{"id":211,"date":"2013-01-21T13:08:10","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T12:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.igalia.com\/jaragunde\/?p=211"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:08:10","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T12:08:10","slug":"introducing-kicad-because-open-hardware-needs-open-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.igalia.com\/jaragunde\/2013\/01\/introducing-kicad-because-open-hardware-needs-open-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing KiCad: because open hardware needs open tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately you have had the chance to read some posts related to\u00a0open hardware<\/em>\u00a0in Planet Igalia<\/a>. It’s natural for a company with strong roots in the free software movement like ours to jump into this exciting new world.<\/p>\n

While some igalians started working in the kernel support of some open hardware boards, others have noticed that there is a lack of specialized free software to work with schematic, PCB designs and so. That’s why we decided to start contributing to KiCad project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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While there are other alternatives, KiCad is in a really good position to become the reference software in this field. It already has a good number of features and a strong user base. It just needs some push to grow and catch up with the existing privative tools.<\/p>\n

Our first patches focus on usability issues; it has allowed us to get to know the code base while generating useful contributions. You can already see some of them in the project repository<\/a>\u00a0or in the developers list<\/a>, like:<\/p>\n