Launchpad was originally conceived as a way of helping better connect the Ubuntu operating system to the upstream projects on which it depends. We can do this much better than we are right now.

Getting bugs "off" Ubuntu

Zillions of bugs get filed against Ubuntu every day. While some of them are introduced when the Ubuntu community packages software, many are really bugs in the underlying upstream code.[citation needed] And quite often they’re already fixed in the latest upstream version — it’s just that the Ubuntu package doesn’t have the fix yet.

Yet even though Ubuntu is drowning in this sea of bugs, it can’t simply forward them upstream indiscriminately. Upstreams shouldn’t be bothered with old bugs; they only want to hear about bugs that are still in their code. And Ubuntu needs to know when such a bug has been found, both to tell users that a fix is coming and to help plan packaging updates.

Package of the day network

Launchpad should be doing much more to help rescue Ubuntu from this deluge. With PPAs and source package branches, Launchpad ought to be able to make it really easy to create a packaged version of the tip of any upstream, to test against, and to file bugs and provide patches directly to that upstream. That is, Launchpad needs to make Ubuntu Daily Builds rock.

That’s going to be our overall focus now. At the same time, we’re also aware that we need to spend time polishing what we already have. So, for this month and for UDS, we’re going to be focusing only on reducing technical debt, fixing OOPSes and cleaning up the UI.

Where to now?

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Based on a blog post by Jonathan Lange.