London July 21, 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.

Launchpad is used to build Ubuntu and thousands of other projects, and its users can now participate directly in the development of Launchpad itself.

Launchpad is a suite of tools that help people and teams to work together on free software. It is hosted at Launchpad.net by Canonical, Ltd, and [now] it is open source itself, licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.

To this point...Launchpad isn't available under a free software license aside from its Storm component. However, Mark Shuttleworth has stated this afternoon that within the next 12 months they expect to release the source-code to Launchpad.

Canonical Announces Launch of Launchpad 'Personal Package Archive' Service For Developers
Adds Mobile Development Capabilities

Canonical's most famous project is Ubuntu.  But Launchpad, another of the company's major endeavors, has been around just as long - even though many casual Ubuntu users may not be aware of its existence.  Here's a look at the value Launchpad offers, and where it fits into Canonical's present and future.

Now cinecutie is registered on launchpad and on sourceforge. The reason of this choice is that the project now is a real fork and I need to use all free platforms I can. I'm not a Bazaar lover and so Sourceforge is used only as git repository, launchpad is used for bug tracking, features requests and, soon, as repository.

Launchpad, a Web application developed by Canonical for managing software development, was finally open-sourced last week.  But with a number of its other products remaining proprietary, what are Canonical's real intentions towards living by the free-software ideology that drives projects like Ubuntu?

"Last week, I asked Karl Fogel, Canonical's newly hired Launchpad Ombudsman, if Launchpad will use the AGPLv3. His eyes said “yes” but his words were something like: "Canonical hasn't announced the license choice yet".

One of the reasons free operating systems are so great is because of their bug reporting features. Ubuntu is no exception. Like most other GNU/Linux operating systems, Ubuntu allows users to file bug reports using its bug reporting site, Launchpad. In the free software world, each user becomes a potential beta tester and gets the chance to contribute to the community without ever coding or writing documentation. Unfortunately, Launchpad’s bug reporting tool often scares away users who have no idea what a ticket, project, or distribution is.