[OLPC-devel] Follow up to student query

[Jim Gettys]

On Tue, 2006-05-23 at 20:47 -0700, Dan Leslie wrote:

> Relatedly, I have a couple of questions:
> - - How does one go about procuring development boards? It would be nice 
> to have a couple such that those able to work on driver, power 
> management, and other close-to-hardware issues can get comfortable and 
> begin work.

We'll figure out a precise process by next week.

In short, once we figure out someone should get a board, we'll mail a
code, you visit a web site, enter shipping information, and a board
should appear.  What we haven't figured out is how to apportion the
boards at the next level of detail and how to enable people to self
nominate we don't already know.

My best guess is boards will start shipping week after next; 500 boards
were built a few days ago and are in debug.

> - - Is there anyone specifically working on the networking hurdles 
> surrounding mesh networking, or considering network service auto 
> detection?

Yes, and yes.  Michail Bletsas is worrying (along with a number of folks
at the MIT Media Lab and elsewhere about mesh networking.

Chris Blizzard et. al.'s "sugar" framework is doing service discovery
using Avahi; right now around people.


> - - The wiki states that an increasing rollout will occur through 2007 
> but it seems as though the software side of things is still in its 
> infancy. That is, though there exists a fedora distribution it appears 
> fairly unspecialized. Is there an expected method by which updates can 
> be pushed to the early adopters, and what are the expectations for 
> software progress by the end of the year?

Yes, and no: there is a large body of software to choose from, but there
are tools we need specific to the project, and toward enabling younger
children to learn.

As always, work in the upstream projects.

Lots of progress; even more if you help ;-).
                     - Jim

> 
> Thanks,
> - -Dan Leslie
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-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child