OLPC Inspires Open Source Projects 75
Don Marti writes "A loose network of developers representing many commonly used open source projects are working to develop a new generation of low-memory, efficient code. This targeted code is being designed for a system, of which only 500 prototype boards now exist:
the 'Children's Machine 1' from the One Laptop Per Child project." From the article: "Gettys says measuring existing performance has to come before trying those changes. 'We've been pulling in every decent performance tool Linux has so we can optimize when and where it really matters,' he says. A key automated testing tool is Tinderbox, a build and test management tool originally developed for Mozilla, that new OLPC developer Chris Ball has installed, to build and test OLPC software. And, after Red Hat kernel developer Dave Jones gave a standing-room-only talk at the 2006 Linux Symposium titled, Why Userspace Sucks (Or, 101 Really Dumb Things Your App Shouldn't Do), his reports of suckiness, which include kernel-based measurements of wasteful behavior, are helpful, Blizzard says."
