[OLPC_Boston] Boston-area XO pool

[Mel Chua]

I think Seth pretty much covered everything. (Thanks, Seth!)

I'd also note that the mechanism for finding and forwarding 
location-specific requests to local pool groups hasn't yet been worked 
out, so there'll be some back-and-forth on setup for this once we have a 
Boston pool maintainer - should be fun to figure out. The folks in the 
Philippines are posting their notes on how they're doing the same thing, 
but their ETA for that is ~1month, so we should find a way to do it here 
ourselves in the meantime.

-Mel

Seth Woodworth wrote:
> An XO pool would look something like this:
>
> 20 machines are lent to the group maintaining the "XO pool"
> This group would be responsible for the machines, making sure they're 
> accounted for, etc.
> It would be nice if this group knew how to repair the machines if 
> needed, but not a huge concern.
>
> When a local event is taking place (MassCUE) that needs XO's, the 
> group running the event (Diane) requests the machines for the event.  
> The group maintaining the pool will review this request and decide that:
> 1.) the person is somewhat trustworthy
> 2.) there is a schedule for returning the machines
> 3.) the event has enough people there working the event to 
> teach/inform/demo the machines
>              (if not the group should try to help add more people to 
> the group)
>
>
> Additionally, the XO pool maintainer (group) would also respond to 
> "contributor's requests".
>
> Now when contributors want/need machines to enable their 
> contributions, they apply to the OLPC project DB.  Ideally if we got a 
> request from an area that has a local pool (like boston), we can send 
> that request to the local group.  This saves shipping, and allows the 
> contributor (developer, programmer, writer, etc) to get in touch with 
> other people locally who are interested in OLPC too!  This means less 
> work at OLPC and (in my opinion) everyone wins.
>
> Mel, could you fill in any other details?
>
> --Seth
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Mel Chua <mel at laptop.org 
> <mailto:mel at laptop.org>> wrote:
>
>     There have been a lot of recent requests for XO loaners in the Boston
>     area, with local deployments starting up.
>
>     There is interest in running a general Boston OLPC community XO pool.
>     This pool will have a publicly stated maintainer and process for
>     contributor applications (longer-term loans) as well as short-term
>     loans
>     for events (such as MassCUE). Precedents: Jerome & the group in the
>     Philippines are doing a similar XO pool.
>
>     Is there interest in utilizing (so we can predict demand) or
>     helping to
>     run/maintain such a pool? (Several groups and individuals have already
>     come forward). Please post responses to this mailing list.
>
>     Thanks!
>
>     -Seth and Mel
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>
>


-- 
Mel Chua
QA/Support Engineer
mel at laptop.org