hardware grant/loan program ideas

Back in March, the Personal Telco Project purchased 30 Netgear
WGT634U's.  It also has various other gear.  Stacks of gear are great,
but not as great as if that gear is actually being used.  However, as
a non-profit, I feel like we need to take care about how this gear
gets distributed and used and that the process doesn't just devolve
into dodgy practices like handing it out to our friends.

Therefore, I am suggesting that we institute a kind of gear grant
and/or loan program.  We talked about this at the August 1st Weekly
Meeting.  I recall (or maybe it is my imagination) that Michael
Weinberg even sketched out what a request form would look like.  We
should review what ideas we had then, and get something final-like
pulled together.

The basic idea is to make the inventory and request public so that if
other people think they have a better use for the gear, they can make
their own request.  The board of directors, or perhaps some designated
granting committee, can decide which requests are worthy and
fulfillable.

This is a little more pressing than it might otherwise be, as Aaron
Baer has expressed a desire to request about 5 of the WGTs to enhance
the Arbor Lodge network.  If we can get our process finalized, this
can be a test case.

Comments?  Suggestions?


-- 
Russell Senior, Secretary
[email protected]

-- 
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