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Re: Processing older versions (topic split from v6 Upgrade)

 

For what it is worth I believe " the forced upgrade path that all the
commercial vendors use" is a commercial decision to force new license sales
and/or give value to maintenance contracts. This has a negative impact on
users with older versions who are forced to upgrade, which costs them money.

I don't think it is as much of an issue for Kicad users because the software
is free. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kicad-developers
<kicad-developers-bounces+brian=documenteddesigns.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Seth Hillbrand
Sent: March 1, 2019 9:17 AM
To: cedric.dewijs@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] Processing older versions (topic split from
v6 Upgrade)

Am 2019-03-01 01:28, schrieb cedric.dewijs@xxxxxxxxxx:
> How does an earlier version of Kicad handles a file that has been 
> created by a newer version of Kicad?

It doesn't.  And it can't between major releases (e.g. 4-5, 5-6)

> Altium opens files that have been created by a newer version, and 
> warns the user. I use an older version of Altium than my co worker and 
> so far we did not have issues yet. I can copy and paste from his 
> designs to my designs without problems.

I don't anticipate anyone wanting to support this kind of behavior in KiCad.
Altium has separate departments for developers and technical support.  We
don't.

> My main motivation to let the user continue to use older version of 
> the file format in newer versions of Kicad is to prevent the forced 
> upgrade path that all the commercial vendors use. This boils down to 
> the question: Do we want to force the entire team to upgrade to a the 
> same version of Kicad if they collectively work on the same files?

We don't have the person-hours to provide support for multiple versions. 
  We don't force people to upgrade but we also don't have enough time in the
day to deal with the extra problems that come from the kind of teamwork you
are describing.

-Seth

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