Launchpad itself

commercial launchpad use

Asked by Timothy Stebbing on 2007-07-12

are there any plans to provide private project hosting with all of the lp features on a fee-for-service basis for opensource-savvy developers working for commercial companies? I understand lp already supports private projects for canonical, it would basically be the same deal for fee-paying customers wanting to use the facility. This would be especially useful with many commercial opensource-based projects (escrow, inhouse etc) being developed by people who by night don the opensource hacker mask. It also provides a good revenue model for launchpad.

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Language:: English Edit question

Status:: Answered

For:: Launchpad itself Edit question

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Last query:: 2007-07-12

Last reply:: 2011-01-22

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Elliot Murphy (statik) said on 2007-07-12:

Hi Tim,

We initially wrote Launchpad to help the developers of Ubuntu collaborate effectively with other free software projects. Now that it has matured we are very happy to enable any free software project to benefit from the infrastructure. When free software projects use Launchpad, they gain the benefits of comprehensive project hosting infrastructure designed to make both social and technical interaction between the developers of different pieces of the free software stack more efficient.

An open source project is a contribution to the software ecosystem which makes Ubuntu possible, and so making the Launchpad services available to all open source projects is consistent with Ubuntu's mission, so we are happy to underwrite the cost of hosting those projects on Launchpad. We feel that's a small but useful contribution we can make back to the free software community.

Increasingly, we are being asked if Launchpad can also be used to support the formation of communities around proprietary software. We do recognize the value of supporting collaboration across the full spectrum of the software industry, but we are unwilling to underwrite the hosting cost for projects that are not themselves free software. If you would like to host a closed source project on Launchpad, we ask that you pay for the use to help defray the cost of the Launchpad service, thereby contributing to the free software ecosystem. You can email me directly to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Sincerely,
Elliot Murphy