[Consortium] Hardware loan policy

[Daniel James]

> I get the feeling it might be easier for LinuxAudio.org to just
> have a list of organisations and contacts for getting loan hardware
> - perhaps make this a "members only" list for the consortium if you
> like.  That way individuals and orgs can get to the people they
> need directly and therefore potentialy get straight to the
> hardware.

Rather than have centralised co-ordination, you mean? Sounds like a 
bit of a free-for-all. I think a donor company would rather be 
working with a single contact who would take responsibility for the 
hardware.

> Passing about bits of hardware between individuals isn't 
> IMO a good way of keeping track of any of it - you'd think any
> company that'd agree to that would be wondering if they'd ever see
> it again.

Here I think the consortium could have a role in making the hardware 
to the people who could make the best use of it. 

Perhaps instead of rotating the hardware, we could set up a scheme 
whereby one developer or site 'X' agrees to be the maintainer of 
support for device 'Y', and other developers who want to test their 
software on 'Y' have to work with 'X'. That way, 'X' gets the benefit 
of having the loan hardware on-site, but also has the responsibility 
to work with the community on support for it.

Where 'Y' is a soundcard or usb/pcmcia/firewire audio interface, I 
agree it makes sense to ask the ALSA project first. But I was also 
thinking of external controllers and complete hardware systems. In 
the latter circumstance I figure the hardware should be available to 
whoever makes the best case for becoming 'maintainer' of support for 
it.

Cheers

Daniel