Contributors program archive: Difference between revisions

From OLPC
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
 
(94 intermediate revisions by 22 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{OLPC}}
{{OLPC}}
{{Translations}}
= OLPC Developers Program =
{{Developers}}
{{deprecated}}
<< [[Developers/Setup#A Real OLPC-XO Laptop|Developer's Setup]]


The '''OLPC Contributors Program'''
==Introductions and Expectations Setting==
(aka the '''Developer's Program''') provides contributors with access to resources, primarily hardware that OLPC produces such as the XO ([[#XO and hardware access|Development Laptops]]), [[serial adapter]]s and other peripherals, and [[spare parts]].
There is a major difference between the OLPC system and a conventional laptop of
approximately five years ago; that is, our base system software is much more capable than it was then. The Linux environment now supports internationalization capability for scripts that were out of our reach then, and much higher quality rendering and, best of all, a much wider range of applications.


We also provide [[#Project Hosting|Project Hosting]] facilities to make the process of working on Software/Hardware for the OLPC project easier for external developers. For an introduction to developing for the OLPC platform, and an [[API reference]], see the [[Developers|Developer's Handbook]] and the [[Sugar Almanac]].
This has come somewhat at a cost, however: Moore's "Law" has allowed us to become sloppy, both in memory usage and CPU usage; this tends to force us to make some tough choices to keep the "footprint" of the software acceptable. The OLPC laptop have only 512 MB of storage (Flash), and probably the most serious limitation, 128 MB of RAM, and a single-core processor. Over the last year or so, the community has become much more sensitive to these issues, and work is well underway toward reigning in this "bloat" and performance work in general. Small is beautiful (and usually faster!).


* To apply for ''hardware'', please '''visit [http://projectdb.olpc.at our project database]''' and submit an application.
Our base technology choices have been predicated on the ability of the software to achieve the best overall <i>worldwide</i> "user experience". This drove our choice of GTK+ and Pango (with Cairo as the graphical underpinnings), since Pango's abilities in complex scripts are currently most advanced of free software technologies. Other toolkits can be used: but they come at a cost in memory and flash footprint, and today, in the ability of software based on them to be localized to many of the scripts we face immediately, which include both Thai and Arabic. Including other toolkits as a standard part of our base system is therefore problematic, and experience on embedded systems show that including multiple toolkits would almost certainly cause the overall experience to suffer.
*: We have weekly meetings to discuss new proposed projects on [[IRC]]; see [[Contributors program/meetings]].
*: Please note that the overhead for processing and sending out CP hardware is related to the # of distinct addresses/requests, not the # of machines or projects. It you know other people in your region who are requesting XOs, try to '''bundle your requests''' so that hardware for accepted projects can be sent to a single recipient. This will not reduce the chances of any individual project being accepted, and may in fact increase chances.
* If you have many project requests in a small region, consider setting up a local [[#XO pools|XO pool]] and looking after them locally. If you have a request, and are in the region of an existing pool, please first try the regional contacts provided below to get hardware.
* To apply for '' [[#Project Hosting|project hosting]]'' (for a software project), see below.


== BTest Systems ==


== Project Hosting ==
We have had the two builds (of three builds) of full OLPC laptops built, for "BTest". The BTest-1 build has been distribution: the [[BTest-1 Release Notes]] describes the state of the first build of machines.
The BTest-2 build is starting distribution as of February 12. The [[BTest-2 Release Notes]] describes the state of the second build of machines.


If your interest is primarily on doing some systems level or on applications level coding, then join one of the projects on our [http://dev.laptop.org/wiki Hosting Wiki].
There is typically one or two builds of systems internally before an external beta test, so our BTest-1 is really beta test for the electronics, while alpha test for the new screen, touch pad, industrial design, and keyboard; this is earlier in the development cycle than systems are usually made available, and is correspondingly rougher.


We have much more flexibility, bandwidth and CPU available than alternatives like
The BTest-2 hardware is continuing beta test for the electronics, beta test of the new screen (this time with a diffuser improving it futher) and touch pad. The industrial design is only somewhat improved from BTest-1; most of the learning from BTest-1 on mechanical improvements could not be incorporated in time for BTest-2 and so BTest-3 will be significantly more rugged than BTest-1 or BTest-2.
[http://www.sf.net SourceForge], and your project won't be as lost among thousands of other projects unrelated to OLPC. If your project has aspects related to OLPC, but is primarily
part of some other project (e.g. GTK+, X11), we're also happy to provide more limited OLPC
related facilities, such as bug tracking and our wiki.


Other details are available on [[project hosting]].
The focus for the developer program BTest-1 machines will be software development on GUI related projects that need to understand the screen, the touch pad, and/or the camera in the system, along with wireless testing, which has been difficult to do sooner due to the cumbersome nature of bare PC boards.


BTest-2's focus will start the process of testing the mesh network, and we're also working on suspend/resume, though as of this writing, suspend/resume is not yet running.


== XO and hardware access ==
Machine are also being allocated to launch countries and do not come under this program, which is aimed at individual free and open-source developers or research organizations interested in contributing to furthering OLPC's goals.


There are a significant number of OLPC laptops available as part of our contributors program. This page talks specifically about access for software developers, support and testing<!-- ; for other contributions, see our community-wide [[contributors|contributors program]]-->. While these laptops are useful for some testing, they are not necessary for developing software for the OLPC platform.
== ATest Board Types ==


Most development work done by traditional developers (as distinct from children who are actually using the OLPC-XOs in the field) for software takes place within either a [[Sugar with sugar-jhbuild|sugar-jhbuild]] environment or an [[Emulating the XO|emulated XO]] on a traditional desktop or laptop. See [[Developers/Setup]] for a lengthy discussion of how to set up your development environment.
We've had approximately "ATest" 500 developer boards built, to jump start serious development in the free- and open-source software community and the initial deployment countries. Quantities of this generation of boards is limited as we do not have production test fixtures. Note that these are bare printed-circuit boards. At this time, we still have a limited number of boards available, and some more may become available as BTest systems replace many uses of ATest boards.


We will give preference for hardware to proposals that require access to the OLPC hardware to make progress.
The [[hardware specification]] of these boards is set.


=== Qualifications ===
There are a number of ATest board types in the wild:


We're looking for people able and interested in contributing to the OLPC/Sugar Community. This goes far beyond our core of hardware and software developers, eg. we also seek experienced/innovative teachers, and far beyond. Hence our [[Contributors program criteria|criteria for judging your project proposal are evolving]] to take this into account!
* 30 Pre A-Test PCB, which have been built and distributed.
* 20 A-Test PCB's, which have been built and distributed.
* 485 A-Test PCB's, which have been built and are being distributed through Brightstar. These can be distinguished from the first 50 boards in that they have serial-number barcodes on them.


Classically, required qualifications depended strongly upon where you were interested in working: for example, people working on BIOS/boot paths should be seriously "friends of the electrons", and not scared of JTAG and similar kinds of debugging.
These boards lack DCON chips and instead come with the standard VGA connector you'd find on the back of a desktop or laptop computer. We expect that production boards may ship with pads for VGA connectors, but not the connector itself. Additionally, the ''Pre''-A-Test boards have populated mini-pci connectors; on the A-Test boards, these mini-pci connectors have been left off; the pads are included and will probably be included on production boards.


EG. Most driver work takes normal driver debugging skills, though getting power management right can be more challenging than most driver development. And Window system development requires X experience, and so on; applications, experience in developing those or similar applications, and so on.
The A-Test boards include a socketed ROM chip for BIOS development; this socket will not be on production boards. The sockets are empty; the BIOS is stored in the serial
flash chip that is interfaced via the embedded controller. The process for updating the serial flash under Linux is not yet available and at the moment involves booting DOS and updating the flash chip using a utility from Quanta. Unless you are directly involved in BIOS development, you should stear clear of BIOS updates unless and until instructed by responsible people working on behalf of OLPC.


For a more up-to-date look, see the [[#Meetings|Meetings]] section below for actual examples of accepted and rejected proposals.
At this time, the hardware is all believed to work (having been tested), but not all drivers are working properly under Linux. The wireless driver is being completely revamped at the moment.


=== Expectations of Recipients ===
See: [[Notes on using the OLPC developer boards]].


We would appreciate [http://dev.laptop.org Bug Reports] for any hardware or software issues you encounter, even if they are not in your own area of interest. Being technically capable, you are more likely to be able to help us isolate and fix bugs than non-technical users.
== Setting Expectations ==
Do not expect:
# Monitor or flat panel
# disk, DVD, CD or USB drives
# keyboard or mice
# powered USB hubs that may be needed for use with some peripherals
# USB ethernet adaptors
# other input devices


We would also appreciate it if you would read the [[Developers|Developer's Manual]] and join the community's [[Developers/Communication|communication's channels]], the [[Support]] or [[Test_issues|Testing]] community.
We expect you have or can acquire these locally.


=== Applying for an XO ===


If you have tried working with [[Sugar with sugar-jhbuild|sugar-jhbuild]] and/or an [[emulation|emulator]] and have found that you really need a physical XO to develop on, please use this url to request a laptop: http://projectdb.olpc.at/
=== Setting Expectations for BTest Machines ===


=== Applying for an Active Antenna ===
Please carefully read the [[BTest-1 Release Notes]] or [[BTest-2 Release Notes]] and the [[B1-demo-notes|BTest-1 Demo Notes]].


If you need an [[Active Antenna]] for development purposes, '''please note your need in a projectdb submission''' as noted above, and include 'mesh' or 'antenna' in the project title.
If you get a BTest machine(s), expect to get (a) box(s) with:
# one or more BTest systems, with localized keyboards if available
# one AC power adapter for each machine (to the extent possible by our logistics and crystal ball gazing) which will have the right plug type for your country if available
# one battery pack for each machine
# factory or OLPC pre-load of some version of the software: you should plan to immediately update the software to a current version upon arrival. This has been made extremely easy with the [[Autoreinstallation image]].


=== Setting Expectations for ATest Boards ===


''A deprecated way to request antennas or other nonstandard gear:''
Expect to receive (a) box(s) with:
<blockquote>
# one bare OLPC A-Test board, in a static protective bag, with static warning, with serial number both on the box and on the board.
<div style="font-size:80%; background-color:#ccc;">
# one power supply brick (U.S. plugs), 15-Watt capacity. Note that Sony power bricks should also work fine, and that if you can find the connector (the Sony appears compatible) you can use many different DC voltages.
# RS-232 cable adapter to DE-9 male connector for serial console use and debugging
# a small plastic bag with standoffs for the board, along with a diagram showing where they should be inserted
# one pair of 802.11 antennae, which will need to be connected to the board before use.


You can also send mail to the <tt>developer</tt> at <tt>laptop dot org</tt> email alias with the following information:
== Project Hosting ==


# Name
If your interest is primarily on doing some systems level or on applications level coding, then join one of the projects on our [http://dev.laptop.org/wiki Hosting Wiki].
# Email address
We have much more flexibility, bandwidth and CPU available than alternatives like
# Employer (if any), University/College
[http://www.sf.net SourceForge], and your project won't be as lost among thousands of other projects unrelated to OLPC. If your project has aspects related to OLPC, but is primarily
# Shipping address and instructions [name, address, (cannot be a post office box), city, postal code, country, '''phone number''' (we need this for shipping ]
part of some other project (e.g. GTK+, X11), we're also happy to provide more limited OLPC
# Quantity of Active Antennas desired
related facilities, such as bug tracking and our wiki.
# Description of your plans for the Antenna(s). Concrete proposals with defined outcomes are much more likely to result in an Antenna
# Description of your experience, both with hardware and software
</div>
As with other requests, presuming your request is approved, a mail message will be sent to you with shipping information, or a regret.
</blockquote>


== Hardware Schedule ==
== XO pools ==


These are local pools of XO's which are loaned out to developers or other individuals involved in promoting OLPC's mission. (For instance, it should also be possible to get a loan in order to do a demo or have presence at a conference). If you set up a pool on the list below, and you can show evidence that you are actively promoting your program and have a plan for dealing with customs, you should be able to request moderate numbers of XOs from OLPC.
In this first generation of boards, which we call A-Test boards, the hardware is fully functional except that video is VGA out, rather than using a flat panel with the DCON chip which appears in the BTest systems.


* Country, contact, number of XO's currently in pool/link to further info <!-- once the list is populated, I hope to convert it to semantic wiki magic [[User:Homunq|Homunq]] 13:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC) -->
Packaged BTest-1 machines were built in late November. The BTest-1 systems are fully functional, but use an Altera FPGA in place of the CaFE ASIC which is present in later builds, for NAND flash, camera, and SD interfaces. This FPGA has lower performance and consumes much more power than the CaFE ASIC does. Another build (BTest-2) occurred in late January using the completed CaFE ASIC. The third BTest-3 build, in larger quantities, will sometime in the spring. This final BTest build is the first point where working with children starts to make sense, as the software matures.


* Germany, [http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-de contact on list (in German)], 15, [http://wiki.olpc-deutschland.de/wiki/XO-Vereinsger%C3%A4te More info]
= Goals =


(See also [[Repair_center_locations|Repair centers]]; many of these can also function as XO pools.)
Our goals will vary as the hardware matures. For the BTest systems we need the most help on:
* power management in the device drivers: for us, every joule matters, and a simplistic "oh, we mostly have most of a chip turned off, maybe" isn't good enough. We want to know that every possible power savings has been realized, and that suspend/resume is rock solid and blindingly fast.
* fast suspend/resume: We must go beyond the current state of the art as discussed at the [http://lwn.net/Articles/181687/ power management summit].
* modal operation: if certain applications are full screen, the system should automatically suspend and resume whenver idle for more than a short period.
* variable speed display driving: (aka: mode change on the fly), again, to save power.
* wireless: we will be deploying mesh networking. Serious experimentation in this area is in order, to shake down the drivers and to gain experience in its behavior in differing conditions (e.g. rural areas with low noise characteristics; busy metropolitan areas). We understand that to do serious tests, more than a single board will be needed. Please be realistic in your expectations: two boards is not interesting; two hundred boards can't be provided.
* compiler optimization: if you are a compiler wizard, we understand that the Geode lacks a specific back end code scheduler, which limits performance, particularly FP performance. We'd love to see work go on in this area which would help everyone.
* tickless operation: there are patches out of tree about to be integrated into Linux that allows Linux to function without periodic tics; we've been experimenting, and while our tick rate is probably the lowest yet observed on a Linux system, it can and should go further. Nothing in the system should poll!
* power management desktop interaction: applications need to be better aware of their power usage and requirements, and communicate this better to the system.
* The OOM (out of memory) killer is naive, to say the least.
* Sugar optimization: While the Sugar environment will get substantially faster as soon as we deploy a rebuilt Python 2.5, further work, particularly on python startup, is in order.
* Sugarizing applications: There are many applications that with minimal work can be made to work well in the Sugar environment for young children. We encourage you to pick one and help out.
* Remote display: we have begun work on a low cost projector. Making it easy to remote applications is well worthwhile. There are a number of ways (and difficulties) of doing this, so there are immediate techniques available, along with much more sophisticated ways of advancing the "state of the X Window System art", depending on your inclinations and abilities.
* Educational applications of all sorts.
* Server based tools for schools and support of the laptops.


[[Category:Developers]]
We're sure you are brighter than we are and have seen what we're missing in the above list.
[[Category:Hardware]]


== Meetings ==
You can contribute in many areas which do not require hardware. For example:


[[Contributors program/meetings|Join us Fridays 2PM]] bringing an advocate for your project, who can independently vouch for your work, thanks!
* memory usage: many applications and toolkits waste and/or leak memory. Fixing these will help everyone and most easily done on conventional systems.
* performance optimization: fixing memory usage will usually result in faster code.
* toolkit adaptation: the display's effective resolution will change from grayscale to color mode and back. Toolkits and applications need to be able to adapt, and themes that work well in both modes verified.
* UI: most of the user interface work can be done today on conventional Linux desktops. But our system will also have an e-book mode, with dual 4-direction keys and enter. Key applications will need updating to work well in this environment (e.g. evince, web browser). Testing application's behavior under grayscale conditions and making whatever changes are needed would be helpful.
* Applications: goes without saying. The "Sugar" environment under development can be run on conventional desktops.
* IPv6 support, and service discovery, which are very important to us.
* Security: SELinux or other techniques may be a way to protect against Day 0 attacks; as a large ecosystem of similar machines, it is something worth seriously worrying about.

We will give preference for hardware to proposals that require access to the OLPC hardware to make progress; BTest requests should either require mobile use of the systems and focused on GUI and applications where access to our new screen is needed.
== Qualifications ==

We're looking for people able and interested in helping in development. The qualifications needed depend strongly upon where you are interested in working: for example, people working on BIOS/boot paths should be seriously "friends of the electrons", and not scared of JTAG and similar kinds of debugging.

Most driver work takes normal driver debugging skills, though getting power management right can be more challenging than most driver development.

Window system development requires X experience, and so on.

== Idle machines ==

If you no longer have time to contribute to the OLPC effort, please be so kind as to return your board for redistribution.

= How to apply =

Please send mail to the developer at laptop dot org email alias with the following information:
# Name
# Email address
# Employer (if any), University/College
# Shipping address and instructions
## name,
## address, (cannot be a post office box)
## city,
## postal code,
## country,
## telephone number, (yes, we really need this for the shipping companies)
## any special instructions
# Description of your plans for the machine(s)
# Quantity of machines desired
# Description of your experience, both with hardware and software

Presuming your request is approved, a mail message will be sent to you with shipping information, or a regret. Note that some requests may be more feasible and applicable later in the project, when we more machines available.
[[Category:Developers]]
[[Category:Hardware]]

Latest revision as of 00:46, 19 July 2009

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.
  Please copy/paste "{{Translationlist | xx | origlang=en | translated={{{translated}}}}}" (where xx is ISO 639 language code for your translation) to Contributors program archive/translations HowTo [ID# 212550]  +/-  


  For Developers
Stop hand.png WARNING:
The content of this section is considered
DEPRECATED and OBSOLETE
It is preserved for historical or documenting reasons.

<< Developer's Setup

The OLPC Contributors Program (aka the Developer's Program) provides contributors with access to resources, primarily hardware that OLPC produces such as the XO (Development Laptops), serial adapters and other peripherals, and spare parts.

We also provide Project Hosting facilities to make the process of working on Software/Hardware for the OLPC project easier for external developers. For an introduction to developing for the OLPC platform, and an API reference, see the Developer's Handbook and the Sugar Almanac.

  • To apply for hardware, please visit our project database and submit an application.
    We have weekly meetings to discuss new proposed projects on IRC; see Contributors program/meetings.
    Please note that the overhead for processing and sending out CP hardware is related to the # of distinct addresses/requests, not the # of machines or projects. It you know other people in your region who are requesting XOs, try to bundle your requests so that hardware for accepted projects can be sent to a single recipient. This will not reduce the chances of any individual project being accepted, and may in fact increase chances.
  • If you have many project requests in a small region, consider setting up a local XO pool and looking after them locally. If you have a request, and are in the region of an existing pool, please first try the regional contacts provided below to get hardware.
  • To apply for project hosting (for a software project), see below.


Project Hosting

If your interest is primarily on doing some systems level or on applications level coding, then join one of the projects on our Hosting Wiki.

We have much more flexibility, bandwidth and CPU available than alternatives like SourceForge, and your project won't be as lost among thousands of other projects unrelated to OLPC. If your project has aspects related to OLPC, but is primarily part of some other project (e.g. GTK+, X11), we're also happy to provide more limited OLPC related facilities, such as bug tracking and our wiki.

Other details are available on project hosting.


XO and hardware access

There are a significant number of OLPC laptops available as part of our contributors program. This page talks specifically about access for software developers, support and testing. While these laptops are useful for some testing, they are not necessary for developing software for the OLPC platform.

Most development work done by traditional developers (as distinct from children who are actually using the OLPC-XOs in the field) for software takes place within either a sugar-jhbuild environment or an emulated XO on a traditional desktop or laptop. See Developers/Setup for a lengthy discussion of how to set up your development environment.

We will give preference for hardware to proposals that require access to the OLPC hardware to make progress.

Qualifications

We're looking for people able and interested in contributing to the OLPC/Sugar Community. This goes far beyond our core of hardware and software developers, eg. we also seek experienced/innovative teachers, and far beyond. Hence our criteria for judging your project proposal are evolving to take this into account!

Classically, required qualifications depended strongly upon where you were interested in working: for example, people working on BIOS/boot paths should be seriously "friends of the electrons", and not scared of JTAG and similar kinds of debugging.

EG. Most driver work takes normal driver debugging skills, though getting power management right can be more challenging than most driver development. And Window system development requires X experience, and so on; applications, experience in developing those or similar applications, and so on.

For a more up-to-date look, see the Meetings section below for actual examples of accepted and rejected proposals.

Expectations of Recipients

We would appreciate Bug Reports for any hardware or software issues you encounter, even if they are not in your own area of interest. Being technically capable, you are more likely to be able to help us isolate and fix bugs than non-technical users.

We would also appreciate it if you would read the Developer's Manual and join the community's communication's channels, the Support or Testing community.

Applying for an XO

If you have tried working with sugar-jhbuild and/or an emulator and have found that you really need a physical XO to develop on, please use this url to request a laptop: http://projectdb.olpc.at/

Applying for an Active Antenna

If you need an Active Antenna for development purposes, please note your need in a projectdb submission as noted above, and include 'mesh' or 'antenna' in the project title.


A deprecated way to request antennas or other nonstandard gear:

You can also send mail to the developer at laptop dot org email alias with the following information:

  1. Name
  2. Email address
  3. Employer (if any), University/College
  4. Shipping address and instructions [name, address, (cannot be a post office box), city, postal code, country, phone number (we need this for shipping ]
  5. Quantity of Active Antennas desired
  6. Description of your plans for the Antenna(s). Concrete proposals with defined outcomes are much more likely to result in an Antenna
  7. Description of your experience, both with hardware and software

As with other requests, presuming your request is approved, a mail message will be sent to you with shipping information, or a regret.

XO pools

These are local pools of XO's which are loaned out to developers or other individuals involved in promoting OLPC's mission. (For instance, it should also be possible to get a loan in order to do a demo or have presence at a conference). If you set up a pool on the list below, and you can show evidence that you are actively promoting your program and have a plan for dealing with customs, you should be able to request moderate numbers of XOs from OLPC.

  • Country, contact, number of XO's currently in pool/link to further info

(See also Repair centers; many of these can also function as XO pools.)

Meetings

Join us Fridays 2PM bringing an advocate for your project, who can independently vouch for your work, thanks!

Retrieved from "http://wiki.laptop.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Contributors_program_archive&oldid=212550"