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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the Babelfish-for-PCBs dept.

Cadsoft's Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor (EAGLE) is an ECAD (Electronic Computer-aided design), a software product for designing printed circuit boards. As that product has a demo/freeware version which is adequate for many users, as well as having a reasonable price structure for more-capable versions, and being cross-platform, it had considerable popularity.

A year ago, Autodesk acquired Cadsoft Computer GmbH and changed the licensing of the product to a subscription model. Since then, many users of EAGLE have been seeking a path away from that EULAware app. Many have moved to (FOSS) KiCAD, a project started by French academics which has gained developer support from personnel at CERN.

A sticking point for those wanting to transition to a new tool is the projects previously developed using the old tool and saved in the native format of that package.

Hackaday reports

There is a desire to port those innumerable Eagle board layouts and libraries to other PCB design packages. This tool does just that.

The tool is an extension of pcb-rnd, a FOSS tool for circuit board editing [itself, a fork of gEDA's "PCB" module], and this update massively extends support for Eagle boards and libraries.

As an example, VK5HSE loaded up an Eagle .brd file of a transceiver, selected a pin header, and exported that component to a KiCAD library. It worked the first time. For another experiment, the ever popular TV-B-Gone .brd file was exported directly to pcb-rnd.

This is a mostly-complete solution for Eagle-to-KiCAD, Eagle-to-Autotrax, and Eagle-to-gEDA-PCB, with a few minimal caveats relating to copper pours and silkscreen--nothing that can't be dealt with if you're not mindlessly using the tool.

While it must be noted that most Open Hardware projects fit inside a 80 [sq.cm] board area, and can therefore be opened and modified with the free-to-use version of Autodesk's Eagle, this is a very capable tool to turn Eagle boards and libraries into designs that can be built with FOSS tools.

Previous: Cadsoft EAGLE is Now Subscription-Only
CERN is Getting Serious About Development of the KiCAD App for Designing Printed Circuits


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:59AM (7 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:59AM (#614625) Homepage Journal

    Why do you hate freedom?

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:21AM (#614629)

    Just a note to the eds, in this holiday season. Seems submissions are sparse. But there are a couple of fine ones by aristarchus! I, for one, would love to see the furry piece on the Mainpage, if only to see a furry piece on the Mainpage. CAD? Proprietary? Lawyers call stuff like this "billable hours", and engineers are less capable of professional ethics than lawyers, despite how much they wish otherwise.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:49AM (4 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:49AM (#614644) Journal

    MDC: I don't know why they are doing this... The business model they were offering was why I went with EAGLE in the first place. Before then, I was an ardent FutureNet / PADS PCB user. Both of which I have perpetual licenses and operational systems to run same - even to this day, I can still pull up schematics and edit files I did 20 years ago. The kind of people I work with often have machines older than I am. A lot of the stuff I work on is 60's genre robotics.

    I hate being cornered into someone else's business model which likely includes planned obsolescence.

    What's good for the fisherman doesn't necessarily end up good for the fish. And in this case, I am the fish.

    I would also hate to buy a house, knowing its in my homeowner terms that only a certain company can legally fix anything in it. Under the legal contract, I may not even be able to change a leaky washer. I have to "trust" them they won't force me to buy a new house because I have a leaky faucet. But my trust of business is almost nonexistent these days. With software/media being lowest on the list due to how easy it is to manipulate me by having my own machine enforce their wishlist - no matter how absurd - to the letter. While holding themselves harmless for whatever grief they cause me.

    Now, that company now has the leverage to hold my investment of time I spent creating my content as incentive for me to agree to whatever he demands in the future. He wants absurd payment or changes my house whether I like it or not, I no longer have much of a choice. I don't blame the company for seeking the handshake of the Congressmen who will codify their wishes into the Law of the Land, however I also see this as a huge demonstration of how risky it is to have a representative form of government that will pass such law.

    I am a EAGLE user too, and for now, I am staying put with my current version of EAGLE, however I am being very careful to baseline and image-backup my system, as if I am not careful, some sort of "upgrade" may be slipped into my system via the internet, and I find one day I cannot access or edit my own work without agreeing to whatever the demands stated are. Basically, my work is held hostage. And I see businesses which will do such things being the equivalent of ransomware. Like inviting Cryptolocker into my machine.

    So, yes, this Soylent News story is of great interest to me. I will jump ship over this.

    Not because it costs too much NOW, rather its my fear of having my work held hostage in the future. I do not sleep well at night knowing I have a time bomb in my machine. A time bomb that can go off at any time, possibly rendering my own work as inaccessible as a Circuit City DIVX disk, or a networked game when the authentication server is turned off.

    Inviting hostageware into my system to me is out of the question. I feel that way because if I show such poor judgement in the choice of the tools I use, I am the "responsible engineer", and expect to have to answer for it. Making a decision to use ransomware to me is more for the upper level executive class who are too high up to take a personal hit when the ransom notes arrive.

    I am not going to complain too much though, as this is one of the methods that large top-heavy corporations become so burdened with expenses they fail, making room for more efficient smaller organizations. Organizations not hampered with the executive leadership ignorant of how much their own company's database of their own engineer's work is worth.

    The big highly paid executive gets his hand shaken by a sales rep.

    The smaller guys have the resources to build on the work they have already done. And can continue to support their customer.

    And the guys who are investing their money choose which faction they wish to work with.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:30AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:30AM (#614652)

      Yup. I'm not surprised to see you in this (meta)thread.

      We've discussed EAGLE and Cadsoft's business model before. [soylentnews.org]
      Multiple times, in fact.
      I noted that the original company had invoked an occult DRM mechanism in order to deal with pirates--and made that a collective punishment thing which harmed some legit users. [electrondepot.com]

      I dropped that brand when I quit Windoze.
      You were too invested to follow suit.

      my work is held hostage [by the EULAware folks]

      There is a LONG comments section attached to TFA.
      One guy said that his company forbids machines with work product on them onto the internet.
      Autodesk's little subscription model is an absolute deal breaker for him.

      this Soylent News story is of great interest to me. I will jump ship over this

      I was pretty sure I'd hear that from you.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:43AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:43AM (#614656)

        Oops. That was in a related page.
        EAGLE: One Year Later [hackaday.com]
        102 comments to date.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:07PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:07PM (#614810)

      The business model they were offering was why I went with EAGLE in the first place.

      What makes you think a company is going to stick with a business model forever?

      I hate being cornered into someone else's business model which likely includes planned obsolescence.

      Then you should try to avoid companies whose products have vendor lock-in.

      I would also hate to buy a house, knowing its in my homeowner terms that only a certain company can legally fix anything in it.

      Then don't buy that house.

      I am a EAGLE user too, and for now, I am staying put with my current version of EAGLE,

      So you're going to stick with the vendor lock-in, and just whine and complain about it. This is exactly why these companies behave this way: because users allow them to.

    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:51PM

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:51PM (#614832) Homepage Journal

      My OP was intended to be a joke

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:38AM (#614679)

    cmn32480 is posting today. He is a windows user. 'nuf said.