OpenEmbedded

Short and sweet: How would you describe your project in one or two sentences?

OpenEmbedded supports building and designing of Linux distributions for embedded devices. It is suitable for various kinds of devices like routers, smarthphones, PDAs, settop boxes and many more.

When did the project begin?

2004.

How many active members does the project have?

Around 30 active contributors.

Why was the project created?

The OpenZaurus community could not fulfill all of its requirementswith the so-called buildroot build system and better designed one wasnecessary. This idea brought OpenEmbedded to live.

Why should a CeBIT visitor come to your booth?

At our stand beginners and interested people can get to know what canbe done with OpenEmbedded und they the possibility to talk tocontributor who are with the project for many years. People withknowledge in embedded Linux get the chance to make contacts and/orexchange ideas.

Who do you make your software for?

OpenEmbedded is supposed to appeal to developers wanting toaccomplish a project using embedded Linux. It does not matter howeverwhether this is someones personal pet project or a professional userwishing to control industrial machines using Linux.

Where do you see your biggest current challenges?

The tightrope walk between specialisation - one software for onepurpose - and generalisation - one software serves many needs - is anespecially hard feat in the embedded world. OpenEmbedded tries toconfront this requirement with its highly flexible configuration systemand is still forked in order to gain a better adjustement towardscertain needs. This in turn leads to a lot of redundant work and we arecurrently trying to get the other parties (=projects) involved and solvethe issues together.

If you could hire a full-time project developer now, what problem should he or she be ready to solve?

OpenEmbedded main tool 'bitbake' is in need of a performance upgrade.The project's metadata is growing steadily and bitbake parse activitytakes longer and logner. There are workarounds but they do not solve theproblem once and for all and stand in the way of more useful enhancements.

Under which license is the software currently offered?

The metadata and script are licensed under the MIT license. Softwarethat is used and distributed by OpenEmbedded is licensed under theirrespective F/OSS licenses.

Internet address:

http://www.openembedded.org