Re: gEDA-user: PCB suggestion

["M. P. Dickens" <mpdickens@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Personally, I think any development should be towards open standards.
My reasoning behind this is based on the compuserve gif debacle, the
push for software patents and current copyright laws.

Let's be reasonable: Free EDA tools are not looked upon as good for 
business by the vast majority of commerical EDA tools makers. In the
event Mentor Graphics as donated their format for usage without charge,
I see no problems. But, if they have copyrighted it or made it 
proprietary IP somehome, I think the chance exists that they could
demand it be taken out of PCB and whatever other gEDA tools adopt it.
Does anyone know Mentor Graphics official position? Have they even
stated an official position?

Has anybody looked to see if IEEE or any other organization has any 
official standards? It would seem to me that adopting standards from
an official organization would be the way to go. Kind of like Linux
and POSIX.

Best

Marvin Dickens

> is to create a file translator which takes the Board Station database
> & converts it to PCB format.