Launchpad (website)

Launchpad is a web application and website that allows users to develop and maintain software, particularly open-source software. It is developed and maintained by Canonical Ltd. On 21 July 2009, the source code was released publicly under the GNU Affero General Public License. the Launchpad repository hosts more than 40,000 projects. The domain launchpad.net attracted 1 million visitors by August 2009 according to a Compete.com survey. It has several parts: Answers: a community support site and knowledge base. Blueprints: a system for tracking new features. Bugs: a bug tracker that allows bugs to be tracked in multiple contexts (e.g. in an Ubuntu package, as an upstream, or in remote bug trackers). Code: source code hosting, with support for the Bazaar and Git version control systems. Translations: a site for localising applications into different languages. A significant but less visible component is Soyuz, "the distribution management portion of Launchpad." Launchpad is currently primarily used in the development of Ubuntu, an operating system. Launchpad uses the FOSS (free/open source) Zope 3 application server. Several of Canonical Ltd.'s own projects use Launchpad for development including Ubuntu and Bazaar. Development of Launchpad is itself managed in Launchpad. Other prominent projects using Launchpad for various aspects of managing their development include: JOSM (translations) Linux Mint (translations) MariaDB (mailing list) OpenStack (bug tracking) Pinta (bug tracking and translations) Upstart elementary OS 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 the GNU 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. On 9 July 2007, Canonical Ltd. released Storm, the first Launchpad component made available under a free software license.