Support meetings/20080914

SJ, ANIL, DAN BENNET, Gary, sandy, Adam, Brian Jordan, Chris Chan(? ), Caryl....and ? ( I can't type that fast!) please add people

 Topic #1 Peru Deployment, from an Engineer on the Ground

 OLPC SW Engineer Erik Garrison's experience in Peru over the last
 3 weeks, distributing, debugging & deploying.  Some Urguary too.
 Erik will speak informally on his intense S. American trip, and do
 his best to answer ALL your questions!

Erik went down on short notice. Lima on 17th. Spent 9 days in Min of Ed. Helped them with problems in activating computers.

Went to Ciebal Jam in Montevideo. Run by Pablo Flores from a big University in Montevideo. Everyone was local. Did over 2 weekends. About 70 people showed up first weekend. People broke up into groups by ability. A lot of networking. Hard to complete a project in the time alotted. 2nd Saturday 35 people (bad weather). Worked on projects.

Sandy: What top 3 activities for kids? He didn't get to talk to kids. Everyone has internet access (in Uruguay). Browse probably one of the most popular.

What were top 3 problem areas? Flash...Gnash doesn't work with a lot of programs, even Linux version of Flash has problems. Teachers use Flash to write lessons. They complain a lot about it.

Microsoft is doing a pilot in Peru with Windows XP and Office but no sugar. It is not going to be dual boot. They bought the computers directly from Quanta for their pilot.

CJL: Peru_activity_pack (as currently loaded on wiki) is limited how do the share additional content?

Ans: Someone there is distributing content on USB sticks. A lot of stuff about Peru

No volunteer content distributed in Peru. Very different in Uruguay. In Peru, Ministry of Ed distributes software.

Anil: Uruguay is trying to have a self sustaining model. What do they have in Peru? Ans: He didn't have contact with people who would know.

Peru has a developer's conference coming up. SJ is going.

Anil: Why is Flash slower on Linux then Windows? Ans: He hasn't looked into it. What are possibliities for volunteers to volunteer in Peru? (and other countries) Ans: It would be best to visit schools and get feedback on what is happening and how can we improve? Not very good communication with software developers. Also help local developers improve what they are doing...draw others into the work...LUG a good possibility. Spread knowledge about how the system works is most important.

They want to know how to upgrade some of their hardware.

? asked...how do we go about improving Flash? Ans: A lot of protocols have to be figured out. Dan Bennet went to Nigeria on his own with Danish friend...Difficult to find on site deployments. Worked with him on a small pilot program. Working mostly on infrastructure rather than on the computer. Needs help with school server. Self-funded but they may get some support from a missionary organization. Trying to fund it. Bought own ticket but they did find a place for people to stay.

Anil would like to go to Latin America.

Maybe Waveplace would be a place to try to work with. Dan Bennet looking for solar options for African deployments.

 Topic #2 Free XO Laptops through Contributors program: Who Deserves Them -- What do they owe in return?

 SJ Klein will speak on the evolution of the Developers Program,
 which was renamed earlier this year to foster contribution among
 community-builders of all stripe, support contributors, tech writers,
 teachers, geographically-localized cheerleaders, artist, etc:
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program

 SJ wants *YOUR* input reforming this critical community-building program,
 can this be the seed for real-world "social networking that doesn't suck" ?

Went back through last hundred contributor's program. Now has a separate data base for people doing projects. Stores personal info there. Want to migrate it to RT. About 30 applications/week. Some ask for a lot for "pilot" , others want to work on testing software and hardware. Pulling out tickets from RT queue to get people to ask in the Application data base. Need to ask for it. Not very good transparancy for what we are doing. Need followup every 6 weeks...have a follow-up template on the wiki. Other countries are distributing contributor's XOs (Australia? and France). The have a better followup. Need to work more with getting projects distributed. [ project link.: http://projectdb.olpc.at/]

Encourage people to apply. Current wait time (US under 2 weeks) try to approve the week they come in. Can be 2-6 weeks.

CJL: If Australia and France are good at lining up good project/users, are they being supplied in bulk by OLPC (to leverage their ability to identify good uses).

Ans: If a local group has a pool (of contributor's XOs) then other requests from that region are channeled through tehm (the regional group is supplied in bulk). Would like to have a pool in every country. Pools are hard to set up and maintain. Need to have a point person who can be reached. Would be great to have a group that can coordinate and distribute XOs in these other countries. Passing the XO along after finishing the projects happens a lot in Australia and France. Some in US do it too.

Brian G thinks line graphs showing deployment numbers and contrbutors program over time would be nice

SJ would like a questionaire for folks after program...ongoing reports. please contribute to ideas like this on the Reports page.

Would like to have reports from schools (both teachers and students) too.

Pushing game groups to apply for laptops. For instance, 2 projects in Phillipines have asked for and received XOs.

Need to turn on tracking. Need auto language identification. Localizing browser might work? Would be nice to take user directly to the right place on the wiki for their language.

If you have suggestions for RT...open a ticket and put them in CC Adam & sys admin

For contributor's prog...cc SJ on RTs

Projects...good to have a monitor/mentor/"OLPC concierge" to help a person get through their project.

A lot of spam still getting through to RT. Sometimes up to 40%.