Developers program/tmp

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HowTo [ID# 88266]  +/-

  For Developers

<< Developer's Setup

The OLPC Developer's Program provides access to resources, such as Development Laptops and Project Hosting facilities to make the process of working on Software/Hardware for the OLPC project easier for those working on various projects -- software, content, hardware, education, outreach and more.

• To get started developing, see also Participate and the Developer's Handbook & API reference.
• To get started with local groups, or to play with hardware, see our list of regional community groups.

Project proposals

• project hosting on dev; working on something like an OLPCForge
• Please submit new project proposals on the wiki.

Hardware requests

We have a limited number of OLPC prototype laptops available as part of our developer's program. We make an effort to distribute them to individual and group project proposals that will help promote our vision and goals.

Hardware is not necessary for developing software or materials for the platform -- you can run emulation or LiveCDs on any other system, to test out Sugar and our existing Activities (and even the mesh network); you can also use a sugar-jhbuild environment -- see Developers/Setup for a lengthy discussion.

We give preference for hardware to proposals that require access to the OLPC hardware to test or inspire.

NB: If you are in North America and have sufficient funds, the fastest way to acquire a production OLPC-XO is to use the Give 1 Get 1 program, which is available until the end of December 2007.

Standards for proposal review

• Pick a <<name>> for your proposal.
• Create a page at [[OLPC:Laptop requests/<<name>>]], and fill it out with answers to the list of hardware questions (use {{subst:rfl-questions}}</subst>; link here to an auto-create pagebox)
• Consider how you could test out your ideas in emulation and with LiveCDs.
• Look for similar projects already underway in : are there existing groups you could work with?
• Look for regional community groups near you. Have you let them know about your ideas?
• Indicate the audience, language, and maintenance of the project[s] imagined over time
• publish proposals : initial response to get more information (see talk:community )

mail --> preselection --> options : givemany? do they need a laptop? emulation?
     --> review --> please add info and references; find related projects; describe goals & participants
     --> selection --> no / with reason and mail / redirect to local groups.  
                       maybe / assign to local group / register as 'group owned' in a db
     --> post project definition to wiki / holding historical 'inventory'

We're looking for people able and interested in helping in content, software, and community development. The qualifications needed depend strongly upon where you are interested in working: basically, our goal is to help spur interest and development in ways that promote our educational mission.

Expectations of recipients

Please help ensure that our community/developers laptops are in use. If you go on extended break or can no longer work on the OLPC, please help find an active home for your hardware, or bring your XO to a local community group.

We would appreciate bug reports for any hardware or software issues you encounter, and usability reports for any interface issues, even if they are not in your area of interest.

We would also appreciate it if you would read the developer's manual, human interface guidelines, and content guidelines, and join the community's communication's channels.

Applying to get a laptop

Please provide as much information as possible about the projects or uses you have in mind, and about where you are located, so that we can help connect you with other related contributors and can improve global development of similar efforts.

You will also need to provide full information about where to ship a laptop in case there is no nearby community group who can get you one.

• Name
• Email address
• Employer (if any), University/College
• Shipping address and instructions

- name, address, (cannot be a post office box)
- city, postal code, country, 
- telephone number, (we need this for the shipping companies)

• special instructions

- power adapter requirements
- desired keyboard layout (we may or may not be able to oblige).

• Quantity of machines desired; description of plans for the machines. Concrete proposals with defined outcomes are much more likely to result in a system than "it would be cool to play with these and demo them".
• Description of your experience, with related hardware / software / research / education efforts

Logistics and shipping

Presuming your request is approved, a mail message will be sent to you with shipping information, or a regret. Note that some requests may be more feasible and applicable later in the project, when we have more machines available.