A moment from LCA2008

[Posted January 30, 2008 by corbet]

This picture was taken on Wednesday, January 30 at linux.conf.au 2008. The OLPC project brought several dozen machines to the conference to be handed out, at random, to attendees who would promise to either do something amazing with them or give them to somebody else who would. It was, as Rusty Russell put it, rather like being given a puppy. There are, however, fewer cleanup problems to deal with.

A moment from LCA2008

Posted Jan 30, 2008 7:28 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] (1 responses)

Eep, I'm on LWN! :-) It was fabulous to be able to make peoples day by being able to pass on one of these wonderful machines for them to do amazing stuff with (or to find someone who will). Having spoken to the some of the recipients I think this is really going to work!

For the record we have, from left to right, Chris Samuel, Wen Lin and Allan Duncan.

All of us are volunteers from the Linux Users of Victoria

A moment from LCA2008

Posted Jan 30, 2008 7:48 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]

Not forgetting the other major announcement at the keynote this morning - happy 10th birthday LWN!

Here is to another 10 years. I also think everyone at LCA would like to say thanks for the cakes.. :-)

A moment from LCA2008

Posted Jan 30, 2008 22:26 UTC (Wed) by matthewn (guest, #5661) [Link] (3 responses)

I donated to the OLPC project very early on via the Give 1 Get 1 program, and I have yet to
receive an XO. I've been assured more than once that my laptop was "on its way" (direct quote
from e-mail OLPC sent to me), but was told just this morning by a support representative that
my machine "may not" ship till the end of February. It is very disheartening -- insult to
injury, almost -- to learn that I could have forgone the donation and just attended
linux.conf.au to get my hands on this exciting machine.

A moment from LCA2008

Posted Jan 31, 2008 9:33 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] (1 responses)

The machines that were donated at LCA are *not* for casual users (and no,  
I'm not saying that you are a casual user) but for developers to do 
things with, and most of the developers at LCA have had no access to the 
USA only G1G1 program.

When we were handing them out we were very careful to tell people that if  
they were not going to be developing on them then they needed to find  
someone who would do so.

I have heard that the organisation who were doing G1G1 orders on behalf  
of the OLPC project have had some problems, but you'd need to find  
someone involved in the OLPC project to comment further on that.

Hey! I'm a developer, too! (A moment from LCA2008)

Posted Jan 31, 2008 12:16 UTC (Thu) by ralphw (guest, #50262) [Link]

If someone isn't going to develop code for their XO, please send it to me!
I'm XOless until the address fields stop overwriting each other.
Go to forums.olpc.org and private message me (ralphw)

- Ralphw

G1G1 machines

Posted Jan 31, 2008 20:57 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I asked the OLPC person who brought the machines here. What it comes down to is that the small number of machines handed out at LCA were not enough to make any sort of substantive change with regard to the G1G1 delivery screwup. Even so, he says they agonized for some time over whether they should go through with this plan, which has been in the works for a while. The position they are in is just hard; canceling the LCA giveaway wouldn't really have changed it.

Inventory shortage?

Posted Jan 31, 2008 1:27 UTC (Thu) by NoXOForMe (guest, #50246) [Link]

I thought that I understood that an inventory shortage of XO-1 machines meant that many Give
One, Get One donors wouldn't be receiving their promised machines until March - especially
those who were the first to donate to the G1G1 program, whose orders were temporarily 'lost'
but apparently have now been restored.  Where did these "several dozen" machines come from?

A moment from LCA2008

Posted Feb 2, 2008 18:29 UTC (Sat) by zooko (guest, #2589) [Link]

Oh this is tantalizing -- I just received word from the OLPC folks that the ones that my
brother ordered for my two boys won't ship in another 45 to 60 days.  I had just gotten
excited about porting my "colorlife" educational game to OLPC and making it multiplayer, too.

Oh well.