[OLPC-devel] Machine Testing

[Jim Gettys]

On Thu, 2006-04-13 at 03:06 -0700, Dan Leslie wrote:
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> I'm a little nervous about being the first to reply but I have a faint
> feeling that I'm not alone in this apprehension. This is a fairly fresh
> list without much of a community or personal repertoire so I imagine
> there's a fair number of us waiting for someone unofficial and 'green'
> to broach discussion. At least I have.
> 
> With respect to the allotment of development boards I'm wary of
> distributing a scarce commodity to those who may not be entirely
> dedicated to development. That said, with only two dozen people on the
> software development list currently it seems that it may be a very real
> possibility that not all bare development boards will be distributed
> prior to the first run systems being available at the end of the year.
> However, working under the assumption of low demand so early on seems
> non-prudent given the publicity such a massive leap in development
> opportunity should attain.
> 

A fair number will go out to teams being assembled in the countries.

We won't be getting 500 all at once, the way it will work is we'll see
batches of maybe 50 at a time over the length of the summer.

> 
> Assuming that OLPC lacks the resources to hand out a development system
> to anyone who asks it obviously follows that some approval process be
> instantiated. However, I presume that those in charge of distribution
> may find approving every applicant a daunting process if their
> resources are required elsewhere.

Yup.

> 
> Why not leave it to the community? Through a process of your own,
> select several disconnected groups interested in development to be
> recipients of boards. Then, further access to equipment would be
> approved through community review of applications. All those who
> receive equipment become part of the voting community. Although this
> would seem to give open access to cronyism I have faith in those
> willing to be involved in such a charitable movement at this early
> stage to not become consumed by corruption. This is just a raw,
> undiscussed thought, and I'm certain it should generate some discussion
> towards developing a better system. Even now I can think of a handful,
> but it would be nice to hear what others say before I ramble on.

This is definitely an interesting idea worth investigating, if the
initial group is seeded widely.

> 
> Having those requesting boards displaying some level of prior
> commitment would seem like a good thing. Not necessarily outright
> community commitment, but rather initial progress in development. Ie,
> mock-ups, development plans, or preferably something that works on the
> emulated system and needs final testing and development on hardware. I
> wonder, should a company willing to devote money and hours to
> development get preferred treatment? It would seem so, but then I have
> a jaded cynicism about promises from any party.

In this case, the boards aren't useful/sexy for other purposes; they
will be raw boards, blue wires and all.

My experience with giving people iPAQ's was not too terrible: maybe 1/3
became significant contributors.

> 
> I've been trying to round up a team together from fellow students at
> Simon Fraser University. So far I've received a fair amount of
> interested feedback and a few coming forward to dedicate time. However,
> there's concern that it's still quite unclear what needs to be done.
> Although the wiki provides a fair amount of discussion I'm told it
> doesn't have the appeal of a Canonical's bounty system. Not that
> they're desirous of monetary reward but rather of having a prioritized
> list voted on and maintained by the community. 

I think we'll start getting a list together over the next few weeks of
priorities.

> One even suggested a
> 'fake' economy of rewards, though had no idea what you could put the
> gained rewards towards. Although, as Yahoo! Answers exposed, you often
> don't need to provide a utility for the reward as many are willing to
> just accumulate points.
> 

Not so hypothetically speaking, would an expenses paid trip to Singapore
for our first developer's meeting, for serious developers who have
contributed something be attractive? 

Also, I expect we'd follow up with production machines for actual
contributors, when they become available...  It isn't as though they'll
be something you can (initially) order from Amazon.
                                  - Jim

-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child