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Re: gEDA-user: fritzing
Dave McGuire wrote:
> On May 10, 2009, at 5:40 PM, Joerg wrote:
>>> Yes, but look at the bigger picture. He's most likely using
>>> Windows because someone (his boss perhaps?) forced HIM to. I don't
>>> know *anyone* who actually chooses to use Windows because they prefer
>>> it over their other choices.
>>>
>> In my case there is no boss. I'm da boss :-)
>>
>> But: There is tons of SW and HW that simply refuses to work with Linux
>> or any OS other than Windows. Some of if requires XP or older, no
>> Vista.
>> Yet I need all that to serve my clients.
>
> Well, if you look in places where people buy Windows stuff, you'll
> find...Windows stuff. I see very little Windows stuff (almost none
> actually) in my day-to-day work, because I don't live (or shop) in
> that world. The rest of the data processing world calls this
> "Windows blinders".
>
No choice here. Goes like this: Me arriving at client, urgent EMI case,
they already rented an analyzer. Any analyzer, whatever they could get,
and fast. So here I was, having to figure out a way to get the thing to
work with my laptop within the next 15 minutes or so. Ah, there's a CD
that came with it! Sez the usual: "This software requires Windows 98,
NT, 2000". Yep, it was that old, didn't mention XP but ran on it.
I doubt I could have done that with Linux, even with a virtual machine
on there, because there was some weird communication protocol involved
via an IrDA link. Just an ordinary day in my life as a consultant.
>>> And, that said, there's nothing preventing the vendor of Eagle
>>> (into whom your new project will presumably be locked) from writing
>>> gEDA file format I/O into their software to facilitate
>>> interoperability...but you know as well as I do that interoperability
>>> is the last thing proprietary software vendors want.
>>>
>> Actually you'd be surprised. They have said that they'd embrace EDA
>> cooperation in this respect but that this ain't the case with many
>> other
>> vendors.
>
> Wow, that is really good news. I hadn't heard about that.
>
There's more, it seems there are converters to ASCII output but I
haven't used them:
http://www.eaglecentral.ca/forums/index.php?t=msg&goto=54468&S=570b52d872625b91cfe6494d26e71e1f&srch=%22open+file+format%22#msg_54468
What really blew me away: Someone uploaded converter routines for
libraries to convert Eagle (paid programm) libs to Kicad (open source)
libs. To the official Cadsoft server where they maintain the "give and
take" user areas. Cadsoft did not censor that, in fact they are still
there, since the end of 2006. To me that surely does not have the
markings of a vendor lock-in behavior. On the contrary.
--
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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