gEDA-user: FreeDog meeting minutes (20061206)

[Ales Hvezda <ahvezda@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Here are the meeting minutes for the Free EDA Users Group meeting held on
December 6th 2006:

In attendance:  Stuart, DJ, JohnL, Steve Morss, and Ales.

* DJ mentioned that the last change/fix in CVS gschem (by Ales) of
  hardcoding the gettext version to 0.15 broke the build on his Fedora
  Core 6 box (which has 0.14.6).  Normally gettext wouldn't be a problem,
  but gettext 0.15 broke backwards compatibility which prompted the
  version change in CVS gschem.  Ales spent time fixing this during
  the meeting.  This fix was checked in after the meeting.  DJ reported
  that the alternative fix is working for him.

* DJ demoed several prototype and working SMD challenge boards.  DJ noted
  that nobody has reported successfully building a working SMD challenge 
  board.

* We had a new member join us at this FreeDog meeting: Steve Morss.
  Welcome Steve!

* DJ showed off his memory and Ethernet expansion board built using the 
  gEDA tools.

* DJ talked about PCB and PCB manufacturing vendors.

* Stuart and Ales discussed the guile 1.8.1 issues.  Ales has identified
  some of the breakage caused by guile 1.8.1 and will checkin fixes soon.

* DJ showed off a whole bunch of home etched boards.  DJ built etch test
  structures into these test boards.  The manufacturing accuracy DJ was
  able to achieve was 7 mil space/trace, which we all thought was pretty
  good for home etching equipment.

* Stuart and Ales showed off and discussed the latest gEDA in print articles
  (mainly the Stuart's letter to the editor in IEEE Spectrum: 
   http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec06/4767 ).

* John talked about the SMD tools he uses:

    Equipment
    ---------
    Metcal SP200-11 available new at www.hmcelectronics.com for apx. $240
   	   SSC-754A tip 30deg bend, 0.02" tip
    7A tweezers (curved tip)
    Luxo illuminated magnifier

    Solder
    ------
    Kester 24-6337-6422 .015" diameter solder, SN63PB37, water soluble flux
    Kester Flux Pen 2331-ZX
    Solder Wick

* Steve showed off a PCB layout for his single board computer.  Steve also
  had examples of a parser that creates footprints using a description
  file.  Steve mentioned that he does some of his scripting in perl;
  Ales quipped that John has finally found a fellow perl user. <g> :-)

* Ales inquired about details on Steve's single board computer.
  Steve described that it is a FPGA based design using the LEON core
  which is an open source implementation of a SPARC V8 core.  Very cool!
  The best (working) website about the LEON core I (Ales) could find is:
  http://www.leox.org/

* There was a lot discussion about a new venue for the next FreeDog
  meeting.  Everybody agreed that the current Starbucks location
  is nice because of atmosphere and general ambiance, however, the
  lack of affordable Wifi Internet access is a bit of a problem for
  people around the world who want to participate too.  Everybody agreed
  that changing the venue to get Internet access is worth the effort.
  Everybody agreed NOT to go back to MIT for these meetings, since
  the MIT classroom is kind of sterile.  Several ideas for new venues
  were discussed include a cafe in Reading, MA (Bear Rock Cafe) and
  maybe a cafe Davis Square.  Both have Wifi access.  Stuart and Ales
  will go investigate soon.  Stay tuned for more info...

* Paolo Nenzi of ngspice might be visiting Boston in January 2007.
  We want to hold a FreeDog meeting to meet and talk with Paolo.
  Possible dates for this meeting include Wednesday the 10th or Tuesday
  the 9th.  These dates need to be confirmed with Paolo.

* The developers discussed having another code sprint in February at MIT.
  Ales has already decided that he won't work on code, but rather will
  work on the documentation and maybe the symbol library.  Possible dates
  include: Feb 3rd, 10th, or 24th (all Saturdays).

* An idea was tossed out to make PCB's default build/run mode be set
  to Lesstif, as the Lesstif PCB is more configurable at runtime.
  DJ noted that Lesstif has an active developer (DJ) whereas gtk+ is
  more in "maintenance" and could use a gtk+ expert to push it forward.
  Stuart mentioned that newbies expect (without even knowing it) to
  see the gtk+ interface, and they would be blown away by the Lesstif
  interface.  John suggested that it would be nice if *all* version of
  PCB were built and installed.  This would enable the user to easily
  evaluate all interfaces for themselves.

* The discussion turned to how to accept donations.  Everybody agreed
  that it is okay for Ales to turn on the Sourceforge donation button.
  We will follow the PCB donation model where the individual contributer
  will decide how their contribution should be spent.  

  However, we really do not want the money to go to individual developers
  because: 

	1) there are so many past and current gEDA/gaf developers,
	2) splitting the money fairly is virtually impossible,  
 	3) we do not want one developer's contributions be worth more
           that somebody else's,  
	4) We are not talking about large sums of money here.  We are 
   	   talking about pizza money.

  Everybody at the meeting agreed with "not sending money to developers,
  unless the contributer explicitly states this".  Ales will be
  responsible for getting the Sourceforge donation system setup.  Further
  discussions will probably be needed on what to do with any contributed
  funds.

* The group then discussed gedaconsulting.com.  Everybody agreed that it 
  is a pretty darn cool idea.

* Ales brought up the point that the gEDA project may be in need of a
  new home on the Internet.  The current hosting site is stable until
  May/June and then the future becomes less certain.  DJ suggested a few
  possible alternatives (one being mv.com).  The current server's status
  will have to be tracked very carefully so that the gEDA project has
  a continuous home on the 'net after May/June 2007.

  The current bandwidth usage of the gEDA project is much larger than it
  needs be.  Ales will cleanup the website and ftp server to reduce
  bandwidth needs in case we have to move.  Stuart will ping some
  contacts that might get us a stable hosting solution.  If anybody
  has any contacts in places that might help us out here, please get in
  touch with Ales.

* The Windows port was discussed again.  Ales isn't opposed to creating a 
  set of native mingw binaries (along with any supporting infrastructure)
  as long as:

	1) There is some sort of barrier to entry to keep the support burden
	   manageable.  Something as simple as shipping the binaries in 
	   a zip or .bz2 file instead of .exe. 
	2) The initial release should be billed as an "experiment".
	   If the developer support burden is too high, then the
	   experiment will be terminated after a fixed amount of time.
	3) The Windows port should be supported separately from the main
	   gEDA project initially.  Maybe this means creating a different
	   SF project and a separate mailing list.  This, too, is to
	   keep the support burden manageable.

  Ales will take responsibility for doing something here.

* Ales gave his blessing for creating a wiki page for ngspice in the gEDA
  wiki.

* Stuart passed out several wish lists to discuss, but a friendly
  Starbucks employee told us to vacate the premises at this point.
  This has been tabled until the next meeting.  In the mean time,
  discussion on these wish lists should continue on the mailing lists.

End of meeting.

-Ales



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