gEDA-user: geda for "open hardware"

[KURT PETERS <peterskurt@xxxxxxx>]

   I've been thinking a bit about gEDA for "open hardware" lately, and
   have a few thoughts that I was wondering if people on the list would
   help me think through:

   1) open hardware implies (to me anyways) that someone has produced a
   PCB and makes available the schematics, layout, symbols, footprints,
   and BOM.
   2) The "new user", wanting to modify the hardware, should be able to
   "copy in" a few extra components into the schematic and gsch2pcb back
   to pcb, but the previous layout shouldn't be changed at all, just a
   few extra components are available to be added.  gsch2pcb already
   supports this pretty robustly.
   3) the new user then places the new components and adds/modifies
   traces as necessary to get it to work.

   The question is, is there an "approved solution" for packaging all the
   necessary materials to ensure someone developing hardware can ensure
   the "new user" has everything they need to accomplish 1-3 above?  I
   assume it would extract symbols and footprints and encapsulate the
   versions of PCB/Gschem used to create the PCB.  I also assume that it
   should somehow distinguish between core symbols and footprints, and
   "custom" ones.  Of course, then, the core ones would also need a
   version number, I suppose, in case they change.

   Thoughts???
   Kurt


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