Dear KiCad friends, Here's a quick update on what we have been up to at CERN lately, and also some words on plans for the immediate future, along with opinions on some of the latest subjects discussed in the list:
Current developments: Orson is working on porting pcbnew tools to the new tool framework, and fixing bugs. The goal is to have a reasonable chance of being able to design a complete PCB using the new OpenGL canvas, without switching back to the standard (so far) view. Tom is working on the P&S router but only in his "spare" time, so progress on that front is to be expected at a slower pace. His main focus is to fix bugs and to add dragging support in P&S mode. Future plans: my intention before the end of last year was to use the first part of 2014 to GALify eeschema and start writing tools for it using the tool framework, and being in good enough shape before the summer to organize a hackathon at CERN, inviting people to contribute (among other things) new tools for eeschema and pcbnew. This may well be a bit optimistic, but I thought I'd mention it in case enough of you think it's a good idea and want to help make it happen. A get-together in the summer might be useful independently of the state of eeschema. On the subject of taking KiCad towards a "just works" kind of product: there have been quite a lot of discussions lately (both in the developer and user mailing lists) about support for building under the three reference platforms, documentation, how to use new features, etc. I think all these messages are a clear indication that, if wide adoption of KiCad is one of the goals, more attention should be devoted to some areas outside the mere addition of features. We are ready to help on that side of things as well, wherever we can. In particular, I appreciate the efforts of Adam, Brian, Miguel, Marco and others working on build support and releases in the different platforms, and I think they will have much better chances of success if a public master plan is used to drive and coordinate KiCad development, part of that plan being to make the job easier for people who want to package and release KiCad for users who just want an EDA suite that works out of the box, and also for people who want to contribute documentation. I hope this does not sound too heavy or rigid. What I have in mind is really lightweight. On the subject of git vs. bzr: we are quite neutral. We would definitely pick git for any green field project, but we understand the points raised by everybody so far. I don't think bzr has been a hindrance for us to contribute, because the effort we had to invest to master it was marginal compared to our overall effort. This might not be the case for everyone. On FOSDEM: definitely for. FOSDEM is a great venue to learn, share and announce KiCad to the world. If the idea moves forward, we will definitely participate. Thanks everyone for your work on KiCad. It's looking better and better every day, and the prospects for this year are really good! Cheers, Javier _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
