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Type of site | Forge |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Canonical Ltd. |
| Created by | Canonical Ltd. |
| URL | launchpad |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | January 2004; 22 years ago (2004-01) |
| Current status | Active |
Content license | GNU Affero General Public License |
| Written in | Python |
| Launchpad Suite | |
|---|---|
| |
| Developers | Francis J. Lacoste and 52 others[1] |
| Initial release | 15 June 2005; 20 years ago (2005-06-15) |
| Written in | Python |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Project management |
| License | GNU Affero General Public License |
| Website | launchpad |
| Repository | |
Launchpad is aweb application andwebsite that allows users to develop and maintain software, particularlyopen-source software. It is developed and maintained byCanonical Ltd.
On 21 July 2009, thesource code was released publicly under theGNU Affero General Public License.[2]As of June 2018[update], the Launchpad repository hosts more than 40,000 projects. The domainlaunchpad.net attracted 1 million visitors by August 2009 according to aCompete.com survey.[3]
It has several parts:
A significant but less visible component isSoyuz, "the distribution management portion of Launchpad." Launchpad is currently primarily used in the development ofUbuntu, anoperating system. Launchpad uses theFOSS (free/open source)Zope 3 application server.
Several of Canonical Ltd.'s own projects use Launchpad for development includingUbuntu and Bazaar. Development of Launchpad is itself managed in Launchpad.
Other prominent projects using Launchpad for various aspects of managing their development include:
Launchpad was initially criticized by the Jem Report and other members of the free software community for not being available under a free license, such as theGNU GPL, despite its aims. In response, the developers stated that they aimed to eventually release it under a free software license, but that it could potentially take years.[7] On 9 July 2007,Canonical Ltd. releasedStorm, the first Launchpad component made available under a free software license.[8]
FounderMark Shuttleworth's responded to this criticism saying "we are all actively working on making Launchpad open source" adding that the funding the salaries of Launchpad's developers to be higher priority, and claiming immediate release would result multipleunfederated instances of Launchpad.[9] However, this still left some members of theopen-source movement dissatisfied.[10] On 22 July 2008, Mark Shuttleworth announced atOSCON that the complete source code would be released within the next twelve months.[11]
On 19 December 2008,Canonical Ltd. released the Launchpad component "lazr.config" and "lazr.delegates" under version 3 of theGNU LGPL.[12][13]
An openAPI is currently[when?] in beta testing, which will allow programs to interact with the website. Calls for an open API to be released were aided by projects like Leonov that resorted toscreen scraping to get data from Launchpad.
In December 2008, Canonical announced that the source code to the Launchpad website would be released under a free software license by 21 July 2009.[14][15] It was also announced that two large components of Launchpad, Soyuz (which is responsible for the build system, package management and Ubuntu package publishing) and Codehosting, would not be released under a free software license.[16] Later, the specific date was changed to a more general timeframe of July/August 2009.[17][18] However, on 21 July 2009, the software was released under theAGPLv3 (a fully free license specifically for web services),[19] including the two components (Codehosting and Soyuz) that were initially planned to remain proprietary.[20][16]
The process should be completed in July / August 2009.
Canonical, the founder of the Ubuntu project, announced today that it has open-sourced the code that runs Launchpad, the software development and collaboration platform used by tens of thousands of developers.
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