26 Feb
2004
26 Feb
'04
11:24 a.m.
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