[SOLAR_FIELDS]

This feels like a major step forward, not for the software itself (although it probably is) but for the release schedule. KiCad 5 came out in 2018. KiCad 6 was long delayed and waterfalled and did not come out until late 2021/early 2022. And now only a year later we see KiCad 7. Seems like release engineering is coming more on lockdown which is super great news!

[cushychicken]

Pretty sure Kicad Services Corp is a big factor in the tighter release cadence. Seth Hillibrand and co have done the best job of “Red Hatting” Kicad and becoming a professional services org that supports Kicad users for a fee.

Also helps them guide and drive development of wanted features. I’m convinced there’s no way ODBC support would have happened without it. That’s a feature no hobbyist or maker would care about- it’s specifically geared towards people who collaborate with other engineers and component sourcing departments.

[delfinom]

Not to diminsh KSC as Seth and Wayne are trying to expand things here and there.

But ODBC support was by Jon Evans (https://www.kicad.org/blog/2022/12/Development-Highlight-Dec...), who is a lead developer but not employed by KSC. He works elsewhere and added it for his own benefit and that of his buddies elsewhere.

The tighter release schedule is something everyone wanted, just because v6 got too unwieldy.

[cushychicken]

Bless Jon Evans, then. That feature was a big roadblock to wider pro usage, IMO.

[inamberclad]

The forced workflow is a feature IMO. In a production engineering scenario, it's very helpful to have tools that enforce some level of best practice. Especially since the time and money to rework incorrectly designed circuit boards can prohibitive.