Contributors program archive

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HowTo [ID# 88774]  +/-

  For Developers

<< Developer's Setup

The OLPC Developer's Program provides access to resources, such as Development Laptops and Project Hosting facilities to make the process of working on Software/Hardware for the OLPC project easier for external developers. Please also see the Developer's Handbook for a general introduction to the process of developing for the OLPC platform and the API reference.

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.

See:

• Project hosting -- describes the process of applying to have your project hosted

Hardware Access Program

We have a limited number of OLPC prototype laptops available as part of our developer's program. While these laptops are useful for final testing, they are not, strictly speaking, necessary for developing software for the OLPC platform. Note also that these may not be final production run laptops, our developer's program largely consists of the original pre-production prototypes (mostly B4 machines).

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.

If you are in North America and have sufficient funds, the fastest way to acquire a production OLPC-XO is to use the Give 1 Get 1 program, which is available until the end of December 2007.

We will give preference for hardware to proposals that require access to the OLPC hardware to make progress. While testing software on final machines is valuable, hardware developers have a more pressing use-case.

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; applications, experience in developing those or similar applications, and so on.

Expectations of Recipients

There are only a limited number of development prototypes. We try to assign them to those developers who are going to actually work on the project, in whatever capacity. If you can no longer work on the OLPC, please return your Developer's Program hardware to the project.

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.

How to apply 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 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, 
 -telephone number, (we need this for the shipping companies)
5. any special instructions
 - power adapter requirements (note that some countries are very picky in 
   customs about all devices needing the correct power adapters; 
   Argentina, for example, is particularly fussy.
 - desired keyboard layout (we may or may not be able to oblige).
6. Quantity of machines desired
7. Description of your plans for the machine(s). Concrete proposals with defined 
   outcomes are much more likely to result in a system than "it would be cool to play 
   with these and demo them".
8. 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 have more machines available.

Applying for an Active Antenna

If you need an Active Antenna for development purposes, please 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, 
 -telephone number, (we need this for the shipping companies)
5. Quantity of Active Antennae desired
6. Description of your plans for the Antenna(s). Concrete proposals with defined 
   outcomes are much more likely to result in an Antenna than "it would be cool to play 
   with these and demo them".
7. 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 have more antennae available.