CadSoft will enhance Premier Farnell and element14

To just give you a view from an open source hardware developer perspective:

CadSoft Eagle is very populer for open source hardware - due to its free version. From my point of view some things can be imrpoved:

Prio A (quick & easy wins):

• Make Eagle open source (probably won't happen)
• Free &Light Edition should have 4 Layers availlaible (since most modern designs are much easier with 4 layers).
  
• Designing with more than one schematics page would be nice (Free & Light Edition)
  
• A larger PCB design area would be nice. The licensing is a bit steep in the 'small' versions. You have to shell out a significant amount of money to do an euro card in 4 layers.

Prio B (more work, but still important)

• The UI is not very user friendly - it needs some work. Mouse interaction are like from the 80s
• The library management is a hassle - but your Design Connection is perhaps a nice solution. Enable users to share their libraries. Enable Users to give feedback for their libraries (some of mine are sloppy and not usable, some of my parts are well usable by anybody - Users should rate them - I want to include only good libraries/parts by others).
• BOM management would be nice (and you can make them directly orderable via Farnell).
• Make it easy to share designs and sub-designs (building blocks) via elemnent14 - that wuold be really nice. Obe licesning schemes (all my stuff is published as Creative Commons - user using my designs should obey that).

What are your plans?

Hi, Thanks for your post. I have passed your questions on to the guys here, hopefully you'll have an answer soon.

Personally I am not involved in the acquisition, but I think Prio B, especially Designlink and BOM management integration would look a good bet

Interactive - Matter,

Love the idea of making it easier to share designs/sub designs or even smaller parts of circuit design (personally it would help with the learning process as a young engineer). As modular design becomes more and more popular to speed up the design cycle this method of sharing sub-designs may well gather pace in the near future...what are your thoughts?

Dear All,

certainly it will be benefiical to all Electronics Designs Engineers. Perhaps you can try out the free version. Up to 2 PCB layers.

http://www.cadsoftusa.com/

Cheers

Edmund

Thanks,

I know it must be an arkward situation. Farnell now owns elemnt14 & CadSoft and everybody is epexcting Eagle improvements from you. But the CadSoft guys will probablyhave their own concerns regarding the aquisition (I was working in a company that was bought some time ago – so I think I know how it feels like).

But it is nice that you take the community thing serious – and by that you can hopefully show that the community is taking this serious as well.

Isn't that what Open Source Hardware is all about?

We (I just count me in as Open Source Hardware developer - even If I am an humble one) develop funny or even innovative designs that can be used by other.

We are happy to share - but most of us want a share if money is involved (I personally - and pobably many others us an CC Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License – it is ok, to use my designs as long as you don't make money and state that it was taken from me). I am happy to learn from others and take their designs. (BTW: Why aren't reference Designs & application note designs not publishe under CC as well?)

I think regarding OSH – there is a vivid discussion in the professional scene. & thats good!

I am using Eagle CAD for about a year now and I really like it. I bought the Light version and until now everything worked fine. Most things I do with it are small and easy circuits, all open sourced, nothing too complicated, so I can live with the limitations of the Light version.

So thumbs up for this piece of software. There is a steep learning curve, but after managing that, it looks like I can do almost everything.

But, of course, there are always some things that could get better

I would love to see, what interactive-matter noted already, a way to share components, footprints, building blocks, etc. online. I want a database, with which I can connect through Eagle CAD, where I can search for a e.g. component footprint. If it's not there, I can do my own and upload my version to share it with others. That would be great!

One step into that direction would be to have the file formats opened up. Until now there is no design-, footprint-, board-format, that is open. At least to my knowledge. Opening the file formats would enable us to write software that could e.g. combine some components into a library.

Just my 2 cents.

Alex

I agree with this last poster than short of open-sourcing the application, open sourcing the file formats would be a great plus already. There are tools that works with Eagle (checked Freerouting.net already ? do !) that would benefit a lot and enhance Eagle at the same time.. It might also allow interaction with "qucs" or ltspice circuit simulators.

As for the aquisition as such, my worry is that Eagle is/would be impossible to have /anyone/ take it over. It's a 1980's codebase, I've seen a few of these projects over the years, it's usualy enough to go and jump out of the nearest window. I've have 25 years experience as a pro software dev, and just having a look at the look&feel of the application I'd probably want to run far & wide to NOT see the code :-)

So for me the original developers must continue on, otherwise the product will probably die.

If improvements are to be made, I'd really like the already mentioned BOM tools, and possibly a way to have a way to import/export (farnell, but please not just farnell :-)) orders part numbers, link to datasheet, and of course the library item if available...

Also a way to have "blocks" would be invaluable. Right now you can copy a bit of schematic, but not the related routing that is sometime quite a pain to re-do.

And with element14 you possibly have just the right frontal for it all!

I do not think that bashing the Eagle code base is really appropriate. I have not seen the code and I cannot judge it therefore.

Despite my critics regarding the UI there are a many points where Eagle is much better than the competitors:

• Cadsoft is able to support 3 different Operating Systems and windowing toolkits: Mac, Linux & Windows. That is a big achievement and most probably not easy!
• The application itself is fairly stable (there were some glitches in the autorouter) – on all platforms. This is remarkable from my point of view.

I do not think that the code is unmaintainable. Nevertheless I think that an UI-refreshment is needed.

I have used Eagle for more than a year now and I must confess that I like it a lot. It does what it should do. There are things that can be improved, but nothing really gets into my way realising designs.

Comparing this to the price tag of Eagle! I think it is a great tool and I do not have any reason to switch to another tool.

So despite a aquisition often leaves a bad taste (I know every aquisition starts with 'nothing will cahnge' and ends with a lot of changes – gone through this as well) I am really happy to see that Cadsoft now has the opportunity to get some 'fresh money', hire some more developers and start improving its product. It is an opportunity.

So keep up the good work! And make it better