LaunchPad will be the first decentralised Web App?

Canonical is often criticised for LaunchPad, a web based application for the development of Ubuntu, since it is typical of all web based applications - it maintains centralised control over its users, akin to the control proprietary software developers have over their users. This is the problem the Affero GPL aims to solve.

I’ve long thought the technical solution to this lies in peer-to-peer technology, and it appears Mark Shuttleworth is also thinking along those lines:

Mark Shuttleworth was interviewed by Tim O’Reilly. Mostly softballs. Shuttleworth did make an interesting comment to the effect that Launchpad is really a stopgap until we have federated development tracking systems that can coordinate activities across projects. This is something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately.
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The LaunchPad will be the first decentralised Web App? by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
July 29, 2007 | Filed Under Personal Thoughts 

Comments

One Response to “LaunchPad will be the first decentralised Web App?”

  1. Paul on August 6th, 2007 3:21

    Thanks for the cite. To be clear, that last sentence (“This is something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately”) is me, not Shuttleworth. I don’t think he was intending to say that LaunchPad itself is slated to change; it was more of a clever defense of LaunchPad’s centralized nature with a nod to some unspecified future. Though to be fair, Canonical’s (and Shuttleworth’s) zeal for distributed version control does suggest a sincere appreciation for the decentralized model.

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