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It’s come to my attention recently that some people don’t understand what “The Hub” project is all about. So let me explain the details of the project.

“The Hub” was originally an idea born out of a talk given at Open Source City. James Wallbank from Access Space gave an insightful talk on the community benefits of a open computer cluster, along with their computer recycling scheme they are able to poliferate computer usage around the local community. As you would expect, with a increase in computer usage and access to a common area a community grew and evolved in the project.

After Open Source City, discussions between the members of The Art Organisation about a similar project being setup in the half empty building they have, Mello Mello. A few interested parties were approached and Vladimir from Liverpool LUG was one of these few. Discussions happened and plans made, but no decisive action was took.

Fast forward a few months, Liverpool LUG was holding its first couple of talks since it’s “rebirth”, stuck for a backup location for when FACT was unavailable the admin team approached The Art Organisation for space in Mello Mello. Greg, who is co-curator of The Art Organisation, talked about the community space project that started months before, and a few members of LivLUGs admin team (myself, Joanne, Graeme and Dan) offered to help out.

The overall plan is to setup four or five PCs in the space, with a common printer, internet connectivity, and a file server. In one of the storage areas we will keep old computer parts in a recycling capacity, but this will not happen until we’ve got the main hub in order. All the PCs will be networked and will be able to share out their media, along with the likes of a “pool” instant messaging system to allow quick transfers between individuals working on the PCs. Exact plans for software and incident tracking haven’t been worked out yet, we think that should be saved to when we have actual hardware on site. The only thing we know at the moment is that all the software will be Open Source.

At the moment we have the space and a load of old computing kit that has been scavenged from somewhere. The area has a lot of “junk”, well, I say “junk” but the items actually belong to a artist who was using the space as storage. We’ve organised the items as much as possible and are trying to organise PCs and desks for the area.

We need help, If you know somewhere we can get some old PCs, some desks, or other useful computing equipment, drop us a line. We’ll be approaching the FreeCycle lists sometime this week so keep your eyes out if your on there.