Launchpad itself

Is Launchpad appropriate for me?

Asked by Jean-Luc

Hi,

I'm a Prof in the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the US. I collaborate with many colleagues all over the world on software projects and papers. I was wondering if Launchpad was the right tool for me, and I would like your opinion.

- A "Project" for me could be software but it could also be a a paper for a journal, usually in LaTeX form. However, just like software the ability to collaborate on editing a paper and keeping version changes is incredibly useful.

- Different projects can be pretty small, and a paper for instance could become inactive after it has been published. Is the best way to deal with this to create a "metaproject" that includes different papers? But then is it possible to limit access to different groups of members, since I work with different people on different papers? Can a single project hold several Bazaar trees?

- Is there a way to back up everything about a project locally? I mean in addition to the Bazaar branch, since I wouldn't want to lose the discussions relating to a project if it somehow went away, since the discussions may contain information for future research. Since you "reserve the right to delete an inactive project", I would hate to lose my project because it's been inactive for a couple of years.

I've been looking for a way of doing this for a while now, and it would be great if Launchpad was the right thing! If it's not but you know of something else, I would love hearing any suggestions, even if it's for a commercial service.

Many thanks,

Jean-Luc Thiffeault

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Brad Crittenden (bac) said : 		#1

Hi Jean-Luc,

Thanks for investigating Launchpad for your professional collaboration.

Given your description of your desired work I think Launchpad is a service you can use and find beneficial. The software you host in Launchpad will need to adhere to one of the approved open source licenses. When you create your project you will be asked to specify the license you wish to use.

Bazaar would be an ideal choice for tracking a software project as well as a paper in LaTeX. You and your collaborators will be able to work on the paper in parallel and merge your changes later. I think you'll find bzr to be easy for you to use and easy for your colleagues to pick up.

I think the best way to proceed would be to create a Launchpad project and then a named series for each sub-project you wish to use. Bazaar branches can then be associated with the series. As an open source user of Launchpad you will not have any access control privileges -- all work you do will be public and transparent. As the owner of the various official series branches you or members of your team will have final determination of what you chose to merge into that series branch.

We currently do not have a published way to export your 'Answers' data but have committed to offering access of all data through a public API. If you did desire to have an export of your data before our API is available we can do that for you on a per request basis. Also, we will not delete an inactive project without first notifying the owner.

The only negative I can see for your use of Launchpad would be the desire to keep your work, especially the details of an academic paper, private before publication. We do have the ability to offer private branches, visible only to those Launchpad members you designate, but that feature is only available to our commercial customers. Please contact me if that is something you would require.

Brad Crittenden
<email address hidden>

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