and we really do appreciate all you have done, though you may be feeling a little thin skinned by now.
So let me suggest the gEDA community put together a roadmap showing where you want to go and post it. My sense of things (yes, this is a rerun) is that you do need to focus on some key items:
better integration of tools
consistent user interface
easy installation of the entire gEDA suite
the dummies book on gEDA that can be the re-packaged CC articles for now. You may want to update them.
and of course a Windows version
I understand you will need some help -- so ask for it. I have to believe that there are other people that may be able to help that will do so.
See you all next Thur., or as I like to say (kiddingly) "gE-DAY". I'm such a stinker!!!!
Hmmm, Gtk is the latest linux GUI; what about it makes it not "seem" modern? Just eye candy?
Yup, well noted.
Too late. I committed those changes this week; it now has two main GUIs (Gtk and Motif) with options for more, including a potential native Windows GUI. Not much *practical* change from before, but from a design standpoint, this is a stepping stone to Win32 and MacOS versions.
We've had one for a while. It isn't topological, but it is at least gridless. We had a grid autorouter before that.
I've been online since 300 baud modems were "wow that's fast". My skin is titanium plated carbon fiber by now.
As part of the HID conversion, we added a to-do to PCB at least (I'm most involved in PCB development). My personal (i.e. greed-based) roadmap is thusly: First, work on bringing docs up to date. Second, improving the trace optimizer. Third, getting back to my own projects ;-)
I'd like to see a Win32 GUI on PCB soon, though. I've been told there's a wxWidgets GUI in the works too.
At the moment, this kind of feedback is very helpful. After we've settled (a lot of development is going on at the moment), the best kind of help would be "try it and see, let us know what's needed next".
GTK 2 is certainly a modern toolkit, and is the standard toolkit for Gnome applications (and also, I believe, for Firefox and Thunderbird?). Personally, I feel GTK apps often look a bit "clunkier" than wxWindows or QT. But maybe that's just the Gnome style (after all, wxWindows will often use GTK when running under linux). Maybe it is also that GTK apps often look slightly out of place on Windows, while wxWidgits uses native widgets when possible.
But no, it's not about eye candy (I've never been a fan of excessive eye candy). It's about following standard design practices, and giving a layout that looks like it's got the required information and controls in an appropriate place. I'm basing this on the single screenshot from the geda website, by the way - if things have changed substantially without updating the website, then maybe you have other screenshots that give a better impression (I think the gEDA image problem could be as much to do with the website(s) as with the programs - why on earth is the Xaw screenshot still there?). The window layout looks like it has been designed by someone who has never used a gui program before. Judging from the Xaw screenshot, the GTK version has kept as much as possible of the Xaw design with no regard for changes in standards, style and usage. For example, I'd expect a menu bar to be in the same position as the menu bar on every other program I use. I'd expect a set of toolbars with configurable buttons (with a nicer button label font, if you want labels on the buttons at all), which could be docked or floating according to preference. It's a little difficult to describe, and perhaps I'm biased from having used the one EDA program (Protel 98) too much and thinking that everything else looks funny, but the GTK screenshot strikes me as being merely a slightly nicer version of the Xaw screenshot, which looks like it comes from the early days of computer graphics, when every app had its own style for every widget.
Is there any reason for having several GUIs, instead of a single good cross-platform gui? At best, you are going to end up with a lot of duplication of effort, and at worst you'll get GUIs that look completely different on different platforms, with significantly different functionality.
The Gtk GUI still looks mostly like that. The new Motif HID looks more like this:
formatting link
(although the status line has more in it now).
The Motif HID is new so I haven't had much time to play with look-n-feel. I kept it minimalist on purpose.
The Xaw GUI is, for some people, significanly faster than the Gtk one on older hardware. We kept a branch for it so those users could still use it.
Good suggestion.
Gtk fonts are configurable on a user-level basis, just like Windows. The Motif HID uses standard .Xdefaults, so you can set the fonts to whatever you want (even a different font for each button).
A couple. First, lock-in. We already went through the pain of changing the GUI layer once. Part of the goals behind the HID project was to *hide* the GUI from the core, as the old gui code polluted the core a lot, which made it harder to work on the core code. By isolating the gui code behind an application-specific API, core development is easier and GUI development stays "clean" of the core.
Second, we actually have eight HIDs at the moment, only two of which are GUIs. Having two GUI hids proves that the API is properly designed. We use the same API to handle exporting, printing, importing, wizards, extensions, etc.
Third, we've discovered that not everyone LIKES the same layout. Windows users shouldn't be burdened with the Unix conventions. Motif users shouldn't be burdened by the Gtk style guides. Etc. Some users want lots of buttons and knobs in the main window (like your toolbar). Some users want as much screen space dedicated to their board as possible. HID lets us support different *styles* of GUIs, not just different toolkits.
Fourth, there's no such thing as a "single good cross-platform gui". There are acceptable cross-platform guis, but they all result in some compromise. With HID, you can always take advantage of whatever extras your native toolkit offers, without having to dumb down to the least common denominator.
There's some duplicated effort, yes. We try to keep the duplicated parts in the core, if they can be made gui-independent.
Well, that's one possiblility we consider a bonus :-)
Imagine being able to plug in a pads-compatibility HID if you're a pads house, or an orcad compatiblity HID if you're an orcad house.
I don't think I can come up with any sensible counter-arguments here (except that the Xaw screenshot and information should be moved out of the limelight - it's fine to make a plainer gui for slower PC's, but it's poor advertising to have it first in the list!). It's clear there is a lot more going on with gEDA development than is apparent from the web site. I still don't think it is likely to be a realistic choice for my use at the moment, but it's a lot closer than I thought, and appears to be getting much more usable. It is perhaps the web site and information that is most in need of updating, rather than the software itself. Thanks for your time and information, and all your work on gEDA (even if I don't use it myself, I still think it is an important project). I'll be looking in at it again in the future.
:> Is there any reason for having several GUIs, instead of a single good :> cross-platform gui?
DJ know about this since he's the developer, but forgot to point it out. I consider it a big advantage of the new PCB.
Fifth: by separating the layout engine from the GUI, you can run PCB from the command line to perform various actions like creating Gerbers and fab drawings. You don't need to start the GUI to operate in this mode. This means you can use a Makefile to automate your design flow. Very sweet, if you've got a complicated design.
Moreover, a separated layout engine can conceivably be driven by a script (i.e. TCL or Perl with a little bit of glue coding to talk to the PCB API), which offers very interesting possibilities for constructing repetitive layouts, large components with pre-built pin-escaping, etc.
Who says the commercial vendors are more innovative?
Sigh, NINE hids. I forgot about the "nogui" hid that's built-in. The gedasymbols.org web site uses a no-gui copy of PCB to drive all the online footprint viewers.
Yeah, it's converting stored footprints to web pages on demand, using the same layout tool we design boards with.
We also use pcb itself to generate all the inline images in the documentation, from .pcb files stored in the docs subdirectory.
Sigh^2, 13 hids. I forgot that a lot of the hid modules have multiple hids within them, to serve different purposes. For example, the gerber hid has one for collecting aperture data and one for the actual plotting (because it's easier to implement that way, that's why).
I wasn't objecting to the separation of the gui from the backend code - I think that's a good idea, and is something missing in many commercial programs (I see it particularly with things like compilers that force you to use their IDE instead of your favourite editor and make utility). I was just wondering why you would want to develop several full-blown gui front-ends to the back-end, and if it was worth the effort. It turns out there are several good reasons, so fair enough.
Some *are* quite innovative, but they have by no means a monopoly.
Did you consider Eagleware Genesys Personal Edition
$US1000 but without all the nice design aids. The output format is Autocad, which helps deal wioth mitered corners, curved tracks etc. And it is a proper RF design support system ,not Just a PCB layout/Schematic system.
Try it? I have a cracked copy if v1.20 in my collection and yes, I gave it a good run-through.
version of >DipTrace? Sorry, can't picture that...wait, let me take another hit off the ol' pipe...nope, still nothing.
"Testimonials" are a crutch when you have nothing else to stand on. They do not put you in a good light. Best to remove them from your website.
Gee, ya think?
made with DipTrace." Might be good to bundle them with the software as sample files so we can be impressed, huh?
I also dug through Yahoo Group you use as a support forum. Looks like you have big bug problems, my friend. To your credit, it appears they are being fixed as fast as they're found.
Oh, oh. Old man starting to ramble...someone fetch his medicine.
Yep, you're Russian. I can almost hear the accent through the words on the screen as well as identify your native language by your ESL. Used to work long hours with a Russian also called Stanislav. He at one time worked as a quality control engineer at a Russian semiconductor fab plant. His specialty was x-ray diffraction crystallography. Claims to have assisted to reverse engineer the i386 so it could be copied. I had to interview him when he applied for an entry level job here in the States. (You know, so many immigrants come over claiming ridiculously inflated skills and education just to better their chances of gaining entry.) I remember he was very nervous and there was stress in his voice and his hands were shaking as he gestured. It was more like an interrogation than an interview; I grilled him mercilessly on his knowledge of solid state electronics. Lastly, I jotted down a calculus expression I remembered from college and asked him to integrate. He did so without error in under a minute. F-ing outstanding to answer all my hideously technical questions while extremely stressed, in a second language, quickly. We hired him as a full-time employee, of course, and everyone was happy. He had been working at Wal-Mart on the shipping dock running a fork-lift for the last two years putting his son through a local state university. His wife was back in Russia, waiting for the son to graduate and begin earning, before she came over.
This is very out-dated version. 1.20 and 1.23 are two big differences (more than a year of work). Yes, it was very buggy and hadn't many features at that time, because that was one of the first releases made by single guy. Now there is a group of people (developers and beta-testers) engaging in this software and real sales were started from 1.21.r4 when we fix major problems.
Please let me know the software vendor who hadn't bug problems. Some programs are for a long time at the market and they are very clear if developers fix problems asap, but I'm sure they were not clear from the beginning.
No, it was not unusable crap, but one of the first versions. It was also possible to use it and some people do that today because it was the last cracked version :), then we've bought protection solution (first one was home-made). 1.23 also has some issues of course, however it is much better than 1.20 (1.20 was unprofitable for single person because of its issues, today there is a profitable company engaging in DipTrace).
If you don't like DipTrace and think it is lowest of the low-end, this is your point and your right (there are people who share your opinion), however just to let you know there are many others who have a different thinking and switched to DipTrace from other programs (for example search google for something like "diptrace eagle" for opinions on forums).
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