gEDA-user: Where do "models" or ".cir" files live?

[Stuart Brorson]

On Sat, 9 Sep 2006, Peter Clifton wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-09-08 at 15:59 -0400, Stuart Brorson wrote:
>> Ummm, were these models distributed with gEDA?  I don't think
>> so . . . .     The only SPICE models we have distributed are
>> associated with some of my examples in the doc/examples directory.
>
> Not distributed with gEDA, but alongside on the MDP resource CD.
>
>> Generally, SPICE models of various components are vendor proprietary.
>> They give them away on the web for free, but I don't think you're
>> really supposed to redistribute them in the same spirit as GNU
>> software.
>
> Just looked... they are all Copyright Analog Devices, Inc.. appart from
> one, which is Precision Monolithics, Inc.
>
> It is possible that some agreement was reached with the vendors, there
> are certainly other items on the CD which are of commercial origin (and
> we have the appropriate license agreements to distribute them)

It's more likely that a commercial enterprise will licence SPICE
models to a brand-name university's educational CD than to an
open-source software project run by a diffuse band of hobbiests.
Therefore, I conclude that the gEDA project should have nothing to do
with distributing vendor SPICE models.  But I do think it a good idea
for you to put any models you can licence on your CD since it is part
of your mission to educate students.

>> Check the models and see if there are any copyright statements in
>> them.  Likely there are.  IN that case, we have no business
>> distributing them with the rest of gEDA unless we get some kind of
>> wavier from the companies which created them.
>
> I'll make sure that we already have, or can obtain, permission to
> re-distribute them.

Great!

As for your original question:  Where to put the SPICE models in the
CD directories?  It's really up to you.  However, here's what I do at
home:

1.  Usually, I have project-specific SPICE models.  In that case, I
just put them into my project directory, in a subdirectory.

2.  If I want to share them amongst many projects, I put them in
${GEDA_INSTALL_DIRECTORY}/share/models or someplace like that.

> I'm already disparing about the quality of the gschem symbols in the MDP
> library, and I'm keen that most of those don't get distributed on the
> CD. If there is any doubt about the models, they'll get left out.

What's wrong with the symbols?

Stuart