kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/17/2014 01:35 PM, Alejandro Méndez A. wrote:
> Ok,
> 
> I will do that in a new post with another title so it is easy to find. 
> 
> I could make a video since I already have a youtube channel with plenty of visits but I'm
> not a native English speaker so I think it might be better just to keep the written version :)
> 
> In fact I've been doing a tutorial for Kicad in Spanish but I haven't finished since the
> last changes for KiCad have changed a lot in PCBNew and Library and I'm thinking of
> redoing the first ones with a newer version of KiCad including the new features of PCBNew.
> Should I keep waiting a little longer for more big changes?
> 
> I'll try to make a useful post for the environment variables and how to use them to be
> able to work with Kicad seamlessly in different platforms. 
> 
> Last but not least. I think there is already work being done with the libraries but I
> think that it would be really good for KiCad to have a very large contributive components
> library since most "hobbiest" users don't wan't to make their own parts and people like me
> that are freelance or work for small companies will use already created components when
> they come from a "respectable" source. I spend a lot of time creating my own footprints
> and I've found that the best library out there in my opinion is this one:
> http://smisioto.no-ip.org/elettronica/kicad/kicad-en.htm . Is anyone working on doing some
> sort of collaborative library where people could create components and by users votes have
> the components validate them-selves? 
> I know a little about the github "official" library for KiCad and also I know of a web
> that is doing that for three differents packages (KiCad included), it is called
> CircuitHub. It is a great idea but they try to cover too much, at least for now, in my
> opinion. You can create the components in their web, et cetera. I've tried it and I've
> even talked to one of the founders for support, since there are many things that don't
> work right yet and they make it basically unusable at the end. They've told me they are
> working on it, but it have passed at least 6 months and they have added other things but
> the component creation part is still not working right. To the point of not even been able
> to create new schematic symbols.
> 
> Anyway, I just want to know if there is somebody working in an idea like that but just to
> keep the components, not creating them in the web since I could help creating components
> and a system to let people create components to share, following a common criteria which
> could give some security to the people wanting to use them.
> 
> BTW, sorry for the long boring reply.


For any task requiring large man-hours to succeed, there typically needs to be incentive
or economic sustenance.  Simply voting does not cut it.  You could ask 50 people to dig
ditches, and tell them you will vote on who does the best job, and they will walk away
with a curious look on their faces.

The guys maintaining the github repo are picking up steam and are changing and adding
footprints and parts fairly regularly now.  This is an economic miracle.  There is no
economic explanation for it.  I vote "yeah" for Carl and the gang!

You get what you pay for, or you get what you do, anything after that is an economic
miracle (or a free lunch, but they don't exist, because in English it is well known that
"there is no free lunch").

If you want to learn more, join the ~kicad-library-committers team, but what you want is
not happening here on this mailing list and I'll have nothing additional to do with it
(other than having previously recruited Carl and having written the github plugin.)

Now Carl and company are the engine of improvement.  Name names, and give thanks.