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# Frequently Asked Questions
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### Are you aware that Kicad's code base is not of the highest quality?
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Yes, before embarking on this project we conducted an in-depth study of
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the code base of Kicad and other open source EDA packages. We are very
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much aware of the places in the Kicad code base where a serious clean-up
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would be useful. Fortunately, thanks to the work of many competent
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programmers, these areas are becoming less and less numerous. We also
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plan to help in that domain. The main Kicad developers are also
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conscious of this problem and are working hard to improve things. Having
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said this, if you can criticize Kicad code it's because it is open
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source. Nobody knows if the code for proprietary EDA packages is better
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or worse.
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### Don't you think staffing this with one student is too little?
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Of course, it would be better to do more, but this is what we can afford
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now. However, this already represents quite a step forward with respect
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to the past. To our knowledge, this is the first time a full-time
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developer is devoted to Kicad for a full year, and we will be able to do
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even more if people
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[donate](http://cernandsociety.web.cern.ch/technology/kicad-development).
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We hope that our example will be followed by other organizations, so
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that manpower is not an issue for Kicad anymore. Then the issue will be
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to properly organize this manpower and to ensure only high-quality code
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makes it to the main
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tree.
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### You seem to be a hardware-oriented section. Are you competent for this kind of work?
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We are lucky to have several very competent object-oriented developers
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in our section. Our team is mostly made of electronics engineers and
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computer scientists, with lots of experience in complex projects, both
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hardware and software. But ultimately, the best way to evaluate the
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quality of our work is to look at the code we contribute to Kicad.
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### How aligned are you with the main Kicad developers?
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We have a lot of respect for their work and we have been discussing
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these plans for a long time with them. The [roadmap](WorkPackages) we
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presented is a direct outcome of these discussions. We want to be just
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one more contributor to Kicad.
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