News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:CircuitMaker: a free PCB design tool powered by Altium by coryrc on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @12:39PM (#8330860)
Except there's absolutely no way I'm going to base my products (which could last twenty years or more) around a SaaS website. I can still open designs made in MS-DOS Protel (and have), while your company might be gone tomorrow. I hate having to hack gerber files because I don't have the source and it really limits changes.
Re:CircuitMaker: a free PCB design tool powered by Altium by paulgerhardt on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @02:33PM (#8331573)
The same thing could have been said about Github three years ago. We use Upverter at Lockitron for one off's (factory test boards, misc. for fun hack boards for our coffee machine, etc.) The tools aren't there today for mass production stuff (more of a problem with the vendors than Upverter). I would be surprised if this is always the case.

As Upverter grows, so will their applicable use cases. Online services have this weird power-law thing going for them that software from a single vendor can't keep up with on 5 year timescales.

Re:CircuitMaker: a free PCB design tool powered by Altium by coryrc on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @03:34PM (#8331936)
Git fully works without Github.

Can't even view your schematics if you stop paying every month to Upverter or they close.

Re:CircuitMaker: a free PCB design tool powered by Altium by zakhomuth on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @10:50PM (#8333425)
We totally understand that fear. This is our approach to solving it: https://github.com/upverter/schematic-file-converter