Linux Fund partners to boost usability of gEDA open source electronic engineering software package

Corvallis, Oregon – December 15th, 2008 – Linux Fund has partnered with gEDA project developer DJ Delorie to enhance gEDA's flagship open source PCB layout program "PCB". This work will significantly upgrade PCB's usability and utility for electronics designers and educators, making it an attractive open source alternative to commercial PCB design tools. gEDA/PCB joins the VectorSection DWG interpreter project as part of Linux Fund's growing open engineering and hardware initiative.

PCB is a twenty year old application. Originally written in 1990 for the Atari ST, the program was ported to Unix in 1994. Over the years, it has been maintained and extended by a series of developers who have added improvements and new features, including a GTK port and the ability to export Gerber files. Mr Delorie is currently one of the chief developers involved with PCB, having become involved with the project in 2002.

DJ Delorie is well known within the open source community as the author of djgpp, a popular port of the gcc compiler to DOS. He is also a long time user of PCB, having used the program to design a net-enabled alarm clock which won second place in Circuit Cellar Magazine's "Microchip embedded control" design contest in 2007. His commitment to work on PCB usability enhancements in conjunction with funding from the Linux Fund represents a major step forward for the gEDA Project, as well as a welcome boost to the open-hardware movement.

• Implement forward annotation using action scripts
• GUI modernization
• Enhance ability to create and edit arbitrary layer types
• Develop a new Footprint Editor
• Update Design Rule Checking

The gEDA Project is a community of open source developers working on creating tools for electronic design released under the GNU Public License. The project currently offers a mature suite of free software applications for electronics design, including schematic capture, attribute management, bill of materials (BOM) generation, netlisting into over 20 netlist formats, analog and digital simulation, and printed circuit board (PCB) layout.

Besides the core design tools, the gEDA Project has gathered a community of other programmers who work on their own tools while sharing the gEDA e-mail lists, administration, and community support. This extended set of electronics design applications as become known as the "gEDA Suite". Visit www.gpleda.org for more information.

Linux Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides financial and advisory support to the free and open software community. Linux Fund has given away over $750,000 to open source events and development since its founding in 1999 using funds earned by its line of rewards credit cards and direct donations. Visit www.linuxfund.org for more information.

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