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My intention was to make it a design for folks to learn from and build upon.

Using Altium didn't align with this intention, but it was what I was most productive in and helped me get the design past the finish line with what little energy I had every evening.

This "just get it out" mindset affected the schematic too - I had a long look at it one day and realized that I wasn't proud of it.

So with the move to KiCad, I wanted to make something artful, not just functional - my return to form

And this is why I don't believe in judging a open source project on how open the tools/software it uses are.

What matters is that you are taking time in your life to share your knowledge and skills freely and openly with the rest of the world.

If using the tools you're familiar with makes that possible for you - use them!

People who chose to contribute to open source obviously want things to be more open and accessible. And if you take away the barriers they face, they *will* learn and use an open software or tool.

Hell, even after spending so much time fighting it, I still love KiCad, I love that it exists and I want to see it get better.

But if ThunderScope didn't become my full time job, I probably wouldn't have had the time or motivation to fight the tooling for weeks and switch the design over.

So if you want to see people using open tools, do what you can to remove those barriers!

Make your software easy to install and use - yes, even on Windows.

Do what you can to make your hardware easy to build with the least fancy tools possible (I moved every 0201 up to an 0402 to give folks a fighting chance!) and on accessible PCB technology (I try to stick with what OSHpark can build).

But being easy to use doesn't mean it can't be feature-rich and powerful. A learning curve is fine, but it shouldn't be a wall.

Hardware wise your design is set in stone (ermm... fiberglass) and every feature adds to cost and complexity. So the ideal is to build something that's affordable enough for beginners, but powerful enough to not get chucked in the bin when they become experts.

I better conclude this rant before it goes on too long. I guess I sat on this one for too long and it just kinda got out.

Open Source can be, and should be, the BEST choice for people. All people! Not just electronics greybeards or Arch-Linux-Enjoyers.

This is in essence, my guiding principal. I don't want to just make a scope that's "good for an open source project", I want it to be the best scope for most people - period.

@aleksorsist although it should not mean that programmer is working for free

@aleksorsist Yeah, using open software for me is very important, but on your dayjob, at the end of the day you have to deliver results. IMO KiCad is quite capable for many designs, but other software packages like FreeCAD are still lagging a lot.
The good thing about FLOSS is that as long as it doesn't get abandoned, it can only get betterl

@aleksorsist Cut yourself some slack! There’s that old aphorism that either you get to release with a codebase that basically works but you’re vaguely embarrassed by, or you don’t get to release at all. You won!

@aleksorsist thank you. I know this is a huge amount of work, but it's going to be so educational for so many (including me) to look at something at this level of complexity and requirements.

@aleksorsist Awesome, thank you very much! I really appreciate your effort in this direction 🥰

@aleksorsist Very exciting news! Thank you for all the effort

@aleksorsist cool stuff.

If you want to make it more kicad-y, we can help you with symbols and footprints.
They are somewhat different from the altium styles, so some work is required for little benefit.
If that is something you do consider doing, please reach out to the librarian team.