kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/20/2015 11:12 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
> 2015-03-20 15:19 GMT+01:00 Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx>:
>> Hi Nick,
>> Thanks for your view!
>>
>> This is a very broad subject, I feel my self that I don't have the knowledge and understanding to point what should be a better way of go on this things.. I just want to rise this questions to open the conversation and hoping in the future something could be addressed.

KiCad is not as commercialized as many larger FOSS projects.  We are
still in our infancy when it comes to that.  I suspect that the
commercial issues will be resolved as the project moves further along
this path.

>>
>>
>>
>>> I don't see anything inherently wrong in the current setup as such.
>>
>> I understand that must of us (developers and current users) probably don't see anything "wrong" at all. Maybe if we could trace a typical profile of the people that are using KiCad we will find a lot in common that defines why we choose and accepted to use KiCad as a tool.
>>
>> But, I have experience with companies, friends and people that even what they are doing can be perfectly done with KiCad, they prefer to pay or pirate a thousands dollars product.
>> I feel without arguments how to convince this people to see KiCad as an option for them.
> 
> Remember you don't need to transform people, they should still be free
> to choose, if you are not working with the on the given project. If
> you do collaborate, please educate them in the countless positive
> things about FOSS.
> 
>>> For me it is the information that matters not the style as such.
>>
>> I believe for this type of people, they will want to percept more than good information and a good software.. in this case, it will need a lot more than "good engineering"  to convince more people to give it a try.
> 
> We do not suffer from users moving away from KiCad currently. We don't
> need to use effort to convince people, they will come, don't worry.

Users moving to KiCad is largely based on whether or not the feature set
exists to justify such a move and/or how easily users can leverage there
existing designs.  The latter will always be the biggest challenge.
Most developers are not interested in writing translators to import from
proprietary products on a voluntary basis.  My guess is when the
commercial users truly need to import from their proprietary formats,
they will be willing to pay someone to implement such features.  I would
rather keep our limited developer resources focus on improving kicad.

> 
>>>> and I think it will be special important that KiCad will have stable releases.
>>> Well... as you might or might not have noticed, this is planned and in progress.
>>
>> Yes, that was what I meant. I meant, this is important because now KiCad will start having stable releases.
> 
> We do not necessarily need to have builds for every obscure platform
> before release. It is easier to get people to help package when a
> release has been released. We are already fairly good covered,
> although not completely at all. we have osx nightlies, ubuntu
> nightlies, soon windows nightlies, fedora nightlies, opensuse
> nightlies, archlinux pkgbuild...
> 
>>>> I believe when someone new, open a webpage of an opensource project would like to see that it is a live >a not dead project!
>>
>>> Where do you see a dead project except of
>>> http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/kicad/, that everyone for some unknown
>>> reason always mentions as a resource.
>>
>> I think it is hard for me to try to answer that question. The essential thing I think is that you need to see that there are people involved and talk about the project.. In this things you have to create the sense of community and that there are people engaged using and contribute to the project.
>>
>> Things like the Wayne presentation video, are very important to users to get trust in the project, as they see real people faces!
> 
> It has been quite some time since I watched it, and I don't remember
> all his points. I would rather have suggestions to what to do, rather
> than pointing out that there is a not so serious problem as such now.
> If you can use some of your spare brain cycles to give some specific
> improvement suggests I would like to help making it a reality.
> 
>>>> So things like see the latest stable release, reading some blog news about the development of the >project.. etc
>>
>>> We still have the mailing lists. Also Chris Gammels forum, on
>>> https://forum.kicad.info/
>>
>>
>> That is a good example for my point. For the users you have:
>> kicad.info
>> https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/kicad-users/info
>> and so on..
>> Is kicad.info an official forum?
> 
> Define official, in a distributed community. But I guess Wayne wants
> to comment on this, as he is sort of the lead head here. I would like
> to hear what he thinks.

The "official" website is www.kicad-pcb.org, the "official" developers
website is https://launchpad.net/kicad, and the "official" library
website is https://github.com/KiCad.  All other websites are run outside
the scope of the project.  This is not necessarily a bad thing and shows
that users are interested in using kicad.  The user's group at yahoo has
been around almost as long as the project and the new forum at
https://forum.kicad.info/ looks like it is a strong contender for user
information.  There are lots of other useful kicad resources out there
which I think is a good thing.  It means that kicad has a following
outside the scope of the developers.  Ultimately I have no control over
the external resources.  As long as they are not detrimental to the
project, I am all for them.

> 
>> I think this types of things are a bit tricky you have to figure your self and try to connect the dots in order you start understand where the things are.
>> For some types of users, the things need to be in a very clear "way of presentation".. special in this case if they expect support and help on this software.
>>
>> This type of support and community is what they expect when pay for a commercial product... if something is wrong.. they will ask the company for support..
>> But, this is an issue in the opensource software feeling in general. But I believe some projects are making a good work in give people trust on this matters.
> 
> I feel it quite the opposite. For a commercial product it is hard to
> get sane support, while open source projects are very easy.

FOSS support is different than commercial support but the differences
are mostly cosmetic.  With commercial support there is a single point of
contact and no research required from the user.  With community support
there can be multiple points of contact and some research is required by
the user.  There are both good and bad examples of support for
commercial and FOSS.

> 
>>
>>> If you want a blog, why not read the mailing list announcements?
>>
>> In this case, my case, as developer, as I come only here once or twice a year to make my contributions.. I have to read and browse all mailing list looking for important email headers if I want to be updated.. and try to filter the information from inside it.
>> Would be nice, as Wayne is doing, if this announces and project summary and roadmaps could be updated in just one page.. and everyone (users and developers) can be updated with the project development.
>> That is the type of things that show that the things are still alive and running.
>>
>>
>> The video by Wayne (also notable Tomasz Wlostowsk video presentation) I found it by chance while I was googling things about KiCad! .. I found now that it is also in:
>> http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/About+KiCad
>> But this is the type of information that I think is important to news about.
>>
>>
>>>> Also, for kicad, all the information in webpage (the official .. and the others web sites!) is very spread across the web, same for the users and same for the developers.
>>
>>> Well, we have some fragmentation, but it is not that bad IMHO. I agree
>>> that we might want to centralise some of the information, but it is
>>> still a bit hard, since some are different services.
>>
>>
>> So that is the tricky thing.. if they are all official things.. someone new that comes first time look into the project.. cannot connect the dots.
>> I this types of things may give an "indie" look instead of a more professional look of the thing...
> 
> I don't care about the looks in that way. I don't care about
> superficial persons and personality. We should avoid wasting time on
> communicating with those. The less of those the more effective we can
> use or time. IMHO.
> 
>> Of course, it is good that other people in other places support and talk about KiCad.. producing tutorials.. tips.. reviews.. foruns..etc
> 
> So now you say project fragmentation is good... Just the fact you can
> find such things is also an indicator that it is an actively supported
> project.
> 
>>
>>>> That would be nice if we have in a main kicad page as much as a single and only updated information with also that types of summary update status that Wayne is doing, it should be in a online page for quick reference making everybody tuned in the project and also, the other users people will know about the progress of the project and fill confidence using KiCad.
>>>>
>>
>>> Well, the kicad-pcb.org is still a quick reference. Just because there
>>> exists different side projects, it does not mean that you have to look
>>> there. If you think anything specifically is missing on i.e.
>>> kicad-pcb.org, don't hesitate to contribute.
>>
>> In the user perspective, as I pointed before, is not just the content but the message and the way it is perceived in the other side. (This is not just the design, the templates, the content, the looking, but.. everything.. )
> 
> I don't want to continue this discussion, if you can't say exactly
> what is wrong and can be changed to the better.
> 
>>>> As a developer I miss things like to understand on what people are working or who can I contact to discuss about something related with some part of the project.. who developed / define the architectures of something.. etc
>>
>> As a developer, I miss some more updated information about the "on going things", who is working on that, the planed changes.. etc
> 
> Well, what we could do as we have discussed indirectly just before. We
> could suggest developers taking up work packages to post some info and
> status on it on the frontage of the dev space. I don't know if
> developers care about maintaining this. Devs, please speak up on this
> poing.

I doubt very much that this would happen.  It would probably take a
volunteer to following the developer mailing list and condense the
relevant information into a new feed of some sorts.  As always, we would
welcome such a volunteer.

> 
>>>> I believe if we can make KiCad look a bit more attractive it will engage more people to use and contribute (development and other) to it.
>>
>>> Can you claify this a bit more? (I know the confluence page is a bit
>>> bad on a small mobile browser [the left menu is missin somehow])
>>
>>
>> As I point, it is difficult to explain my point as I am also in the "engineer side" :)
>>
>> I think this is not just related with the platform and how it should look like or about the contents. That's should be some discussion for the future.
>> But.. talking about confluence, confluence is a product platform that have in mind some specific use, ex: "team collaboration software"..etc.. so, it looks like it should look.
>> Lets say that this is the first page contact that a new potential user sees from KiCad, this is what he first saw. Is that the first impression that KiCad want to give?

If someone would be willing to develop a superior website for the
project, I doubt anyone would protest.  As always, manpower it the
limiting factor.

> 
> I want to show openness.
> 
>>> If you think this reply is a bit grumpy, don't consider it as such. I
>>> just tried to reply to some of your statements from another view
>>> angle.
>>
>> No problem.
>>
>> I understand that all of this things are not in the priorities and not be possible to do much in a near future.
>> Also, it depends much on the project author(s) and holders ambitions to decide the way they want the project move and what are their view angle.
>>
>> This was my view angle!
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mario Luzeiro
> 
> Of course I invite any potentially motivated  communication people to
> participate in this debate.
> 
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