Launchpad is project hosting provided by Ubuntu. It is free for projects with an open source license. The service consists of distributed version control, bug tracking, team collaboration and other features too numerous to list. The most unique feature and the one under consideration here is the PPA, "Personal Package Archive". This feature allows you to publish your software to users using the standard ubuntu software installation and update tools (apt/synaptic). Imagine finishing a new release of your software, and at the click of a button Launchpad builds your software for multiple architectures, and notifies your users that updates are available. Brilliant! Before PPA's, maintaining a standalone package repository was out of the realm of what mere mortals could accomplish. Now launchpad has removed nearly all the barriers to entry. In my opinion this makes Launchpad the best project hosting out there.
It isn't all beer and skittles though. There is much to know about building packages for ubuntu. I had to spend the better part of a day learning about how debian packages work in order to get my PPA up and running. (It was worth the effort). And launchpad does have its warts. The user interface isn't very nice when compared to git-hub or lighthouse, and with the large number of features packed in there, it takes too long to figure out how to do something for the first time. Also, Launchpad can seem sluggish, especially the bug tracker, which can be infuriating if you are updating lots of bugs.
To sum it all up Launchpad isn't perfect, but it is the only solution for all-in-one project hosting: distributed version control, issue tracking, collaboration and software distribution. In my mind git-hub, lighthouse and google code are the only real contenders for the title. Git-hub has a great UI but doesn't offer issue tracking. Lighthouse has another great UI, but doesn't have version control. Google code is wonderfully simple, but doesn't offer distributed version control. If only I could combine the best parts of Git-hub, Launchpad, Lighthouse and Google code...
Coming up... Based on my own experiences of creating a PPA on launchpad for a project of my own I am going to write a walkthough of setting up your own PPA. However, I am going to make it a separate entry. If you are interested just read my next post.
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