Re: gEDA-user: Investigating gEDA for commercial use

[al davis <ad252@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 13 June 2009, Chris Smith wrote:
> so at the least
> we would need:
>

You left out a need far more important than either you 
mentioned:

A painless migration path, both ways.  

This is the bi-directional file translator system I have been 
pushing.  

Painless migration means:

1. Try it without making a commitment.
2. Open geda files with CadStar,Altium,Pads,Orcad,kicad,etc.
3. Open Cadstar, etc, files with geda.
4. ability to start a project with one, finish with another.

Now, to comment on the ones you suggested:

> 1. a maintained Windows binary installer; and

Nobody here is opposed to it.  Somebody needs to do it, and make 
a commitment to maintaining it.  How about you?

> 2. some simple GUI project/workflow manager -- can't really
> expect the Windows users to manually edit project files and
> use the command line.

If you think a GUI is the solution, you are missing the point.  
A truly good project/workflow manager will sit in the 
background, invisible, and magically do what you need.

We have had a dozen or so attempts at a GUI so far.  None of 
them have really worked well because they all miss the point.

Schematic, layout, netlist, and others are just alternative 
views of the same object.  If you need to manually do anything 
to go from one to another within the system, it isn't working.

I don't see what is so hard about "gschem foo.sch".  I don't see 
how those project managers make it any easier, but their 
complexity is like a complexity that windows users have seen 
before and already been hardened to.  There is a real problem 
here that we are not addressing.



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