Slashdot Mirror
Canonical Fully Open-Sources the Launchpad Code
kfogel writes "Canonical has just fully open-sourced the code to Launchpad. Although we'd said earlier that a couple of components would be held back, we changed our mind. All the code has been released under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. 'Canonical will continue to run the Launchpad servers, taking care of production and deployment issues; opening up the code doesn't mean burdening the users with all of that stuff. At the same time, we'll institute processes to shepherd community-contributed code into the system, so that people who have ideas for how to improve Launchpad can quickly turn these ideas into reality.'"
I [heart] this company and Ubuntu,
Please now consider standardising on this. It's much better technically than Debian's current infrastructure, and will enable much, much easier sharing of patches. Finally the community could be reunified a bit, and PPAs for Stable would also be an important improvement for Debian.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Status should be changed to "Fix released", then:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-community/+bug/393596
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Hm, kind of like GitHub in that regard, then. The nice thing about just picking one source code mgmt system is that you can write a good UI specifically for it. Of course, the cost is that folks have to move over from Subversion or whatever.
The Army reading list
First problem is they require bzr 1.16.1 to download their rocket-fuel-setup script, the latest available version in the Ubuntu repo is 1.13.1 -- so you have to manually add the PPA source.
Why do they not have the version *they* use in the repo for *their* operating system?
That aside, the rocket-fuel script then downloads, unpacks, installs, alters and generally takes too long. And if that wasn't enough
## Note that this will make changes to your Apache configuration if ## you already have an Apache server on your box. It will also add ## entries to /etc/hosts and it will setup a postgresql server on
## you box.
## If you want to play safe with regards to your existing Apache,
## try this out in a virtual environment first.
And because there's no way to just _get the source_ (ie. a tarball with source files in it) there's no way to download it without screwing with Apache.
How about a way to browse it online? I just wanted to see what language it was in, according to the docs it's Python but it would have been nice to be able to take a look at it without spending "a few hours to get everything" jumping through hoops.
Did Google's Chrome OS have something to do with this move, I think so.
Shut the fuck up. Seriously.
Did Google's Chrome OS have something to do with this move, I think so. Why you may ask: Because entry of another Linux based Open Source OS into the Linux playground does nothing to further Canonical's ambitions.
Now waiting on Adobe and its Flash Technologies to do likewise.
What on earth are you talking about? This has nothing to do with a desktop operating system. Furthermore, Canonical promised a year ago tomorrow to release the source code within a year. This pre-dates the announcement of Chrome OS by at least 11 months.
Nope, it was announced ages ago
Did Google's Chrome OS have something to do with this move
No, I think it was more that Microsoft contributed code the Kernel and they didn't want to be accused of having closed-sourced software when even Microsoft was opening up. Or maybe it was the vulnerabilities found in the Kernel, they decided if exploits could slip into the most-watched open source project they need to get more eyes on their code. It could have even been that because the world is supposed to end in 2012, but I think I would be drawing a correlation where there isn't one if I said that.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/bzr
So in other words, Launchpad developers are also Ubuntu developers. Imagine that.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Actually they promised something like four years ago (give or take a few months), but only set a date for its open sourcing about 7 months ago. They were behind their own deadline, but they also released the source for Soyuz and Code Hosting, so I guess they spent those extra few weeks well.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
People from slashdotters, to bloggers, to self appointed tech reviewers, to wall street lackwits try to read drama into everything that happens in the computing world. A new Firefox is the IE Killer, Chrome was the FF and IE killer, Android was the iPhone killer, etc ad nauseum. It's almost as if people DEMAND that one killer OS, and a handful of killer apps rule the world. God help us if that ever does happen. It would be pure hell trying to be "different". It would be like - like - well - it would be like loving Linux in a Microsoft world!!!
No, I don't think that Canonical released the source code for PPA in response to Google's new operating system. In fact, if you think about it, they have just GIVEN Google a somewhat tested means to release their OS and updates. I mean, it's OPEN SOURCE - even Microsoft can take it and use it! (Hole shit, what an idea!!! What if Microsoft picks up on it, and gives people a decent update system? The world might actually change for the better!)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/377005
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubunet/+bug/375345
Show me any time open software has done anything like what the BSA/Microsoft did to the makers of Music Man guitars (Ernie Ball) and we'll talk: http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html Worrying about what could happen is one thing, but knowing what has happened is more significant.
Is it the code to the Launchpad site itself? Like I could use a copy of it to manage and track bugs and development on my own projects? Or are they talking about some kind of framework / os that Launchpad runs on?
As far as I can tell from my limited browse of Launchpad, it seems like an alternative to Sourceforge no?
Here's my issue with the AGPL: it imposes restrictions on you even if you don't distribute the software. Free Software advocates (myself included) have always insisted the GPL was beneficial because it granted you rights that you didn't have to begin with under copyright law, and so you were always free to reject it and still use the software.
But the AGPL says you have to release source if you run the code on a server exposed to the public... That's scarily close to a EULA: it takes away rights you have (the right to use the code given to you; the intermediate copying steps are protected in part explicitly by law and in part implicitly under fair use). What happens if I don't accept the AGPL and use the code anyway?
It is more free to end users, but less free to developers wishing to use the code.
But the AGPL says you have to release source if you run the code on a server exposed to the public... That's scarily close to a EULA: it takes away rights you have (the right to use the code given to you; the intermediate copying steps are protected in part explicitly by law and in part implicitly under fair use).
When a computer program is used interactively over a network, one could argue that it is performed publicly. Performing a work publicly is the exclusive right of the copyright owner.
So when (assuming it was under the AGPL rather than the GPL) I modify my Drupal settings.php file to include the connection string to my database, do I have to share that with my site visitors?
Then modify the software to store the passwords in a container other than a PHP source code file, and share your modification with your users. This container might be a JSON or XML document, which is deemed data, not code, under the license.
Lots of projects have links to deb packages that install their GPG key and their PPA, after which you can see them in Synaptic, but this still isn't any guarantee. About the only thing you can do is be careful which groups you install keys and PPAs from.
I'm curious if anyone thinks the "web of trust" around signing other GPG keys could work here. The idea being that more trustworthy PPA members would have their keys signed by many others, while less reputable PPA members would have limited key signatures. This would essentially be a rating system of trust for PPAs.
I know when I use add a new PPA, I try and do a bit of research (e.g. find a lot of links to, or comments about, the PPA) that makes me feel better about trusting some third party binary.