Some more suggestions of candidates to consider:
PCB
The pcb printed-circuit design tool is certainly a good candidate - a
must in my opinion. It is (one of) the best opensource tools in this
kind, stable and powerful, with excellent documentation.
The target community of this tool is typically what is being discussed
here - small egineering outfits, applications in R&D, soldering iron
fans at home.
I have it running since many years, installed - without any problem -
from the tarball downloaded from sourceforge.
GERBV
There is a second tool in this domain, which might also be considered:
gerbv - a viewing tool for pcb data written in the gerber format (the
probably most used standard for shipping pcb designs to manufacturers
for printing end etching). Although this tool has declined in importance
since gerber format integration into pcb has become perfect,
nevertheless it is an excellent tool for double-checking that your pcb
data shipped to the manufacturer is OK and not the cause for a multi-100
dollar mistake.
AVRLIB
Avrlib is a set of tools (gcc crosscompiler, downloading, debugging) for
microprocessor (Atmel family) development. Again, an execellent, well
maintained and documented package, and - again - I have been using it
for many years, installed from a tarball.
see:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcb/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gerbv/
http://www.nongnu.org/avr-libc/
I did not put these packages into packaging request since I am perfectly
happy with my tarballs and since I am not sure whether there are other
users - this viewpoint changes if there is a "strategic interest" for
having such packages available for easy install from rpm repositories
(and to publicise that there is no problem making them run in Mageia).
Before investing into adding/supporting a new package, how about
launching some kind of poll to assess the interest for that package? But
if Mageia decides on making "science&engineering tools" one of its
domains of excellence, offering a good package is, in my eyes, justified
even with momentarily 0-usage - possibly for a limited period of time.
On the other hand, the risk of producing a cemetery of unworshipped
heros is something that should be avoided
In case some of these packages should come on board, I am certainly
willing to give a hand in making it work in Mageia.
