freeware for schematic to pcb?

Le Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:16:23 +0000, Nico Coesel a écrit:

Can't agree more. Having switched to Linux, I'm now looking to replace the orcad package which doesn't run smoothly under wine (runs under VBox, but it's a pain). I considered trying PCB, but now I know this "small" problem, I won't even spend (loose?) some time at it.

Sure it is. My boards are 500-1000 components on average and I need peace of mind, i.e. I need to be sure that the cad prevents/reports anything bad I can do.

Yup. And it's so easy to have tracks touching. Just one example: I frequently turn DRC off which allow doing something quickly, knowing that the DRC errors will be fixed later.

With the missing copper tagging I can't do that and I certainly don't have peace of mind, so exit PCB.

Because English doesn't have distinct equivalents of "gratis" and "libre"; the word "free" is used for both.

There's plenty of software which is gratis (free, as in "free beer") but which isn't libre (free, as in "free speech").

We use these two phrases as examples, as ways of differentiating the two common meanings of free:

1. Freedom to use/change/share
2. No payment required

In the USA, one of our constitutional rights is the right to "free speech", meaning we have the freedom to share our thoughts and ideas. The "free as in speech" type of "free software" thus means that we're free to learn from it, change it, and share it without legal constraint. The GPL enforces this freedom by requiring distributors to offer unencumbered sources under the GPL's terms, which permit reading, changing, using, and redistributing.

However, another common thing is software that is downloadable without a required payment or other cost. You may not be able to redistribute it, or access its sources, but at least you don't have to pay anything to try it. This is "free as in beer", using beer only to indicate that it's getting something at no cost, and not a freedom per se. It could be "free as in candy" or "free as in tuna" but in the USA you're more likely to see free beer (at parties, usually) than other commodities.

Note that the GPL does *not* require free-as-in-beer.

The term "freeware" normally means free-as-in-beer, although some folks use it for either (or both) meanings. See

Le Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:44:35 -0500, DJ Delorie a écrit:

Thank you (and Nobody too) for explanations and differences in semantics between USA and Europe about the word free (an derivatives).

KiCad became a free software early in 2003 (it has not always been so). That's why i said "KiCad is *not* a freeware" I should have added "KiCad is a free software distributed under GPLicence).

Habib.

I don't know about more likely (lots of things are given away for free), but "free beer" tends to get people's attention far more readily than most other commodities.

Although the requirement that anyone who pays for it can then redistribute it on a free-as-in-beer basis does tend to limit the ability to charge on a per-copy basis.

True, but unless you're building a very nichey application that generally requires support/customization/etc., the fact that the recipient has the right to make it free-as-in-beer (so long as they're the ones doing the "giving") means that the software is *effectively* going to become free-as-in-beer anyway.

Its my product I am shilling !

I have seen software that will generate a Gerber from an image file at various trade shows over the years. It was a Russian product IIRC. It wasn't cheap. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Andrew