[conspire] feedback on parts inventory website for LUGs

[Christian Einfeldt]

Hi,

Do you folks think that it would be helpful for LUG members to have 
a place to keep a common inventory of parts floating around amongst 
their LUG members?  

I thought that it might be nice to have a website where LUG members 
could keep track of what they need and what they have to get rid 
of.  

I came to this idea as part of my open source evangelism.  I talk 
with people on buses, in elevators, etc, about open source.  They 
are mildly interested until I tell them that I give away computers, 
at which point they become more interested.  

I thought that it might be possible for LUGs to grow their 
membership and get some newbies by giving away computers to newbies 
who help other newbies, etc.  So rather than just installfests, 
maybe we could have giveaway fests.  Plus, LUG members who needed a 
memory stick or a CDrom here or there might like being able to go 
on line to find out who in their LUG has such things to give away.  

Yahoo already has the Freecycle groups; plus there are lots of 
computer recycling orgs in every major city.  The problem with some 
of these programs is that members in those groups are not as 
familiar with one another, and there are questions of trust, 
convenience, and competence.  Will the part be as represented?  Or 
did the person misunderstand what the part is? How will I get the 
part from that person?  Will I go to their house?  Mail it?  What 
if it is too big to mail?  Will I have to make a special trip 
across town to get a stinkin' memory stick?  Will I have to dig 
through tons of irrelevant posts about baby monitors on Freecycle 
or Craigslist because I typed "monitor" into the search field?  

I thought that I would try to provide a place for true geeks to keep 
a list of stuff that they could exchange with one another, either 
at LUGs, or at their jobs, conferences, places that geeks tend to 
hang out.  Here is the page.  It hasn't changed since the last time 
that I posted an email here about it, but I refined my idea a bit.  
Thanks for reading this far! 

http://www.diyparts.org