| Launchpad | |
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 Launchpad homepage on 2008-04-25. |
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| URL | launchpad.net |
| Alexa rank | 21922[1] |
| Type of site | Project Management |
| Owner | Canonical Ltd. |
| Created by | Canonical Ltd. |
| Launchpad Suite | |
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| Developed by | Launchpad Developers |
| Latest release | 2.0 / 2008-07-27 |
| Preview release | 2.1.8 (r6830) |
| Written in | Python |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Project Hosting Server |
| License | Closed License |
| Website | https://launchpad.net/launchpad-project |
Launchpad is a web application and web site supporting software development, particularly that of free software. Launchpad is developed and maintained by Canonical Ltd.
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It has several parts:
A significant but less visible component is Soyuz, "the distribution management portion of Launchpad." Launchpad is currently primarily used in the development of Ubuntu, a Linux distribution. Launchpad uses the free/open source Zope 3 application server.
Several of Canonical Ltd's own projects use Launchpad for development including Ubuntu and Bazaar and the development of Launchpad is itself managed in Launchpad.
Other prominent projects using Launchpad for various aspects of managing their development include: MySQL (code hosting)[2] and Zope 3 (bug tracking).[3]
Launchpad has been 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. The developers have stated that they aim to eventually release it under a free software license, but that it could potentially take years.[4] On July 9, 2007, Canonical Ltd. released with the Launchpad component "Storm" the first component under a free software license.[5]
Founder Mark Shuttleworth responded to this criticism that Launchpad needs paid-programmers to continue the development of the Launchpad platform and that there would be no point in developing multiple versions of Launchpad due to the probable incompatibility of the forks [6]. However, this has still left some members of the open-source movement dissatisfied.[7] On July 22, 2008 Mark Shuttleworth announced, at OSCON, that the complete source code is expected to be released within the next 12 months.[8]
An open API is currently 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 to screenscraping to get data from Launchpad.
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