[Cryptech Tech] design software

[Bernd Paysan]

Am Sonntag, 17. Januar 2016, 16:33:31 schrieb Peter Stuge:
> But again, the design software isn't important, the design data is.

Strongly seconded: That's the important point.  We should not bury any design 
data in formats that can only be read by non-free programs.  One of the goals 
is audibility, and that can only be done if the auditor doesn't have to jump 
over hoops to look at the data.  In that case, nobody would look.

Eagle's data format is ok, so if whoever designs the board doesn't want to use 
gEDA or KiCAD (which became quite impressive thanks to CERN), then it better 
should be Eagle.

All these tools have their pros and cons, their learning curves and their 
different philosophies.  Whoever does the job gets to decide which tool to 
use, but for audit reasons, the output data format shall be open.  Using a 
non-free program to create or process it is ok; though recently, the FPGA 
synthesis side has made an important breakthrough: At least for old Lattice 
FPGAs, a free toolchain is now available.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
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