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Poll

Give away a 1 year Eagle license?

No, it's a trap! It'll lock you of your own work!
[ 9 ] (60%)
Yes, it might really help a group or project!
[ 6 ] (40%)

Total Members Voted: 15

Voting closed: November 12, 2011, 03:51:19 pm

Topic: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide. (Read 25075 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #30 –
[quote author="Shaos"]so may be there is a more sense for them to have Eagle free and earn much more money on side-services as purchasing components by BOM and order PCB production directly from the software...[/quote]

Just like I think that every mcu manufacturer should have a best possible C compiler available for their mcu's for free I think every pcb house that can afford it should have pcb capture app that's free. I certainly see a benefit for Farnell not only to keep Eagle free but to make it 100% free and 100% limit free and 100% open source; on the other hand I can, without too much problems, see how manager inside Farnell can make a decision to kill free version and push licence prices 200-300%. There's a valid explanation/pov for both decisions. What they will do - let's wait and c, IMO since we all together really have no clue what their thought process is, we should not spread fud. Now when the decision is made, yes, I do think everyone should hear about it ..

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #31 –
OK, will wait...

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #32 –
It's just my opinion, we'll see what will really happen. I do agree this change can very well be end of Eagle as #1 hobby EDA tool, but let's give those guy's in Farnell chance to do what they planned to do before we start making our own personal decisions.

As I mention many times, I just don't find Eagle "that good" so I don't use it as I want my electronics to be fun, and IMO Eagle is not fun :(. I don't see myself ever using Eagle, but I see this particular moment to be very similar to moment when Sun purchased MySQL (and me working in MySQL at the time, hearing it on big "all employee's" meeting we had in Orlando, was so drugged with some pain meds as I just came out of hospital because of my very bad back, was unsure what I'm hearing ...) ... lot of ppl tried to exploit the moment and started spreading FUD intentionally, many ppl were just confused, scared ... so they started spreading FUD too ... and in reality nothing happened, the whole thing went very smooth and Sun didn't influence how we do things one iota :D ... so just like I hated reading "what will happen with mysql" then, I assume ppl in Eagle team really don't need to read today before any decisions are made public...

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #33 –
Eagle has always stated that you need to pay for upgrades between major releases, there's nothing new or evil about this.  If you're using commercial software and you want to stay current, you pay the price.  It comes down to a simple decision with some trade offs.

i wouldn't worry too much about the lack of advertised free version. . .these decisions are usually made by marketing. . . as long as you can download them.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #34 –
"Major release" usually means not only change of major version number, but major changes in functionality and/or user interface, but Eagle version 5 was almost identical to version 4, at least from user's point of view - the same set of usual bugs, the same mess in libraries etc.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #35 –
5 changed the UI look and feel quite a bit, as well as made some really nice additions to assisted manual routing, which was a huge upgrade in PCB layout, imho.  Regardless, it's up to the company what version number they're changing, major, minor, etc.  So again, you're at their mercy.  Sounds like it might be time for you to try out KiCAD :)

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #36 –
[quote author="bearmos"]5 changed the UI look and feel quite a bit, as well as made some really nice additions to assisted manual routing, which was a huge upgrade in PCB layout, imho.  Regardless, it's up to the company what version number they're changing, major, minor, etc.  So again, you're at their mercy.  Sounds like it might be time for you to try out KiCAD :)[/quote]

I'm fighting with gEDA right now ;)

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #37 –
[quote author="Shaos"]I'm fighting with gEDA right now ;)[/quote]
i'm curious to hear how that goes:)

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #38 –
[quote author="bearmos"][quote author="Shaos"]I'm fighting with gEDA right now ;)[/quote]
i'm curious to hear how that goes:)[/quote]

The only thing that I don't like in gEDA - there is no back connection between PCB layout and schematics as in Eagle, so you must finalize schematics first and only after that you may create a layout...

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #39 –
[quote author="arhi"]...
Note that apart from Eagle there is number of other free commercial eda tools available, many without limitations of the free Eagle version, some surprisingly good (for e.g. design spark is surprisingly good free eda tool with a single flaw and that's "winblows only" .. it actually imports Eagle files, I forgot about it, so there is actually a way to read your eagle files if eagle is gone :D !!! designspark v3 also have a simulation interface so it should be able to talk to spice and other free simulation tools - I have not tried that but .... the gui is 10 times faster and more ergonomic then eagle, it looks better, it is faster .. worth a try .. if you compare it side by side with Eagle, Eagle will lose by a lot)

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_EDA_software[/quote]
I've been using DesignSpark PCB for over a year now and found it to be a very usable package. I found the size limitation (100 x 80mm) in (free) EagleCAD a problem for my bigger designs and swapped to DesignSpark. I've not tried the new simulator interface yet.
Tony

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #40 –
I tried few days ago to load eagle schematic and eagle board into it without success. They advertise they can import eagle but I didn't manage to do that :(

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #41 –
Quote
We can offer three EAGLE Hobbyist licenses (unlimited).

There you have it. Next week we'll be giving these away. Thanks for your ideas!
Got a question? Please ask in the forum for the fastest answers.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #42 –
Cool!

Is it like regular giveaway or with a small challenge/compo?

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #43 –
very cool!

i wonder what happens if someone generates sch/pcb with the hobbyist license, then shares those sources here, assuming they fit into the capabilities of the "lite" version.  i guess that means that in order for DP to make that board as a "project" and sell it, you'd need to start from scratch? 

Also, I wonder what their policy is on library components generated by the hobbyist license, then used in a salable product (this seems like it should be acceptable, since individual components are within the lite license).

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #44 –
for reference, here's the non-commercial agreement, required for the hobbyist license:

Quote
DECLARATION
With this declaration I assure that the EAGLE Hobbyist license I bought under my name will be used exclusively for non-commercial purposes. I am aware that files generated with this copy of the program can be identified by CadSoft. I am not part of an educational or non-commercial institution.
Should this copy of the program ever be used for commercial purposes by myself or by another person, I make myself liable to prosecution.
In that case I will have to pay at least the price for the non-limited EAGLE version in addition to the price I paid for the EAGLE Hobbyist license.
 

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