Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan King" <alan@...>
To: <Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 9:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Re: New Scematic capture & PCB software


> soffee83 wrote:
>
>>--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Alan King <alan@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>That isn't just you, their licensing scheme is somewhat brain
>>>damaged.Creates a sizable gap between needing hundreds of dollars to
>>>use it commercially, or only use it for free with no profit..
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I've been meaning to mail them about that ever since I started using
>>it. This discussion, and hearing from someone who agrees, has
>>encouraged me to go ahead and do it (maybe tonight). I guess there's a
>>chance that they may have just not really thought about it enough. I
>>mean some of us are actually "losing" a bunch of money for our
>>interest in electronics, much less having the profits to have our
>>tools pay for themselves.
>>
>>I may also politely suggest that they outsource a writer to finally
>>redo that god awful manual. I'm sure they get that one all the time.
>> Take Care,
>>
>>-George
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Well I was thinking more from the commercial aspect. As it is, you
> have to come up with $600 from some other source to get the whole
> standard package and start making money. Pretty limiting if you're
> wanting to make money from it, don't have a spare $600 laying around,
> and want to concentrate on using it.. Technically the $49 license says
> 'non-profit' OR evaluation use now. So you could evaluate it for a
> decent period, long enough to make some money and pay for it, doesn't
> really specify limitaitons.
>
> But it needs a $100 entry license for the larger size limitation, then
> $100/year or per $1000 income generated until you pay the $600, or
> something similar. Or a $200 version etc, that has simple limits per
> year you can make before you need to pay the balance for the standard
> version. As it is now makes it difficult for the very people they
> attract with the free version to progressively move to doing small scale
> commercial with it. You have to take a huge sideways step somewhere and
> come up with the $400 or $600 to start doing more viable larger boards
> for profit, at least if you want to stay legal. I doubt even the
> programmers or accountants have a serious problem with people breaking
> the agreement that actually intend to pay, but it seems rather dumb to
> not accomodate that lower scale end of the spectrum in the licensing
> possibilities, especially when so many of the free users might move into
> that range..

Easy-PC is ∗much∗ easier to use than EAGLE and costs about the same. It also
has a decent autorouter and SPICE simulator, and support is excellent. I
used it for about 15 years, before I got Pulsonix.

http://www.numberone.com/index.asp

Leon
--
Leon Heller, G1HSM
leon.heller@...
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller

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