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It's fantastic that LibrePCB exists to solve the key pain points around KiCad, but I wonder what the end state is. Network effects come into play pretty strong

by nrp 7y ago

It's fantastic that LibrePCB exists to solve the key pain points around KiCad, but I wonder what the end state is. Network effects come into play pretty strongly here with libraries, reference designs, and community knowledge. It took years of improvements and Eagle getting heavily monetized by Autodesk for KiCad to become the de facto EDA tool for hobbyists and open source hardware developers. This space isn't that large. Is there a scenario where LibrePCB gets enough critical mass behind it to be competitive with KiCad, or will KiCad gradually improve and continue to grow to prevent that from ever happening?

dbrgn 7y ago
If there can be multiple graphics editing programs (GIMP, Inkscape, Krita, ...) and multiple 3D modelling tools (FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, Blender, Wings3D, ...) why shouldn't the space be big enough for multiple EDA tools (KiCAD, LibrePCB, Fritzing, Horizon, ...)?
- atoav 7y ago
  As a Horizon contributor (and avid Blender user) I see this in a similar way: I think trying different conceptual approaches is something everyone can profit from. Every single tool in your list has it’s own pros and cons and some of them are targeting a different audience altogether (e.g. Fritzing). I liked the ease of use with which LibrePCB allowed users to use existing Libraries, so I proposed a similar thing for Horizon.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    Speaking of which, Fritzing (and it's older cousin Arduino) desperately need some competition. As a tool targeting beginners I feel it deserves a better UI (some stability would not hurt either).
    - atoav 7y ago
      I think Horizon is aiming more at professionals or even small teams. carrotindustries (who started the project) said he was very much inspired by Altium, but wasn’t happy with existing open source EDA tools. So it is unlikely this scope will change unless someone new enters the game. I try my best in helping to keep the entry barrier low and to smooth rough edges or paper cuts where needed. My goal is to make it not impossible for people who start out with electronics, while still maintaining a tool professionals can work with. Documentation is a big part of that: https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overview.html https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overvie...
- DSMan195276 7y ago
  I don't think it's a hugely controversial statement to say that the hobbyist circuit/pcb design scene is a lot smaller then than the number of hobbyist graphic designers. So the question is more can the community actually support two/three of these programs while also offering enough features for both to be usable - or do we just get two/three effectively unusable programs with no library support.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    I find it far more likely that ECAD industry will go the way of Blender where the high cost of per seat licensing will drive big companies to start contributing to open source alternatives to stop the bleeding. Given the diversity in needs of different industries, each could contribute the pieces they need into a whole that makes up a viable competitor. The bigger problem than the number of hobbyists is that the vast majority can't even afford to prototype the high end of what PCB designers can do. For example, a 12-24 layer board with mixed RF and 1ghz+ digital signals (like the hundreds of smartphone main boards connected to a camera that are design each year) can cost thousands or tens of thousands to fab in small quantities, let alone assembly and parts to put it together.
    - DSMan195276 7y ago
      That's a very interesting point, I do agree that could happen if enough companies are unhappy with the price, though that's not something I know much about. The price of switching to a new tool would be very high though, I would think, so any viable competitor needs to be very feature complete and probably needs a high degree of compatibility with whatever tools they're currently using. And yeah, I was considering going into that but didn't want to talk too much out of my knowledge zone. There is definitely a huge divide between the professional PCB designers and what hobbyists (like me) tend to make. My most complicated board is a 2-layer with mostly through-hole and a few surface-mount. BGA, the really small surface mount parts, any anything crazier than maybe 4-layers is just completely out of my reach - I could theoretically design them with a lot of learning, but the expense of getting the design fabricated and the impractically of soldering them manually just makes it a complete non-starter. But yet, those parts are pretty much all that you'll see on modern boards. What I'm doing is so much simpler than what professionals are doing it's really not comparable. I mostly don't need the complexity of something like Eagle, but for companies doing modern PCB design those complex features are an absolute requirement.
akiselev 7y ago
I'm not so sure that we would want one community around one package for electrical engineering. The industry has always been relatively stagnant, such that even a mediocre UX like Altium's is a breath of fresh air compared to Zuken, Mentor, Cadence, etc. and we could do with a lot more experimentation in open source ECAD to make up for the missed opportunities. That means a lot of orthogonal experimentation in file formats and version control, DRC, standardization of schematic and PCB modules, and so on that should not be coupled to one project.
panpanna 7y ago
> Network effects come into play pretty strongly here with libraries positive only when managed correctly. Kicad includes tons of low quality libraries. I have had non-working pcbs thanks to crappy kicad libraries.
blt 7y ago
Monoculture is not good. Positive changes happened after LLVM/clang rose up to challenge GCC. LibrePCB cannot hope to be a drop in replacement for kicad like clang was for GCC, but a file converter tool seems plausible.

by nrp 7y ago

dbrgn 7y ago

If there can be multiple graphics editing programs (GIMP, Inkscape, Krita, ...) and multiple 3D modelling tools (FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, Blender, Wings3D, ...) why shouldn't the space be big enough for multiple EDA tools (KiCAD, LibrePCB, Fritzing, Horizon, ...)?

atoav 7y ago
As a Horizon contributor (and avid Blender user) I see this in a similar way: I think trying different conceptual approaches is something everyone can profit from. Every single tool in your list has it’s own pros and cons and some of them are targeting a different audience altogether (e.g. Fritzing). I liked the ease of use with which LibrePCB allowed users to use existing Libraries, so I proposed a similar thing for Horizon.
- panpanna 7y ago
  Speaking of which, Fritzing (and it's older cousin Arduino) desperately need some competition. As a tool targeting beginners I feel it deserves a better UI (some stability would not hurt either).
  - atoav 7y ago
    I think Horizon is aiming more at professionals or even small teams. carrotindustries (who started the project) said he was very much inspired by Altium, but wasn’t happy with existing open source EDA tools. So it is unlikely this scope will change unless someone new enters the game. I try my best in helping to keep the entry barrier low and to smooth rough edges or paper cuts where needed. My goal is to make it not impossible for people who start out with electronics, while still maintaining a tool professionals can work with. Documentation is a big part of that: https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overview.html https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overvie...
DSMan195276 7y ago
I don't think it's a hugely controversial statement to say that the hobbyist circuit/pcb design scene is a lot smaller then than the number of hobbyist graphic designers. So the question is more can the community actually support two/three of these programs while also offering enough features for both to be usable - or do we just get two/three effectively unusable programs with no library support.
- akiselev 7y ago
  I find it far more likely that ECAD industry will go the way of Blender where the high cost of per seat licensing will drive big companies to start contributing to open source alternatives to stop the bleeding. Given the diversity in needs of different industries, each could contribute the pieces they need into a whole that makes up a viable competitor. The bigger problem than the number of hobbyists is that the vast majority can't even afford to prototype the high end of what PCB designers can do. For example, a 12-24 layer board with mixed RF and 1ghz+ digital signals (like the hundreds of smartphone main boards connected to a camera that are design each year) can cost thousands or tens of thousands to fab in small quantities, let alone assembly and parts to put it together.
  - DSMan195276 7y ago
    That's a very interesting point, I do agree that could happen if enough companies are unhappy with the price, though that's not something I know much about. The price of switching to a new tool would be very high though, I would think, so any viable competitor needs to be very feature complete and probably needs a high degree of compatibility with whatever tools they're currently using. And yeah, I was considering going into that but didn't want to talk too much out of my knowledge zone. There is definitely a huge divide between the professional PCB designers and what hobbyists (like me) tend to make. My most complicated board is a 2-layer with mostly through-hole and a few surface-mount. BGA, the really small surface mount parts, any anything crazier than maybe 4-layers is just completely out of my reach - I could theoretically design them with a lot of learning, but the expense of getting the design fabricated and the impractically of soldering them manually just makes it a complete non-starter. But yet, those parts are pretty much all that you'll see on modern boards. What I'm doing is so much simpler than what professionals are doing it's really not comparable. I mostly don't need the complexity of something like Eagle, but for companies doing modern PCB design those complex features are an absolute requirement.

akiselev 7y ago

I'm not so sure that we would want one community around one package for electrical engineering. The industry has always been relatively stagnant, such that even a mediocre UX like Altium's is a breath of fresh air compared to Zuken, Mentor, Cadence, etc. and we could do with a lot more experimentation in open source ECAD to make up for the missed opportunities. That means a lot of orthogonal experimentation in file formats and version control, DRC, standardization of schematic and PCB modules, and so on that should not be coupled to one project.

panpanna 7y ago

> Network effects come into play pretty strongly here with libraries positive only when managed correctly. Kicad includes tons of low quality libraries. I have had non-working pcbs thanks to crappy kicad libraries.

blt 7y ago

Monoculture is not good. Positive changes happened after LLVM/clang rose up to challenge GCC. LibrePCB cannot hope to be a drop in replacement for kicad like clang was for GCC, but a file converter tool seems plausible.