Launchpad Blog

Mailing lists in Launchpad!

Published by Matthew Revell March 28, 2008 in Cool new stuff

Mailing lists are one of the main ways we communicate in the free software world. They’re crucial to the day to day work, as well as the planning and debate, of most projects.

Now, each Launchpad team can have its own mailing list hosted and managed by Launchpad. If you run a team in Launchpad, simply visit your team’s overview page to request your list. If you want to subscribe to a list, first join the team that owns it and then subscribe. Full details are in our guide.

Let’s look at some of what Launchpad brings to mailing lists:

Simplified administration. As someone running a list, Launchpad does everything for you: you don’t need to manage a server and there’s no mailing list software for you to patch.
Simplified subscription management. As a list subscriber, all you need are your Launchpad login details and your team memberships. Nothing more to it. Change your email address? Update it once in your Launchpad profile and it’s automatically effective for your mailing list subscriptions. To subscribe to a list, all you need is to be a member of the relevant team.
Post from any email address. You can post to your Launchpad mailing lists from any email address registered in your Launchpad profile.
Automatic archiving and distribution. Launchpad lists are automatically archived for history, in a format that is easily cataloged by search engines. Copies are also archived on mail-archive.com, a popular long-term list archive site.

The full details on creating and joining mailing lists in Launchpad are available in our guide.

File downloads on project overview pages

Published by Matthew Revell in Cool new stuff

After all the work that’s gone into a release, you want to get your software out to users.

One way is to use Launchpad to make your release files available for download. Now, Launchpad makes it even easier for users to get the files from your latest release, by listing them on your project’s overview page.

Let’s take a look at the Bazaar project, as an example:

Files for download on the bzr project overview page

Here you can see files from Bazaar’s recent 1.3 release.

To distribute your project’s files through Launchpad, first you need to register a series and then register a release on the series overview page.

Once you’re on the release page, in Launchpad, there’s a link to upload files.

There are a few things to bear in mind when uploading files. They should be:

code release tarball
installer files
README or other documentation
changelog file
release notes
no more than 60MB per file.

Let us know how you get on using Launchpad to distribute your project files.

New branch listing pages

Published by Matthew Revell in Cool new stuff

We’ve given branch listing pages a major overhaul, giving you more information about each commit.

In particular, the start of the commit message is quoted in the Last commit column, with the full thing available when you hover your mouse over it. If the author’s email address is registered in Launchpad, their name is hyperlinked to their Launchpad profile page.

Take a look at the Bazaar branch list page for an example.

Offline 28th March 08 00:00 – 02:00 UTC

Published by Matthew Revell March 27, 2008 in Notifications

We’re releasing Launchpad 1.2.3 in the early hours, UTC, of the 28th March 2008.

Offline from: 00.00 UTC
Expected back: 02.00 UTC

Using Launchpad accounts to manage your local ssh logins: launchpadduser.py

Published by kiko March 22, 2008 in General

Glyph posted an interesting script to the launchpad-users mailing list that I thought was definitely worth sharing:

Quite often, I’ve discovered that I want to add someone (who already has an account on launchpad) to my system so they can log in and attach to my ‘screen’ session; however, I will inevitably screw up typing in the finger information, setting permissions on their .ssh directory, assigning them a bogus password, etc. Here’s a simple Python script that will add a user to your system with the same username as on Launchpad, and with their SSH keys already set up so they can log in, but no system password.

You can download the script from http://people.ubuntu.com/~kiko/launchpadduser.py.

It requires adduser, wget and python. You’re expected to run this as root, so the usual warnings apply, but it’s simple enough for you to audit on your own. And there is no error handling! A usage example:

root@beetle:~# python launchpadduser.py kiko
Adding user `kiko' ...
Adding new user `kiko' (1012) with group `users' ...
Creating home directory `/home/kiko' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
--09:43:36--  https://launchpad.net/~kiko/+sshkeys
           => `/home/kiko/.ssh/authorized_keys'
Resolving launchpad.net... 91.189.90.211
Connecting to launchpad.net|91.189.90.211|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 Ok
Length: 860 [text/plain]

100%[=============================================>] 860           --.--K/s             

09:43:38 (9.49 MB/s) - `/home/kiko/.ssh/authorized_keys' saved [860/860]

And presto:

kiko@anthem:~$ ssh beetle
Linux beetle 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686
kiko@beetle:~$

Logo competition closing soon!

Published by Matthew Revell March 17, 2008 in General

This past few weeks, we’ve had a whole load of high quality entries to our logo competition. We’re heading fast towards the 31st March deadline, so if you want to take part you’d best fire up Inkscape pretty sharpish!

Back in January I shared a couple of the entries we’d had at that time. As a bit of inspiration, in case your arty side is twitching, here are some of the proposed logos we’ve had since.

Donn Ingle’s sixth entry to the competition introduces a touch of the natural world:

Siim Sindonen’s stylised blue rockets show the community support between projects, people and teams in Launchpad:

Thorsten Wilms offers this shiny green rocket:

And Marco Tessarotto’s entry puts me in mind of Marvin the Martian but I’m not sure why:

See all the entries on our submissions page!

Bazaar IDE integration

Published by Matthew Revell March 6, 2008 in Bazaar, Podcast

Here on the Launchpad team we work pretty closely with the Bazaar community.

This week, Canonical‘s London HQ has been host to a Bazaar sprint. It’s been great to meet up with members of the Bazaar community from Australia, the USA, Argentina, France, the Netherlands, Hungary and the UK. I’ve been working with them on plans for a new Bazaar administrator’s guide.

I’ve also recorded a short chat with Martin Albisetti who is leading the new Bazaar IDE integration team. Martin talks about the technical and advocacy approaches they plan to take.

Listen to the interview with Martin.

Launchpad 1.2.2: faster PPA builds, enhanced bug subscriptions and more karma!

Published by Matthew Revell February 21, 2008 in Releases

It’s time for another Launchpad release and this is one with something for just about everyone!

Faster PPA builds: we’ve cut the time it takes to build packages in PPAs. The moment you upload your source, Launchpad starts building.
More bug notifications: now you can subscribe to get bug mail about any milestone, project, package or distribution.
Savannah bug watches: keep an eye on bugs tracked at savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nongnu.org
Easier branch registrations: we’ve improved the UI on the branch registration page.
Karma fiends take note: registering branches and linking branches to bugs or blueprints now earns you karma! Find out more about karma.

There’s also exciting news for Launchpad beta testers! You can now apply to use Launchpad to run a mailing list for a team you’re involved with. Find out more about the mailing list beta.

Not a beta tester yet? Learn more about our beta programme and find out what you’re missing!

Read the full Launchpad 1.2.2 release notes.