WinQCad vs. EagleCAD

So the actions quoted are clearly not plagiarism. There is no evidence that he acted illegally or was passing off someone elses work as his own.

Unless you think anyone who uses a 3rd party library is a plagiarist?

There is no mention of "library". He was using someone else's work ! Whether that work was done using a cracked copy of Eagle or not. Its doubtful that he attributed anything to the original source. Had he done so, then he could rightly argue about damage to his own work. By his own admission he continued to use work that wasn't his to use.

At least it isn't another boatload of Cuban criminals that Castro has set adrift. :)

If the insurance company has paid for the loss, they own it.

Leftist weenies don't care about insurance companies' property. Didn't you get the memo? They're evil so have no rights.

Hi Jörg,

Yes, and remember please. The guy imported this peace of s... in earlier versions. After updating he was blocked with all these designs that included the piece of s... only because this guy made a copy &paste of a simple power supply part from a sheet that was shared in the community. And because this worked well for long time there was no sign not do this. IMHO way eagle do this kind opf copy protection is really unacceptable. But as long as there are powerful alternatives I don't see any reason why a big community stays on eagle. Wrong: I know it: There are many "free" versions around. And a lot of "owners" use the free one. This was initiated from Cadsoft workers (the CEO himself AFAIR) by writing and selling Handbooks starting from: "How to install Eagle" without any part of software. That is IMHO the invitation to any "free user" that

Thats not the smart way of selling. I will never use such software.

Marte

I doubt they wanted to encourage clandestine use. There is a free version of Eagle with some limits but good enough and legit for hobby use. However, of course you do not get a handbook unless you buy one somewhere or live with a PDF file. I have never used the free version except to try it out before buying but I do not believe schematics created with this free version would cause DRM issues. What causes the issues is when someone uses a hacked version of the full layout package, because that is hardcore illegal.

For some reason I never had any such problems in all the years I use Eagle. So, what CAD are you using?

I'm not on any leftist mailing lists. :)

Hi Jörg,

Shure it was. The free version is available years later than the spoken books.

I used Ultiboard since version 5.xx that is pretty old now. When I bought my version they approved that I will get every update free and have to pay only for upgrades. But few releases later the company was sold and the new updates were no more free. I don't know how much more sellings later Ultiboard is part of NI but I don't have anymore practice with it. Later I had to use Protel98se @ work. Pretty ugly compared to Ultiboard at this time. Few Years later the workgroup switchses to Mentor Graphics "Verybest" aka "Expedition PCB" because it is really "cheap" to get if you are member of Europractice. And well: It is the best program I've ever seen in this matter. But these times are gone. Last time I had no pcbs to do so I may wait with new decissions. I played a bit with KICAD that seems to be good enough for me... Hint: If the only thing that you miss is the ugly frame: Just Print via Postscript and remove it ;-)

Marte

Ok, I didn't know that.

It also has some auto-numbering issues and auto-numbering is what I need a lot, on every design.

I grew up with Futurenet Dash-2, then Dash-4. After starting self-employed I bought OrCad SDT. That was the best CAD ever made but the Windows versions came with a huge drop in quality, IMHO. So now I am in the market. Eagle is ok but for now not forever because it has no hierarchy.

We have no such thing as Europractice so it's always full price. But a lot of stuff is less expensive over here.

So you declare you never ever used a (piece of) circuit from a magazine? Or an application note?

Some IC vendors even offer diagrams in several formats. Is it wrong to use that?

Thats hardly the point ! I don't know of a magazine or a vendor that produces an application note etc, that doesn't retain copyright ! But in using their work its normal to attribute the source. Indeed even in "Open Source" work, derived works normally attribute the original.

Two very different things. I can honestly say that I have never used a circuit from a magazine for a commercial design, IOW where I get paid for the design. For Hobby, yes I have, as a teenager.

With application notes it is usually encouraged to use the circuits in there because the whole purpose is to promote sales of the underlying devices. It is like using the templates that come with some software.

If offered as a suggestion of how to use their product, typically there is no problem. But if in doubt one must still ask.

If anyone goes to the touble of putting up an Eagle format CAD file on their web site it seems very likely this is specifically so that other users can benefit from using it. Certainly you cannot just default to assuming any use is plagiarism.

There is no evidence that he acted illegally or was passing off someone elses work as his own.

California still runs exhaust gas analyzers, and does not interrogate the ECU.

Yup. That's how it should be done. Anything else opens the big barn door to fraud, deception and cheating by "We'll make any car pass" sort of shops.

They do connect to the jack under the dash.

Checking for fault codes, I would assume. If the ECU has detected misfiring or occasional over-rich operation, I imagine that the car won't pass the inspection, and that a repair and re-test will be ordered.

I don't think that they *trust* the ECU to report any and all possible problems... which, as you say, it how it should be.

Actually, they (they == several states) do. They query the ECU to see that all devices are working properly, which presumes the ECU hasn't been tampered with. Since '96 (could be '97) model years the ECU interface and reporting has been standardized. All pollution devices must report through the under-dash plug.