Often times, hackerspaces get started up and running teaching an assortment of classes in technical subjects to members or visitors A basic set of free libre tools helps hackerspaces get bootstrapped and running with little cost in resources.
For the unconference, we focused on comparing use of Eagle, gEDA, EDA tools, or electronic design automation tools all should allow the user to capture electronics schematics and layout pcb designs. There's a lot more too it, in cluding simulation tools,