Re: gEDA-user: geda for "open hardware"

[John Griessen <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

KURT PETERS wrote:
 >>   I've been thinking a bit about gEDA for "open hardware" lately
>> 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 approve of John Doty's project dir oriented method of managing symbol and footprint libraries.
Just documenting that method would get you a system usable by free-hardware reference design users.
With the project dir method, there is no extracting to do at project end...you've already done it by the time
it is complete, and core libraries are still the same as was originally distributed.  Adding versions to the
symbols and footprints would help with uses of the core libraries and get gEDA past a big complaint of newbies, "the standard 
library seems incomplete!"  Versions on every symbol or footprint would let core library components be used in a confirmed way.
Some kind of error handling coding might be needed for the case of opening a reference design three years older than
current gEDA tools.


>> 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. 

[jg]May not need.  See above.


>> Of course, then, the core ones would also need a version number, I suppose, in case they change.
Yes.

Stuart Brorson wrote:
my point is simple:  Requirements for an open-hardware
 > distributable are the same as requirements for a project archiver.
 > IMO, the best solution is some convenient method of finding or
 > specifying all dependencies in your project, and then creating .tar
 > files with all dependencies placed into the .tar file.

I think it needs to go further with a documented work style as the suggested way of dealing with reference designs
by people new to gEDA tools, perhaps...  (nahhh probably 95%) using windows...


-- 
Ecosensory   Austin TX


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