← Back to team overview

kicad-developers team mailing list archive

Re: Github public library repository.

 

----- Original Message -----

> From: Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: 
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 7:48 AM
> Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] Github public library repository.
> 
> On 01/24/2013 12:57 PM, Jorge Cardona wrote:
>>  Hi,
>> 
>>  I just want to check if there is any plan to build an "official" 
> place to get kicad
>>  libraries and more, since right now is kind of messy, there are tons of 
> pages with
>>  outdated libraries and is hard to search a common component as a hirose 
> connector. I
>>  used kicad like 4 years ago, and installed it this morning again and it 
> seems to be the
>>  same problem as 4 years ago, is not impossible to setup but is certainly a 
> pita.
>> 
>>  I propose to create a KiCAD Team in github, and create several 
> repositories, one can be
>>  the mirror of the current code from launchpad, and other can be a set of 
> libraries, this
>>  could be a place like http://www.kicadlib.org 
> <http://www.kicadlib.org/> but more
>>  manageable.
>> 
>>  Bye.
> 
> Hi Jorge,
> 
> One option for you is to become an official maintainer of the official KiCad 
> libraries.
> 
> 
> Rather than your work eventually becoming another of the "tons of pages 
> without outdated
> libraries" (to use your words), this path certainly avoids that:
> 
> https://answers.launchpad.net/kicad/+faq/1045
> 
> I'm sure they would welcome your help, expertise, and energy.
> 
> 
> Welcome,
> 
> 
> Dick
> 


Anyone who can put the time into it would be very welcome. :)  From my point of view we need:

1. schematic symbols repository
2. footprint repository
3. 3D model repository

These do not necessarily have to be one project; they can be 3 different projects. Issues that need to be considered are:

1. Heirarchical organization and naming of files.
2. Documentation (includes heirarchical structure, guidelines for submission/inclusion)
3. Vetting for compliance to any relevant standards (files conforming to standards should be kept separate from others so that people who need to work with specific standards can find things easily)
4. Management tools: how do you find what you want

From what I've seen in the past 2 years, people always start on such a project and then give up after a few months. Of course it's not easy - even my 3D model software hasn't had any work done on it for the past month simply because I have little time.

Regarding the 3D model repository - for my own models which are generated by software I prefer to distribute the software and scripts and generate models at the user's end; hosting the models makes no sense to me because there are thousands of models taking up tens of MB and that's essentially only 3 months worth of work on writing software to generate parametric models. Of course having such a scheme (generating models on the user's machine) complicates the tasks for a 3D model repository.  If people create free tools for generating footprints then that would introduce similar complexity to the footprint repository.

- Cirilo



References