When Mike Gunderloy wrote about Canonical's software and development platform, Launchpad, last year, he said even though it wasn't the only hosting service in town, [Its] features... especially the API and sharing bugs, make it a strong choice moving forward. Canonical's announcement today that it has opened Launchpad's source code puts another checkmark in the column of reasons software projects may want to consider using it for their hosting and collaboration needs.
Though Launchpad isn't the only software forge to share the code running its backend, it's certainly among the most well-known. SourceForge, GitHub and other large hosting services haven't made that leap yet, so this move by Canonical is sure to appeal to FOSS purists who want no association whatsoever with proprietary software or code.
