I don't want to sound too negative, but it seems to me like they have failed by releasing this so late. Creating open source software is not just about releasing the source, it is also about building an active development community.
By releasing a mature product, people won't be as likely to join, as most of the stuff has already been shaped. It's really hard to change the way launchpad works right now, which is part of the fun in an open source project. If you join now, you're basically an alien around the canonical employees, which doesn't sound very attractive to me.
Time will tell of course, but I think it's a mistake to only release this now.
Imagine Github, then add an integrated package manager, an inter-project bug tracker and extensive documentation and collaboration features. That's Launchpad. What I've seen of it has been really impressive. This could be a game changer for open source.
Agreed. I know Launchpad has many powerful features for tracking all kinds of projects from third parties, but I've never been able to figure out how that works because the user interface is so strange. Github doesn't have as many features but its UI is just right.
From the home, click on "Zope.org". Then click, on the top tab bar, on "Code". Then select one of the many branches, let's say, "lp:grok/trunk". Now click on the "Source code" pill.
I can't argue with this. It's an application that tries to bring together people in very different roles and their respective interfaces should probably be more insulated from each other.
We're not going to add features just because [Enter code host here] has them, but if there's stuff preventing you from using GitHub, please let us know.
I wasn't criticizing Github, just using it for illustration. They're apples and oranges. I use Github extensively, for things that are totally unsuited for Launchpad.
But since you asked, I do have some next step ideas for Github. When a project has a lot of forks, there's no quick way to know, especially as a user of that project, what the differences are between all the forks: which is canonical, which is most mature, etc. Also, development tends to fragment because there isn't much of a social link between forks, besides the network graph.
I'd like to see each project family have a single community hub with features similar to individual projects: wiki, bug tracker, etc. This would be used both to support users and coordinate developers. To keep it user friendly, put the wiki in front. Bonus if you can detect duplicate projects imported from other hosts and keep them in the same community.
Has anyone used this as opposed to say a combination of {trac,github,lighthouse,redmine,fogbugz} - and if yes, what has your experience been like? Pros/Cons?
It seems like it doesn't support git but now that it is open source, maybe that'll change soon.
It stacks up pretty well as a project manager, but it really shines as an ecosystem manager. Bugs can be bounced around between projects and tracked at external sites.
I think it's pretty tightly coupled with Bazaar, to the point where you can clone a repository by typing "bzr branch lp:projectname", but it appears to support mirroring of other repo types.
This is fantastic news! I wish I could say I saw how important Launchpad would be when I saw the database schema in that hotel room in Seattle so many years ago, but I was pretty dubious.
By releasing a mature product, people won't be as likely to join, as most of the stuff has already been shaped. It's really hard to change the way launchpad works right now, which is part of the fun in an open source project. If you join now, you're basically an alien around the canonical employees, which doesn't sound very attractive to me.
Time will tell of course, but I think it's a mistake to only release this now.