gistfile1.txt

Me to rugged circuits:

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Hello rugged individuals,

I'm a regular user of gerbmerge.  You guys were responsible for
releasing version 1.8 of gerbmerge some 30 months ago.  Thanks for
that!

I have source here for a gerbmerge which is a merge of your gerbmerge
1.8, along with gerbmerge 1.7a by Stefan Teubel.  There are also
several bug fixes.

What is the current state of your support for gerbmerge?  Would you
guys like to keep maintaining gerbmerge?  If so, what are you doing to
keep gerbmerge going?

Alternatively, would you be interested in handing gerbmerge over?  If
so, my first task would be to release gerbmerge 1.7a+1.8 as gerbmerge
1.9.

I would also like to set up a website for gerbmerge, and work out how
to move towards gerbmerge 2.0.

In particular, I have made extensive changes to gerbmerge to do
automatic creation of "stencil8"-compatible panels, and I'm interested
in turning parts of gerbmerge into a generalised Python library for
handling gerber/excellon files.  Gerbmerge would then be the reference
app which uses that library.  I also want to add tab-and-mousebite
routing.

More about the stencil8 system, which my customers totally love:

  http://www.hoektronics.com/2012/10/27/super-simple-smt-stencil8/

Please let me know what your thoughts are regarding gerbmerge.

Mitch.

PS: I supply beautiful PCBs from USD19.  Here's a gallery of panels
I've provided:

  http://imgur.com/a/K3TrG

I also do laser-cut stainless steel solder paste stencils from USD30.
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Their reply:

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Thank you for contacting us and your interest in GerbMerge. We are not interested in handing it over at this time but as it is open-source software you are free to create derivative works.
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I then wrote:

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Do you guys have any modifications to gerbmerge that you'd consider
releasing in the short term?
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Their reply:

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No, there are no modifications planned for short-term release. We believe that software development only for the sake of demonstrating “motion” is counter-productive and leads to bloat. GerbMerge does what it does well enough and we have not identified any pressing needs for adding to the codebase.
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