The original paper describing and justifying these rules in more detail is at http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/P10.pdf, and the official document is at http://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf
It's already landed in unstable, testing shouldn't be too far away.
The original paper isn't that terrible to read.
Also the amount of third party cookie crap that site tries to deposit in my browser is crazy.
That's why HN prefers source material, not blogspam stuff like this which adds nothing new and often removes possibly useful information.