So with the release of V5 I now see that Kicad is really starting to turn into a professional tool and it is time for the community to step up to the plate and help it to the next level. I decided to do my part by donating
to the cern kicad fund.
Cern for whatever reason realized that they benefit from having quality opensource EDA tools and are putting resources into kicad development. They have a funding page https://givetokicad.web.cern.ch/ where you can donate to pay to have their programmers work on kicad code. Looks like they are currently @60% of goal and the average donation is about $75.
Since I do my fair share of bitching about kicad I thought it was only fair to start sending them some money.
Process was easy though I did have to call my bank and explain that I was sending money overseas and Yes,I really did know what a swiss Franc was worth but it went well.
I urge anyone who is using kicad to consider making a donation. We saw what linux could accomplish when
the community supported it and we can do the same for kicad.
It’s fantastic to see how much people are willing to donate. I donated on the basis of the great quality of the work being put forward by the KiCad developers. Given the comparative costs of other EDA packages, it’s an absolute bargain even to throw a few hundred dollars at KiCad.
With the latest conversion tools for Eagle designs, it will be interesting to see how many commercial Open Hardware projects will persist with Eagle vs transferring over to KiCad. Hopefully these enterprises will also consider donating based on their usage of the software. Taking a yearly subscription away from Eagle and putting it into KiCad is a much more sustainable payment system, knowing that the payment is purely voluntary and not feature limited for future changes.
Do you know if there are any plans for bug or feature bounties? I know I’d like to see more of a roadmap of features and fixes. This might also help those who use KiCad for commercial reasons, or are trying to move organisations over to KiCad and away from other packages. But knowing that some features can be included sooner due to commercial needs might help raise more funds. Personally I know I’d have an easier argument at work when it comes to donating money if there were clear milestones for things like improved Python scripting, Library management, etc
Also, I’m very happy to see how much commercial organisations like Digikey, SnapEDA, Octopart etc are building libraries or allowing conversion tools. I think commercial support for a project like this is a great plus!
My understanding is that the Cern money is only used to pay their programmers. I am ok with the that
because they are a first class engineering organization and I trust them. It would be nice if kicad could set up their own donation/gofundme whatever page. Somebody is paying for server space and a lot of people are putting in a lot of time and effort. Having a funding source for these would really help turn kicad into a fully functional engineering tool.
Certainly, I don’t mind if the finance the whole CERN from kicad donations
For many years I have been using kicad for free.
About the roadmap: http://docs.kicad.org/doxygen/v6_road_map.html
The percent number seems to be how much money has been raced. (in percent of the goal) Whereas the hours completed is how much work has been done using the money raised. (Just a guess from the name “hours completed” and the fact that there does not seem to be a correlation between the money donated to that value)
Currently it shows 84% and 504 hours “completed”. 84% of 600 is 504. I don’t think there is any mystery there, one has to allow for the fact there are non-native English speakers, and a better term might be “funded”.
You fight the level boss, then move to the next level where the goal is to raise 1500 hours !
HAH!
Okay, what we have here is a failure to communicate; and I don’t think it is either of us at fault.
When using Opera as the browser on Windoze7 the web page states, “564 hours completed so far”.
When using Chrome as the browser on Windoze7 the web page states, “188 hours completed so far”.
Up until earlier today I had never seen the number that appears to be the percentage level of funding. BTW, they are rounding up the level of funding, which I would have personally truncated; once 99.5% is reached it appears the web page will state 100% funded, even though still shy of of the actual 30,000 Swiss fancs.
It also appears that the web page calculates the “hours completed” is based upon ~4 persons doing the “expert development”. And, “No”, I have not read the web page HTML to find out (and I don’t plan to). It is also not clear to me how many hours a week Cern employees actually work and how “days off” affect the calculations (which is what could have been missed/overlooked in the web page calcs).
If one takes 600 hours and divides it by 2 persons, then the result is 300 hours each. 300 hours each divided by 40 hours a week is 7.5 weeks; which leaves a little wiggle room for the “~2 months” mentioned by the two individuals in the campaign video.
BTW, I can’t wait to see a glimpse of what the next Level Boss might look like!
It doesn’t matter which browser I use I see 95% and 570 hours, but it also states “Raised CHF 28515 of CHF 30000”.
The 600 hours was nothing more than a funding goal. Having a goal and providing feedback encourages contributions, as can be seen. It’s also the reason we have telethons etc. Perhaps they aimed a little low with 600 hrs. But the goal has nothing to do with the actual amount of time it might take before the release of V6. Nothing! It is baffling to me why you keep treating it as such.
Edit: The only thing that might happen when they reach the goal is donations will slow significantly.
I watched the video and took them at their word, “Our goal is to raise 30 thousand Swiss fancs in two months, so that we can sustain 600 hours of KiCad development.”
The web page claims, “A stable release of KiCad Version 6 could become available very soon, so that everybody can profit from its enhanced features. With an extra 600 hours of expert development, this might become a reality!”
If this is not what you see then it makes sense that you, or others, question my queries. However, your perception does not make my curiosity about the topic irrelevant.
Beware of weasel words. Predictions of the future are impossible, I don’t care who gives their “word” or not. It’s clear to me they are saying 600 hours will HELP deliver v6, which is fair enough.
Nothing magic happens when the goal is reached.
You are like the guy trying to work out how Santa delivers 2 billion presents in 8 hours. I’ve got news for you…
