Nothing wrong about that 
that after all is the idea behind open source licenses.
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I think I understand your hesitations. My hesitations would go further: I suspect there are companies that start an opensource project in order to cut out the parallel development efforts and make their own opensource project fail in order to sell their other, paid “version”. That won’t be like that.
I’m the founder and project engineer of AKTOS Electronics in Turkey. AKTOS is an abbreviation that stands for “Open Source Telemetry and Automation Systems”. You can take a look at https://github.com/aktos-io. I’m sure you will have some other opinions.
You can’t be sure about it. What if Kicad team has an ongoing discussion about such a web-based project? How would you feel about it? @Rene_Poschl may have shed light on that though…
Stealing from an opensource project to create another opensource project? 
Stealing ideas? I was not aware of any patented rights of Kicad currently has, like iPhone has for “Slide to unlock” widget. Did you ever read the GPL or do you have any ideas what it is about?
(Okay okay, I won’t go further )
Hey man, good luck, but I think your up for literally years of work before something real. I don’t think those problems are as bad as you make them sound. Also, the next V5 release will have a lot of cool new features.
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I don’t think kicad will be ported to a web tool anytime soon. (But i am not one of the developers. I am only part of the library maintenance team.)
I don’t know (and can’t decide by myself) if my attitude has any problems. Search the forum, try to find out if there are any. Or simply just look at this thread.
Again, it’s impossible in a web technology oriented project. Not a simple line of code. None.
I’m a user of RactiveJS and it has a Gitter channel. One day a user came into the channel and asked how he can make his code run with 0.9 version of Ractive. I asked what he was trying to achieve and he said he wants to make his code work and then he will switch to React (another framework). That request was heartbreaking to me (because that user will send our efforts to trash as soon as it worked) but we did help him anyways, including the core developers of Ractive. I guess he was burst into tears while leaving the channel. His “thank” was enough for us.
So, guys, what is this aggressiveness in this forum?
I guess that was a response to your “KiCad sucks, I gonna write something way better” attitude. If you don’t understand that attitude sets the tone, I think you are really going to struggle with your project.
Further discussion seems pointless, I suggest you come back in 6 months when you have something to show working. Also if you want a better response, dial back the attitude. If you need a discussion forum, set up your own.
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No offense, but “I think this conversation is over” sentence is kind of aggressive too, which gives the message “I’m the boss here and you should stop talking any further”. That was the exact same posture I quit sending any bug reports or thoughts on this forum or anywhere else. My last words were “Thank you for Kicad”, and any of you didn’t say that you are not a developer of Kicad so you can’t accept the credit, you just accepted that thank. So I thought that you are the developers, thus I thought Kicad developers has such an attitude. That was the exact main objective of saying “Kicad has some problems that can not be corrected” (@1.21Gigawatts). Since none of you are one of the developers, apparently this was a total misunderstanding.
I may or may not come back here in a week, in a month or in a year; but I agree that
Talking is cheap, show me the code
My point was that you have decided what you think, we know what we think, there is no code to review so really nothing to discuss.
QED.
[quote=“Andy_P, post:37, topic:8962”]
telling us why you think Kicad sucks is actually somewhat baffling.
[/quote]‘I will lead you to the promised code’.
The success of Linus Torvalds is the proverbial double edged sword. He was a unique person at a unique time with a solution. As such he gets to impose his vision on the code base. Lost is the spirit of cooperation that grew up around his code base and, starting back at sourceforge, I’ve seen a lot of people thinking they can work his model to fame and glory for themselves.
[quote=“Andy_P, post:28, topic:8962”]
I agree, but he shouldn’t be a dick about it.
[/quote]That’s part of the Torvald’s model/mystique. Linus gets away with it in large part because the SOB is generally right, not that people are in awe of him and happy with his demeanor. But, it is like the cargo cult people.
Efforts like this sometimes remind me of GNU-Hurd. When Stallman couldn’t force people to stick GNU in front of Linux he needed a Linux replacement. Way behind the curve and never needed.
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Open source projects can succeed only if you can get a random and disperse group of people to form into an effective community. That takes work. Kicad now has 728 developers and who knows how many users. We need to work on developing a real community.
Any thoughts on setting up some local meet ups where users or developers can get together for a demo or tutorial and ask questions? Is there a group looking at upcoming shows and conferences where we could get a birds of a feather room ?
How about putting some slide shows together that anyone could download and present if an opportunity arose.
People can really be rude over the internet. We would all be a lot nicer to each other over beer and pizza.
John Eaton
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Funny. Especially the ‘paid developers’ part.
Look, these are the facts:
- forum.kicad.info is a support forum created by conceptual electronics and has been granted this status by the KiCAD developers (there is at least a Yahoo group for the same purpose).
- if you want to talk with developers, join the developer mailing list. While some of them watch/post here, it usually is in regards to bugfixing or requesting input on features for test versions.
As for your ‘What is wrong with KiCAD list’… riiight.
You’re on this forum now for like nearly 2 years and didn’t get that KiCAD supports the ‘component’ way of doing things, just that you have to roll your own libraries, as the official ones that come with KiCAD are from the other mindset and wont change for various reasons?
Bugfixes take centuries? Good one.
Feature request are not welcome? LOL.
That list reads like a collection of personal pet peeves + a healthy dose of not knowing how projects like this are organized and resourced.
And I’m afraid the only way for you to ‘get’ this will be the hard way, by trying to roll your own.
So good luck I guess.
PS: and if you try this ‘stunt’ on the developers mailing list I’m sure the response will be way more disturbing (for you).
Thanks for everyone staying calm. Good job, you’re superb community 
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Just to illustrate, although it should not be needed: In the last 5 days, there are 30 new bug reports on lauchpad (list sorted by date: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bugs?orderby=-id&start=0 ). 18 of these have already been fixed. [There are in addition a number of bugs solved during this time that was not reported during the last 5 days]. Of the remaining not yet solved ones, some are wishlist items which will have to wait as we have a feature freeze before ver.5, and some other reports might not be providing enough information to provide a clear idea about what is going on.
The team of developers are doing fantastic work these days!
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We had this stuff pop up on the forums - presentations from hackers for hackers.
I can’t find it yet, but I’m sure someone will remember - just ask with a separate topic for this and people will respond with things to share.
He ‘yelled into the forest and the forest yelled back’.
If he’d started out nicer (like putting his 'what’s wrong with KiCAD list first and foremost right there in the OP), the response would have been way way more civilized.
If he doesn’t get that lesson, he’s in for a rough ride.
[quote=“ouabacheDesignworks, post:39, topic:8962”]
Any thoughts on setting up some local meet ups where users or developers can get together for a demo or tutorial and ask questions? Is there a group looking at upcoming shows and conferences where we could get a birds of a feather room ?[/quote]
Local maker-spaces do that I’ve heard (see above note for presentations/slides).
Info on official (FOSDEM?) appearances are usually announced on the KiCAD website and some people are so nice to post those on the this forum as well then.
But as the ‘personnel layer’ for KiCAD is so thin, there is not a lot of these actually.
Come on, is anyone really taking this guy seriously. Sounds like a real p*%s take to me or if he really is serious could i suggest that he direct his complaints to the guy with the holding the gun to his & forcing him to use this great kiCAD package!
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I don’t really see how this Linuxman’s comment was necessary or advances any constructive agenda. I don’t defend the OP but some comments here by other people should have been reformulated or left unwritten. I would have much to say (or repeat) but it doesn’t seem worthwhile anymore.
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As my original intent by posting the draft here was to get any design recommendations and finding similar approaches/projects, I appreciate for those I got so far.
And, the moderators: Do your job, edit someones post only when necessary. Post something new otherwise (as I do, with “Reply” button. Simple eh?).
Lessons learned: Do not run or announce a forum that you are not keeping an eye on it.
My next post (since thread is locked)
@orsonmmz @SchrodingersGat I’ve solved many problems I faced with Kicad on my own, with or without the provided Python API. For example, the installation problems Kicad has is a solved problem for me, I did share the results/tools directly and indirectly (1, 2, 3) with the community. I did share solutions to some printing issues I faced.
But I thought it was pointless to share my effords with the community if someone is able to easily say:
And the rest stays silent.
I do use Kicad with component based approach, but only with the help of my own tools and I didn’t share these component-related tools with the community (thus I kept them for myself(!)) for a good reason: See above “learn how Kicad works, then go with the flow” conversation.
@bobc : Your first response to this thread was exceptionally constructive, quite the contrarily.
@orsonmmz Your post is incredibly nice. I would continue to help out if we were met at “that” time. You made me confused at this point though. (MeowCAD seems to share a lot of with my aim. I appreciate that, btw)
I can see that this thread is locked. Despite of those insults and threats, I had a chance to meet some nice people, so please unlock the thread. I’m also planning to post to the Kicad developers the same stuff and see if something nice would happen in there too.
I have a question: Is KiCAD a tool, or an idea with a physical evidence? If it’s a tool, you are justified “defending” it to the end. If it is an idea with physical product, then the physical product may change slightly. Like an airplane. It’s an idea about flying. There are many different airplanes. They share the same knowledge, but these teams can not work on the same plane. Important part is to keep these teams in touch to let them chat and share their experiences.
@ceremcem I can relate to the desire to make changes to KiCad, if I had the time and was paid to do so there would be many things I would try to impleme differently. Reading through your list of feature proposals there are some really good ideas (as well as a lot of borrowing from KiCad).
Two things that I would suggest you consider:
-
Duplication of effort / reinventing the wheel - getting to the point that KiCad is currently at will take years of programmer hours.
-
User base. KiCad has a pretty active development, from both CERN and other assorted (unpaid) developers. This development is supported by an active user base. Without users, development is pointless.
I would humbly suggest that your time could be better invested in contributing your good ideas to an already active project. You will see your ideas implemented and used by many happy people and leverage the development effort which is ongoing.
Currently KiCad development effort is estimated at $12M - https://www.openhub.net/p/kicad/estimated_cost
Please consider lending your efforts to KiCad, I think it would be beneficial for us and for you.
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This is what your first post should have said. You would have gotten a lot more help that way. (This was hidden behind your salty attack on kicad and it’s community.)
Moderators should not edit posts made by others! This should never be done. (The only exception is fixing minor spelling mistakes that do not change the meaning of the post.)
But they could have locked this thread. (At post 3 or so.)
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tl;dr: be nice to each other and unite the efforts
Guys, I think there is no benefit in being hostile to other project developers. Actually from time to time I see bug reports that are much less kind than the ‘What is wrong with Kicad?’ list. We are on friendly terms with gEDA developers and seek ways to collaborate, and I do not see why it should be different for other open source project developers. Obviously we would like to have all the skilled developers work for KiCad, but we wish all the best to those who prefer other projects. If you find our code useful, do not hesitate to reuse it as long as you comply with the source license. IMHO being rude is a sure way to discourage others from contributing to KiCad.
Speaking about originating a new project: I know that being the sole master of a project is tempting, when every line of code is exactly as you want it to be (this is why we all have pet projects, right?). The discussions preceding development of new features in KiCad might be tedious, tend to be endless and seem to never satisfy everyone, but I see a lot of value in them. People have different backgrounds, so they can use their experience to point out where a new idea might be failing or how could be improved, so more often than not you get better features eventually.
The sad truth is, it is a tremendous effort to develop an EDA package. When CERN realized there is a need for an open source tool to develop hardware, they did not start from scratch as there was no enough resources to do so (let me remind you that KiCad development is not the primary goal of CERN, so it is not like you can spend millions of Swiss francs to contribute to KiCad). The only way was to find a project that matched the expectation the best and start contributing. It seemed to work, and I have an impression that the better KiCad gets, the more developers it attracts - a kind of snowball effect. We really love it!
I looked at the list of complaints, and I am sure many of the changes would be welcome in KiCad too. I cannot imagine that someone would be against improving the error messages clarity, make KiCad easier to install or to enable copy-paste between different windows. If you ever change your mind about contributing to KiCad, we will be happy to point you to relevant spots in the source code to work on these features.
Also, have a look at MeowCAD, maybe you can get some inspiration there.
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