launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Matthew Revell <matthew.revell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey,

On 30 August 2011 11:04, cheater cheater <cheater00@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I have recently tried switching from Bitbucket and hg to Launchpad and
> bzr as Launchpad seemed "free-er" and bzr is the main DVCS I use. I
> have not done so due to some issues I have run into.

> I have brought up some problems I have experienced with Launchpad's
> usability in an article, additionally making a few comparisons with
> solutions in Bitbucket. After bringing this up in #launchpad I got a
> fairly good response and they asked me to bring it up in this mailing
> list.

Thanks for taking the time to write up your experience in such detail
and for raising the issues here.

> Link below. Happy reading. Bear in mind some opinions might be strong
> but I feel strongly about the future of services like Launchpad and
> wish them the best.
>
> http://cheater.posterous.com/launchpad-not-an-alternative-for-bitbucket

I'll address here some of the points from your post. I agree with what
Danilo has said but I want to add some more. Let me know if Danil or I
have missed something you'd like me to address.

 * Getting started with code hosting is hard/you need a project/+junk
is an unfortunate term

It should be easier to get started with hosting your code on
Launchpad. As Danilo notes in his reply, the fact that Launchpad does
more than code hosting and that it has a project model are both
important, and part of the reason that it appears more complex than
other hosting sites, but they shouldn't be a barrier to getting
started.

We need that big "Push your code to Launchpad" button. If you don't
have a project, it'll guide you to create a "personal", perhaps rather
than "junk", branch that you later have the option of associating with
the project.

 * The profile page is overwhelming/there's no dashboard

The profile/person page was designed so that other people could learn
about you and your contributions to free software. I think it's not
doing that job as well as it good be and it's not a substitute for
having dashboard.

We should rework the person profile pages and add dashboards.
Launchpad should bring you the information you need to do your job ...
your "area" is should be easy to find and should guide you towards all
those things you want to do in Launchpad.

Oh, and a lot of people really appreciate karma, even if it just a bit of fun :)

 * Private branches are only available if you pay

This is something I'm perfectly comfortable with. Canonical funds
Launchpad for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it's a
contribution to the free software community. It's a two-way deal:
we'll provide Launchpad, its hosting, its full-time development team,
etc for free use by free software projects because in exchange for all
the investment we, as Canonical, make we get a richer free software
ecosystem thanks to the free software development work that happens on
Launchpad.

We're also happy to provide private branch hosting but if the code
isn't free/open, there's not the same incentive for us to provide that
service, so we ask for a contribution to our costs.

 * Launchpad lacks polish

It's true, we lack polish in places. This is something we must and will fix.

 * Launchpad isn't social

When Launchpad was first around, it was more social than other
solutions. It has a real focus on people, rather than just code and/or
projects. But we need to catch up and go beyond that and address what
me, you and many others want. That's something we're going to fix.
Launchpad has masses of data about the work people do and the
relations between people and projects. We can track more and we can
make better use of what we have.

 * Launchpad is too geared towards things other than just hosting code

This is a plus point :) As a developer, are you sure you're not
interested in how that code gets to people who use it? Either way,
Launchpad's breadth of functionality should not stand in the way of
you getting your work done easily.

I know there's more to what you wrote but I hope that Danilo and I
have addressed most of it.

The summary of my reply is this: thank you so much for reminding us of
where Launchpad can be better. It's true that we've heard much of this
before but this sort of feedback is invaluable to us.

Launchpad should never stand in the way of hosting, sharing and
otherwise working on open source code. We need to make it easier to
get started with Launchpad and to move on from those first steps.

You'll find a lot of support from us at Canonical, and the Launchpad
community generally, for addressing much of what you wrote. We have a
lot of work already lined up but over the coming months the usability
of Launchpad is going to be one of my top priorities. We have a full
time designer/web developer, Huw Wilkins, on the team who'll be
working closely with me and the Launchpad engineers to fix the
usability issues you've addressed, along with others, and the general
polish of Launchpad.

It's an exciting time to be part of the Launchpad community. Thanks
for taking the time to tell us where you feel Launchpad can be better.

-- 
Matthew Revell
Launchpad Product Manager
Canonical

https://launchpad.net/~matthew.revell