CAD software

SNIP

To encourage one to use RS as a supplier.....

My observation is that the more potential users a piece of software has, the more likely that there'll be a free version that's arguably entirely competitive with commercial offerings. Hence Apache and OpenOffice...

With nichier software such as EDA tools, it's of course much more hit or miss. I don't think there's anything out there yet to compete with the Microwave Offices, Ansoft Designers, or even pSPICEs of the world... although I am keeping my eyes on these guys:

---Joel

Tried that route. I am not a SW guy so I could only help from the input side (which GPL guys sometimes underestimate), for example by testing and by describing exactly what is needed, by which type of engineers, and why. Turns out in gschem some essential fixes weren't really possible with a "fork", meaning a split from the wagon trail and that is not really a good thing. Because then you end up with two versions that develop their own life and will unlikely ever meet again.

Other times the notion was "Well, donate a few hundred and maybe someone will get around to it". Maybe. Nah, then I'd rather pay $1k or whatever for a good schematic capture program that has all this fixed already. Got to take a look at Altium.

There are two open source contenders in the CAD world but for some reason both stop about 100 feet before the finish line when it comes to hardcore industrial usefulness. Meaning including mixed and analog.

I like this sentence, quote "Please keep in mind that these versions are still incomplete and we hope that some of you will be able to compile and run the package by their own. " :-)

With simulators I am rather happy with LTSpice. Some companies like NXP don't seem to fully understand that this is where much of the market is headed and don't offer SPICE models for many of their RF devices. Which in my case has cost them design-ins.

So nag screens pop up all the time? We don't even have RS in America, AFAICT.

IIRR - from comments posted here - it's a derivative of EasyPC possibly via Pulsonix. EasyPC were writing cheap circuit design software in the UK in the 1980's - my employer bought a Smith Chart plotter for me to use around 1990. The company went bust, but the code was bought by another company.

"PostPosted: Apr 02, 2005 - 05:58 AM

The people behind Pulsonix bought EasyPC when the company went bust, and based Pulsonix on it. They continue to develop EasyPC, which is intended for the hobbyist and educational markets. Pulsonix competes with Orcad, Protel, etc."

-- Bill Sloman, Nijegen

Not yet, got a 2GB USB stick for registering though :) We had a discussion here a couple or three weeks ago, where some posters found the origins and stuff about it.

Calls home each startup? Carries RS part numbers. Seems to good to be true?

I hate to start using the thing invest time in parts libraries then find they go belly-up or start charging high fees. Guess I been caught out too many times by this sort of startup offer to get lots of registered users then find it's sold off or discontinued.

Here in .au it seems to come as a reply to Farnell buying Cadsoft, since I buy from either Farnell or RS Comp. depending on price & avail. Both do free overnight delivery, which is good for small orders I place.

Grant.

Joerg wrote:

As Marcus noted, that is the root of all of

He re-used a component (regulator artwork) from something a correspondent had freely shared with him. (It is unclear whether that guy was the original source of the component artwork; if not, one assumes that that guy was given permission to copy it. This *used* to be a big strength of Cadsoft EAGLE--no mas.)

The serial number of the app making the component file is entered into that file and it travels with it anywhere it gets used. (It's actually a clumsy kludge and easily defeated, but again, it's something *paid* customers shouldn't even have to consider.)

Start with not treating your **paid** customers like they are something you need to scrape off your shoe. Stop punish people for the actions of others who are perhaps 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon away from you.

Clandestine DRM certainly isn't kosher. For a legit contract, ALL the details must be presented UP FRONT.

We continue to disagree on purposely-infected software, clandestine crippling of work product, and corporate ethics.

Depends on whether that time is available. Again, Murphy says this kind of s*it always comes up when you don't.

Joerg wrote:

There are even some projects (The GIMP) which are quite hostile to critiques/suggestions. Open Source devs definitely aren't a monolithic lot.

We all know the value of a good list of symptoms from a user.

You would think that the more high-powered the technologist, the better and more useful his input would be and the more valuable that would be considered.

I assume you mean *without* creating a fork. Reminds me of Bismark's observation about making laws and making sausage. With the pieces of gEDA having such diverse roots and it being more of a collection of apps than a suite, that *can* make things more complicated to fix.

...then there's Go-OO which repeatedly has features that it develops being folded into the OOo main trunk.

...and there's the X.org split with XFree86, which made X even stronger.

It is possible that these things can improve the breed. ...and it's not unheard of to reconcile splits.

Yeah. The *bounty* notion I mentioned is more targeted. Remember the Wanted posters in the Westerns? You don't bring the guy in, you don't collect.

It's good to have choices.

It's **REALLY** good when software houses DON'T purposely put booby traps in their products then purposely NOT TELL YOU they're there.

Of course, when the source code is available, it's difficult to pull that kind of s*it and get away with it.

There is CIRCAD, but the user interface is different, i have an old dos version

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

Wr>You have that backwards.

Yup.

Yup--and the **newer** your version of the Cadsoft EAGLE crap, the **more** infected it is. As Cadsoft discovers rogue serial numbers, they add those to their malware in the newest version,

--whether you paid full price for their software or not.

Exactly. Nico nailed this in his post. news: snipped-for-privacy@news.planet.nl

Incorrect. This is a *lock and key* meme. The serial number of the app that creates the library part is inserted into that file. That propagates to EVERY document in which that part is used. This is the **VIRAL** part of Cadsoft's evil scheme.

When a document is accessed, the serial numbers in it are compared against the database in the app. If one rogue number is spotted, the app will not open the document aka your work product.

This happens AFTER the app has passively allowed the known-rogue part to be *inserted* into that document. It's like a cop standing around watching someone get the hell beat out of him, then AFTER the guy is beaten and broken, the cop ARRESTS THE VICTIM.

DO NOT GIVE MONEY FOR DRM'd PRODUCTS. (You may hand over money for payware, but you are NOT "buying" it--especially not Cadsoft's crap.)

Why did you put that in your agreement? I suppose the law would already imply something like that.

No, this is what he wrote: Quote "It happened that back then, I reused a very small part of this schema (with copy and paste) in one of my projects and continued to copy and paste the same part ..."

Not a library part but a chunk of a schematic. If this was for a commercial product that act alone can be, ahem, dicey. For my work it would constitute a rather blatant breach of contract (the one I set up myself) unless this chunk of schematic was explicitly declared open for commercial use by everyone. Hobbyists generally do not plunk down the money for a professional CAD version. But I don't know, maybe he also used it for hobby purposes.

I meant, what other CAD software?

Agree, they should have done that. Would have been the better style.

We disagree on more important things. Do you believe copying some chunk of schematic from the web into a _work_ product is kosher? Sorry, but I think the law ain't on your side there if you really believe that.

Not in all jurisdictions. However, mainly I put it in there to make it very clear what they can expect from me and what I expect from them. If I were to copy chunks from other people's schematics and use that in my designs this could result in a client with some serious egg in the face down the road. All it takes would be one of their competitors to find out. Nobody wants that to happen.

What you say makes a lot of sense in your situation, however it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The DRM stuff doesn't hurt the thieves at all, only the legitimate users of their software. That's hardly a good thing, is it?

What else could they do? Other than warning about this in a more prominent fashion, which I agree they should have done.

That depends on how the web design is copyrighted doesn't it? There are plenty of freely licensed hardware designs, reference designs, manufacturers CAD reference files etc. Plus AIUI a large proportion of Eagle users are hobbyists where such sharing is commonplace.

Joerg Inscribed thus:

I've never had any DRM problems using Eagle either ! I don't know of any of my clients that has had any.