Hi, Stuart. On Tue, 2004-12-28 at 17:22 -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: > Bill -- > > > I have to agree that 1) no Windows version, and 2) difficult > > installation are real problems for selling gEDA in any real commercial > > organization. > > I view gEDA as a trojan horse for Linux, since a free EDA suite will > bring engineers to the good side. Therefore, I don't care about > Windows. I know this is a quixotic minority opinion. . . .
I find that selling high-end EDA software that only runs on Linux actually helps sell it. Engineers are dying for a reason to tell the IT guy he HAS to get a Linux box. > As for installation, once Ales releases the next rev (coming very > soon. . . .), I will put my install CD .iso onto geda.seul.org for > folks to download. It automates the installation process with a > Python-based GUI which manages the ./configure && make && make install > process for all the usual tools (not just gEDA/gaf). Cool. I'd like to check it out when it's available. I might use it at work to install on the various machines. I'm not yet pushing gEDA with our clients. A good, reliable install disk might make it worthwhile. > Since you're apparently distributing gEDA to your customers who don't > want to hassle with Makefiles, configure, dependencies, and so on, > it's just the kind of distribution you could use. Of course, I'd > prefer to *sell* you the stuff on physical media with a nice gEDA > label, and your customers might appreciate professional-looking CDs > too . . . . Contact me off list if you are interested. Sure. > > I've concluded that those of us willing to work with open-source tools > > don't mind this kind of thing. Neither the installation or limited > > platforms keeps me from using it, but of course, I'm a hacker. > > > > Getting average Joe to use it is another matter... > > Yeah, but the ultimate target audience is "Joe Average User". One > thing we developers need to keep in mind is that usability is *key* > for software. [snip] I agree. > > The other issues seem like normal user complaints about typical > > commercial tools. gEDA is fine compared to half of them out there. > > Yeah, but it can be better than *all* of them out there! Frankly, it's already good enough for my needs. Bill
