CrunchBang - Code, Design & GNU/Linux

3 Responses to “Launchpad Got It Wrong?!”

1. Vincent wrote, Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

   I believe a decentralized system was exactly what Canonical wants with Launchpad. In fact, that's supposed to be the reason they haven't open sourced it yet: they first want all the different installations to be interconnected.

   Thus, maintaining Ubuntu would be perfectly possible. Ubuntu, as a project, would just have its own installation of Launchpad (like it already does), and other projects can use their own installations (e.g. instead of Bugzilla). Then, if, say, OpenOffice uses Launchpad, and someone reports a bug on OpenOffice experienced on Ubuntu, then OpenOffice's Launchpad installation could notify Ubuntu's Launchpad installation of that bug. And, of course, the other way around. This way, more upstream collaboration would be possible.

2. Philip wrote, Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

   @Vincent:

   I believe a decentralized system was exactly what Canonical wants with Launchpad.

   You say that in the past tense, do you believe Canonical still has this goal?

   In fact, that's supposed to be the reason they haven't open sourced it yet: they first want all the different installations to be interconnected.

   I guess that could make sense, and I hope it is the case — although interconnecting the different installations could prove to be an unending activity, could it not?

   Also, while I appreciate that Canonical may have numerous installations of Launchpad for different projects, I am not sure that this is what Martin was referring to, although I could be wrong. Either way, it is good to read a rant about Launchpad which is not lambasting Canonical for their proprietary Launchpad software :)

3. madduck wrote, Thursday, May 8th, 2008

   Hi,

   Thanks for the mention of my post on your blog.

   It may well be that Canonical is aiming for a decentralised system, but this sort of reasoning — "we'll release it when it's ready" — is a thing of the past and we know it doesn't work, or at least not optimally. Open-source it already, release early and often, and then see where it goes!

   Canonical may not like doing that because they'd have to give up the steering wheel. However, IMHO, any project that requires or allows for steering is probably diverging from the users' needs quickly without people noticing in time. Provide a vision and if the vision is good, it'll be implemented and won't need to be steered all along.

   I really don't see any reason to attempt to create a decentralised system within the bowels of Canonical and release it when it's done other than compliance with a business plan. Yet, it's being argued over and over that such a business plan does not exist.

   It's really hard to refrain from "lambasting Canonical for their proprietary Launchpad software". We don't "lambast" Microsoft for releasing proprietary software, because they never promised to do otherwise. Yet, Canonical seems to want the world to think that their focus isn't on proprietary software, when everything actually suggests exactly that.