Hi, Andrew Flegg wrote: > Indeed, I wasn't suggesting that it was insurmountable; just that each > vendor will want to enter into a device programme to get something in > return. The things they want in return will vary (I guess) depending > on the end-user readiness of the boards; their involvement in the > community to do; their other programmes; the cost of the hardware etc.
I agree. I would be fearful that a central "clearing-house" approach would reduce the value for any individual donor - you need hardware to be targeted at people who want it & will do useful community stuff with it afterwards. And that will be different for each device type. > Yes, and this seems to be the core of the programme. Perhaps some kind > of profile-based approach; i.e. a collection of programme *templates* > which can be picked and chosen from? I'd like to propose a couple of those templates. One I mentioned earlier which I really like is to have the hardware as a giveaway after a training workshop that people have to sign up for. You get the hardware at the end (like the Nexus One giveaway at OSCON last year, which was in conjunction with an Android workshop/tutorial where everyone got their first Android program working). Another if to give hardware as rewards for efforts already furnished - development contests, application contests, etc (a nice way to do it would be to advertise that there are "some" devices for the top entrants, and then at the end have a hardware giveaway for all entrants, with a small something extra for winners). My least favourite methods (because lowest ROI as far as I can tell) are giveaways where either (a) all attendees at a conference/session get a device, or (b) community members apply for devices & get them based on what they say they will do afterwards, or (c) donating hardware to high profile community members (except in cases where those people have publicly said "give me your hardware + specs, and I'll write device drivers for it", as Alan Cox said at one stage). As I said before, the highest profile kernel guys all have piles of hardware they've received in donations that they don't want or need. > What do XXX's requirements boil down to? For TI this seems to be simply: > > * Get Pandaboards into the hands of developers. Do we know what kind of > "developers", I'm going to assume "platform"? > > Then the other questions are: > > * How many have they got to allocate? > * Are there strings attached? > * Do they want any say in who they go to, or is it entirely at the > discretion of the MeeGo project? > * Will they ship directly to a set of names & addresses? > * Is there a cost to the developer? (i.e. is it free or discounted?) > * How does "the MeeGo project" decide? > o Ask for volunteers? > o Go forth and tap people up? > o Who is involved in the decision? > o How does the institutional memory work if someone turns out to > be all talk? > > If we can answer those, we should have an initial sketch of a device > programme :-) I like this approach in general. I've given a couple more options for "how do we decide" - as a general principle, you want the group of people getting hardware to be self-selecting based on the criteria "will do stuff with it". 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
