Hi, a.gra...@gmail.com wrote: > On 3 December 2010 00:40, Randall Arnold <tex...@ovi.com> wrote: >> Now that we have a nice offer from TI to get Pandaboards into the hands of >> developers [1] it's time as Quim suggested to get serious about the >> Community Device Program [2]. I will repost some of the wiki content here >> followed by my thoughts and questions: > > maybe I' missing something... if TI is going to provide these > Pandaboards, why are you talking about budget from > Nokia/Intel/LinuxFoundation?
Randall said: "I imagine most of this will be per individual contributing companies, eg Intel, TI, Nokia, et al. Unless we are just talking a program administrative budget? If so, what would that cover other than devices?" - I understood that he's assuming the budget will come from the people providing the hardware. If we are centralising the device program efforts, though, it makes sense to have some LF budget allocated to sending devices out, for example. It might make sense for hardware producers to donate hardware to the Linux Foundation (or, if you prefer to the MeeGo Project, via the Linux Foundation), and have us figure out how the hardware can be effectively distributed which will give a good return on investment to both MeeGo and the hardware donor. The hardware programs I've seen so far tend to adopt one of three approaches: give hardware to people based on what they've done in the past, give hardware in reward for participation in some competition, or give hardware to people based on the promise that they will do something. For boards, I would like to propose a fourth way: Give a workshop teaching people how to use MeeGo on the hardware, and provide the hardware to workshop attendees & let them take it home at the end. The problem with giving hardware to people based on their reputation is that they tend to cumulate hardware - I know a lot of kernel people's reaction to a hardware giveaway is often "put it on the pile over there" at this stage. THere's no guarantee they'll have any utility for the hardware or do anything with it. Giving hardware as a prize for a software development contest is tempting, and if you have really good docs on how to get started with development using emulation or something, that might be a good approach - but it does add some overhead in terms of judging. Expecting people to apply for hardware (à la Nokia) also has a limited return on investment, I'm afraid, because it's one thing promising to do something with the hardware, and another thing to actually do something with it. Also, I would argue that past reputation is actually a poor predictor for the amount of hacking you'll do for a new device. The fourth way, providing hardware as a reward for participation in a training workshop, has a double incentive - you're not expecting people to do hardware hacking as a prerequisite, and you're training people & giving them the tools which they need to be able to do something with the hardware afterwards. Plus, participation in the workshop is, I would argue, evidence of a willingness to actually do some hacking with the hardware afterwards. Cheers, Dave. -- maemo.org docsmaster Email: dne...@maemo.org Jabber: bo...@jabber.org _______________________________________________ MeeGo-community mailing list MeeGo-community@meego.com http://lists.meego.com/listinfo/meego-community
