Mail Archives: geda-user/2014/04/05/00:14:07
On Thursday 03 April 2014, Stefan Salewski wrote:
> Have you verified that the specctra format can be freely used
> without legal issues?
Nothing patentable there.
Reverse engineer it from Freerouting code.
> I was looking for format description about two years ago,
> when I started my own toporouter -- and that time I found
> format description only on a russian site. I think that the
> owner of that format is not the big company with the broken
> fruit, so risk of legal issues is not that great. But there
> may be a risk still.
The owner is Cadence.
> In my opinion benefit of specctra format for PCB is not that
> big -- do we really intent to use free tools for schematic
> and PCB, and then use a commercial router?
People use hybrid systems all the time.
Until now, one major disadvantage of kicad was the need for a
proprietary router that could only be accessed by the web. To
me, that was a fatal disadvantage. That disadvantage has been
replaced by an advantage. Not only does it have a non-
proprietary router, it gives you a choice.
> (Seems to me as
> strange as using free open source tools on commercial
> operating system.) I do not know something about the router
> of Alfons Wirtz -- if it really is good and GPL now, it may
> be possible to make it compatible with PCB data format.
The router in PCB now is not that great.
Using a standard format, even if only a defacto standard, allows
a choice of routers and a common point between kicad and PCB.
It also makes hooks for simulation easier.
> (I
> have to admit that I have not really big hope for his router
> -- he has not worked on it in the last 5 years himself, and
> I wonder if his code is really well written and documented?)
You can look. It's written in Java.
> An other approach may be to write a converter from PCB
> format to KiCAD format, that would cover specctra format
> export and at the some time the KiCad push&shove router.
That's funny. Acknowledging the kicad format as standard?
A better idea is to choose a common format equally
native/foreign to both. If properly done it could make it
possible to migrate between them which would enhance both.
.. a common format used by ALL. .. that could be a migration
path.
For a PCB layout program to not support specctra format is a
mistake almost as big as for a circuit simulator to not support
SPICE format.
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