Should we expect manufacturers to provide library assets for KiCad?

It still does in the corporate world. And it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. (the costs of eagle are comparatively small to the costs of retraining your employees)


The fact that KiCad can import eagle will help a lot here. It allows companies to introduce a third option for people that design even fewer boards than the ones that get an eagle licence with still allowing them to have access to existing designs.

I observed this first hand over the last year. The most important guys had altium. The guys below that got eagle. The intern got KiCad. Both the groups who had an “expensive” licence needed to confirm every few months that they really need that licence. Some therefore switched from eagle to KiCad because they wanted to avoid these annoying mails. (Being able to open their own designs was key here)