kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo <miguelangel@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Dick, I find good that you share all this with the project so clearly.

As far as I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong) we must be seeking
for a project maintainer, and better if it gets  funded from some
corporation
(that would be the best situation).

In our case, we're such a little company (2 people) that we're already
doing
more than we can with the scripting, which I'm happy to do it in the
weekends,
and eventually we'll have something stable and nice to include in KiCad at
the right time.

If I could help in handling the contributed patches, I'd step to the front,
but I
still don't find confident enough about the internal architecture of Kicad
(just
to know if something will work or just will cause trouble...). And also, in
our current
situation we have a very bad lack of man/hours in our little company.


Something ideal could be to find a set of companies or corporations
interested in
economically funding kicad (or "kicad foundation")  and make things from
there. But this could be complicated at this time I think. Any ideas?

It's good to know that SoftPLC is interested in offering paid support for
other companies,
because that's something that builds trust about other companies that could
be interested in working with kicad (companies that may end funding..)

Sincerely,
Mike

2012/3/29 Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> It is my fear that the KiCad project has or will soon hit a ceiling with
> regard to
> graceful growth.  I fear that without additional corporate funding and
> full time
> coordination of incoming patches, that this ceiling will become very
> visible in the near
> future.
>
> For the last year, I have been a proponent of building in the kinds of
> features which
> would appeal to corporate/institutional users.  The reason is that
> corporate users have
> access to funding, in one form or another.  Hobbyists cannot propel this
> project beyond
> the near term project structural ceiling that I am forewarning about.
>
>
> This will be a fairly difficult growth spasm to overcome for the project.
>  Just
> contributing more patches will only overwhelm a part time organizer/sifter
> of such patches.
>
>
> Linus Torvalds does not work on Linux using his own money, even though he
> originally did.
> There are certain milestones to be expected as a project grows beyond a
> single person.
> Not all projects are destined to succeed with passage beyond each
> milestone.
>
>
> In each of your little contributions of ideas, strategy, and heave forbid,
> genuinely
> tangible contributions, please remember what I am saying.  The hobbyist
> who says his
> screen is not big enough may not be as important as the corporate user,
> such as CERN, who
> says they will use it if and when it does XYZ.
>
>
> This month, for the first time, one developer received several thousand
> dollars in funding
> for specific features which were agreed to and requested by a "corporate
> like" funder.
> This is a step in the right direction.  But let me emphasize that it came
> about because we
> listened closely to the corporate user.
>
>
> Related to this, without intent to make matters worse, SoftPLC Corporation
> has decided
> today that it will no longer fund the fixing of bugs, nor offer any more
> free support.  I
> can be hired to fix bugs and offer support, but won't do it for free
> anymore.
>
>
> To the extent possible, SoftPLC Corporation *will continue* to fund only
> development of
> *new* code.  This means no bug fixing, nor support.  Since I am often the
> guy who answers
> an initial knock on the door on this mailing list, I think somebody better
> plan on
> stepping up and filling that role immediately.
>
>
> I hope that KiCad can smash through the structural ceiling that I forewarn
> about, but this
> is definitely not a certainty.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dick
>
>
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-- 

Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo
http://www.nbee.es
+34 636 52 25 69
skype: ajoajoajo