On 05/08/2014 05:10 PM, Rick Walker wrote: > > > Hi Dick, > >> it because I don't care if my old software does not load new >> footprints. (I type $ make, and I can load the new footprints.) > > I know you are a code developer and have the highly idiosyncratic kicad > build process finely balanced at all times. Typing "make" works for you. > > I've tried to build kicad three times now, at intervals several months > apart. It has always locked up for various problems that involved > internal settings in other RPM packages that didn't match the Fedora > defaults. This means that I would need to install source for several > other packages, hand configure them and build those packages from > scratch to get kicad to build. > > Now imagine that I'm trying to get kicad adopted as a useful tool at > work so that we could use some of our development effort to contribute > to the project. > > Kicad is currently a moving target. The team doesn't provide "stable" > builds and the whole system is liable to blow up at any time. It > is even worse if one uses the "cloud-based" libraries which are under > dynamic mutation. > > The fedora packagers can only guess at which snapshot is the least > broken and package it up. If bugs are found, the answer given is > "rebuild it yourself". Unfortunately, any version that we "rebuild > ourselves" is also likely full of new, different bugs. The normal way > to fix this problem for code released by adults is to have a stable > version that gets a functionality freeze, but has bugs back patched from > the development tree. It's a pain, but it makes the program useable for > real work. Sometimes, being an adult is inconvenient. > > I completely support the effort to make kicad more resistant to a > particular subset of future changes to the footprint definition file. > Having a real tool catastrophically fail when encountering data files > should only occur very rarely and only at announced major revisions. > It's not acceptable to just keep creeping the shared data files and have > an installed base break every few weeks. Making the parser ignore > non-recognized fields makes it possible to add in certain classes of new > behaviors without affecting an installed base of real users doing real > work. > > You can do the make easily, because you are obviously a rare uber-guru, > but I can tell you that as a relatively skilled C-coder and linux admin, > it is not a trivial process and certainly not something to require an > average user to do on a regular basis under panic conditions. > > That is, not if you want kicad to be something relevant instead of just > a venue for playing around with fun code ideas. > > Although I was able to get our team to do several very complex designs > in Kicad, the team has now switched Allegro for reasons that I'd be > happy to go into at a future time if anyone is interested. > > kind regards, > -- > Rick Walker
Good luck Rick. I guess if I was on commission I would try and talk you out of your decision. There is no certainty that any open source project will ever succeed. Nor is there a universal definition of success. I am honoured that you at least think I had something to do with KiCad. The software is getting pretty useable for me now, and I won't take exclusive credit for that. There are some very dedicated contributors and they all deserve credit. I don't know how I'd feel if I ever ran into a bug in Allegro. Probably pretty damn annoyed, and helpless. It's that fear of helpless-ness that keeps me in KiCad. If I was having problems with Fedora, I'd dump it. Generally I like to identify what is the tail and what is the dog. Generally the dog should wag the tail and not the other way around. kicad-install.sh has worked for some on Fedora, and as of 10 minutes ago, it builds the pre-kiway version which you might best think of as being stable. Unless you edit the script. I've given all I can afford. You may ask more of me, but if its not in my common interest, it ain't coming from me. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
