On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:44 PM, malcolm stanley wrote: > Bryan, if I organize a Google Hangout for it, will you put together a short > presentation on ISO 10303 and do a Q&A for us on what it is, what it says, > and why it matters? I would be happy to speak with you about existing standards and on-going progress in open source hardware file formats/packaging, either over email, irc, voip, phone, or in person. I am curious as to what outcomes you are expecting from that sort of conversation. In particular, it strikes me as odd that you would ask why these things matter-- you run into them constantly if you do any hardware development (it's seriously hard to find a commercial CAD tool that doesn't support STEP), and in the software world there's a tremendous amount of standardization on packaging formats, which has led to hundreds of thousands of standard 'components' (which are hard to escape the reaches from on most computers you'll use). These are the common elements that have lead to all of the different efforts on "github for hardware" or "open source hardware packaging" projects. These are not projects by committees*, but rather individuals that look at what tools they need, and then they write them (* excluding ISO's work in this area, which is very much a committee). I think in some cases this has been successful, like thingdoc, which successfully solves a small piece of the puzzle, but needs all the other tools everyone keeps talking about. So.. are you expecting to be able to go home and use some existing packaging solutions? or contribute to them and fix bugs (or whatever)? Are you looking for advice on making this sort of software? I think that for ISO-10303-specific information, the best person for you to talk with would be Charlie Stix, who replied earlier in a recent thread, or maybe Mark Pictor when he isn't busy on SCL... As for other hardware packaging attempts from the open source world, I would be happy to talk with you about those, but I am unwilling to prepare a presentation for a "Hangout".