Re: gEDA-user: Commercial CAD, land pattern generators report

["Bert Timmerman" <bert.timmerman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all, 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Paddock
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 1:07 AM
> To: gEDA user mailing list
> Subject: Re: gEDA-user: Commercial CAD, land pattern generators report
> 
> > a 10000 part library operating a layout service bureau
> 
> Take a look at <http://wikicomponents.com> "The worlds first 
> and only truly open source for 2D and 3D PCB component 
> package, part and electrical device data".  I did point out 
> to them that <http://gedasymbols.org> , was around for a 
> while, which not really my point here.
> 
> I corresponded with Dino Ditta, the person behind the site, 
> when it first opened.
> There were some ambiguities about the terms of use, as far as 
> being Open Source friendly, and he said that was his 
> intention, and that he would clean up the ambiguities.  Don't 
> know if he did that.
> He was open to having KiCAD and PCB symbols posted there.  
> Maybe we could get behind his 3D effort rather than DXF?
> 
> Last I looked there were a lot of part numbers, with nothing 
> to back them up, which I did complain about to Dino, don't 
> know if he fixed that.
> Frustrating to spend time searching the list for it to lead 
> to nothing.
> 
> 
> --
> http://blog.softwaresafety.net/
> http://www.designer-iii.com/
> http://www.wearablesmartsensors.com/
> 

Excuse me for having a rather pessimistic view about this site.

At first sight the story/website sells, I (myself) might even get involved
in this idea, at least someone has seen the "problem" of the EDA user
community (this is not the EDA vendor community problem, that one is solved
with a 20k++ $ seat of some softwarez).

Then I start to look for some oddities and errors, none to be found, it's a
near perfect set up.

Contributed parts data and the contributors get ranked, OK to me, we should
do that on gEDA-symbols site too ;-), let's give some kudos, and warm cuddly
hugs to ourselves.

Even the "Terms of Use" are full of legal stuff, now that was to be
expected, no surprises here.

OK, the German and Chinese translation buttons do not give full translations
of everything, just the menu buttons of the webpages get translated into
German or Chinese (I think).

The mere fact things start with a M$ installer doesn't give an overwhelming
"Free Open" feeling.

M$ users are known wanting to pay for everything, either money or valuable
time spent on whining for patches/updates (and not scratching their own
itch).

And how are we addressing the license issue ?

I would prefer to contribute with something like GPL, LGPL (it's a library,
isn't it) or any other FOSS license.

To me the license issue is one of the tell tales of this wikicomponents idea
becoming a vendor lock in/out in the future.

In the "our vision" page it is stated (among other things) that "Nobody Owns
It" 

In the page descibing the "Rating System" it is stated:

<quote>

"The most frequently asked question is: "Who owns the data?"

The answer to both of these is the same: The WikiComponents Community.

</quote>

The name is "Wikicomponents Inc." that makes it a commercial EDA company
with a money trail, where does the money come from and where does it go to ?
... enough said.


IMHO, this flipped "wikicomponents" coin can go just one of two ways:

Head:

It will work, a bazzillion parts get contributed by thousands of
enthousiastic contributors who will produce an error free repo of parts
data.

And then some day someone will realize that the data contributed is a
goldmine and run away with the stuff (gold).

"Lock in" will happen as one of the big EDA companies will buy the data.

"Lock out" will happen as in shutting down the site being the next step.

Anyone had made a backup/clone/fork of the data from this site somewhere ?
... Anyone (please) ?  ...  Nobody (Ok, now that's the person owning the
stuff)

Tail:

Not enough contributors/contributions to gain any/enough leverage against
the bazzillion parts out there.

I have been there, done that, that is where we are at the moment ;-)


I will see how well this goes, things can only get better, for now I scratch
my own itch with gEDA and any "Automation" I can think of for myself.

Just my EUR 0.02

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.



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