EmStar is a software system for developing and deploying wireless sensor networks involving Linux-based platforms. As the wireless sensor network community has attempted to deploy more complex designs---large-scale, long-lived systems that need self-organization and adaptivity---a number of difficult software design issues have arisen. Advances in software design have not kept pace with the capabilities of hardware. This is because designing for an adaptive, efficient, and useful sensor network has turned out to be surprisingly complex and difficult. EmStar is a Linux-based software framework, whose goal is to dramatically reduce this complexity, enabling work to be shared and reused, and simplifying and speeding the design of new sensor network applications.