> Most EDA software is written by companies who have no interest in letting you see how their proprietary formats work.
Oh boy, I know it, and it's been a pain in my side. However, EAGLE (lots of hobbiests use it) is migrating to a fully-documented XML-based format [1], and there are two open-source projects for schematic capture, kicad and geda, which would give someone a head start on parsing their design files, at least.
Hey rcfox, Zak from Upverter here. We are planning to release import/export and an open file format by the end of the month. We have altium, eagle, kicad and geda converters in the works too!
Oh boy, I know it, and it's been a pain in my side. However, EAGLE (lots of hobbiests use it) is migrating to a fully-documented XML-based format [1], and there are two open-source projects for schematic capture, kicad and geda, which would give someone a head start on parsing their design files, at least.
[1] http://www.element14.com/community/message/15751