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Hackaday reports
Things are about to get interesting in the world of PCB design software for the open [...] hardware community. This week, Altium launched the open public beta for its new [CircuitMaker] software[1], and it's a major change from what we looked at previously. Everything is [gratis].
You heard that right, [gratis]. Unlimited board size and unlimited layers--all [gratis]. And this isn't some stripped-down, bare-bones software here. They've thrown in almost everything under the sun: a 3D viewer, team project collaboration, [Cadsoft EAGLE] and DFX import, integrated Octopart supplier and pricing information, no commercial usage limits, and project sharing. And if that isn't enough, the "engine" seems to be the exact same back-end that is used in the full $10,000 Altium Designer as well (with a bit easier to use user interface on top).
This is a major departure from the pre-beta we covered back in September. Altium was going [to] have board size and layer limits, with the ability to "upgrade" at a cost.
[...] there are a few gotchas[...]. The software uses cloud based storage for your project files and [it] is community based. It won't work without an Internet connection, there is no local storage, and it forces you to share your projects with the world. You do get two "Sandbox" designs that you can hide from the world before you generate your Gerber files, but after that, your project is online for the whole world to see.
[...] anyone with a doggy Internet connection is not going to enjoy using [CircuitMaker] (we're hoping they remove that limitation in the final product). [...]how many people will be willing to trust their designs to a free service that could be turned off on a whim?
[...] If you want to see in-depth review of [CircuitMaker], we highly recommend you watch the video[...]. Dave Jones of the eevblog, gives you a full rundown on the beta version. Dave's in a unique place to review this software: Not only has he been using Altium since the mid-80's as a professional engineer, he's also a former Altium employee.
[1] The CircuitMaker page contains a "Free" link, but it doesn't lead anywhere--especially not to source code (even after allowing the 8 scripts that the page wants to push at you). There is some vague gibberish about GPL at the bottom of the CircuitMaker page but, again, no mention of actual source code. It appears that although the Hackaday submitter used the term "open source", that is used incorrectly.
In addition, the Download link doesn't lead anywhere for me--again, even after allowing the 8 scripts. Justice_099 in the comments says "Downloading requires a CircuitMaker account and I don't see any way to create an account there." (This really looks like amateur night.)
There is also no mention of operating systems, so I'm assuming this is Windows-only. (imroy264 in the comments says that is so and Anonymous below him says it fails via WINE).
majost in the comments says "My biggest issue with CircuitMaker is you cannot import manufacturer or third-party supplied parts libraries, and the Ciiva Library is lacking quite a few parts."
The comments also contain numerous mentions of (GPL'd, zero-restriction) KiCAD.
Related: CERN is Getting Serious About Development of the KiCAD App for Designing Printed Circuits
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @01:21AM
gEDA
The GPL'd Electronics Design Automation suite is the opposite story:
At one time, Ales was building Windoze-compatible binaries (4 releases by my count).
The mailing list got so full of tech neophytes asking question about how to run Windoze that he decided that wasn't such a great idea.
These days, they supply a build script for that bunch; if you can't get it installed under Windoze, it shows you're not techie enough to be one of the crowd.
Did you know that part of that suite started out on the Atari ST? [wikipedia.org]
Just goofing around to show how versatile gEDA is, DJ Delorie once configured a spin of it so it would accommodate a 64-layer 64ft x 64ft board. 8-)
.
(GPL'd) FreePCB is mentioned several times in the Hackaday comments.
The schematic capture chores can be done with (GPL'd) TinyCAD or (proprietary) LTspice.
All 3 of those are native Windoze apps but they will all run via WINE.
.
KiCAD has already gotten a bunch of ink/bytes on this topic.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @03:56AM
_gewg? windoze? Really? Are you 12? The rest of what you wrote is fine. But dont be a child.
I did not expect to see your name at the end of this. You can do better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @05:51AM
Hundreds of words there and you obsess over 1.
Do -all- small shiny objects captivate you?
In my experience, Redmond's stuff is crap.
Get over it.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:02AM
There was a time you could try out gEDA and KiCAD without installing anything on your box.
There were two[1] gratis and libre boot-to-a-desktop CDs.
Sadly, the one based on Ubuntu [google.com] didn't continue to receive support after its initial release.
The one based on Fedora [google.com] didn't receive any updates either.
The good news is that they are trying to get a Kickstarter [fedoraproject.org] going for Fedora 23. [fedoraproject.org]
[1] Even before that, there were a few other CDs put together by various folks.
As I recall, you had to actually install those earlier distro respin efforts.
-- gewg_